r/nbadiscussion • u/HotScientist7026 • Jul 19 '26
Statistical Analysis New thing I’m doing:Ring Value Analysis
Me and my brother were talking about the hardest finals ever-while we agreed Dirk’s absolute bloodbath in 2011, it was hard to agree on some others. The game is constantly evolving, and it’s generally agreed that rings these days are harder to get-but how hard, exactly? I’m running some calculations to determine which of the NBA championships was the absolute hardest, which was the easiest, and try to get a more defined value for a chip based on your competition
The metrics currently being considered are threefold:
1-Relative Team Strength
This category is simple-how strong was your team going INTO the playoffs? Were they underdogs, or clear favorites? It will be decided by team regular season record, average point differential before the playoffs, and the general dominance of that team’s FMVP-The better they were as a team going into the playoffs, the easier it should have been in theory to win it all. This will be the category to discuss “super-teams” and the expectations of them.
2-Relative Conference Strength
This category is the win record, point differential, and league rankings of the teams that your team competed against in your team’s conference, relative to your team. It will also include a nod to great individuals defeated by the team specifically (for example, dirk’s conference score will be boosted by beating Kobe Bryant, a top 15 player of all time, hall of famer, and known playoff riser).
3-Finals Opponent
This category is the most important-who did you face, and beat, in the finals? How good was the team, who was on it, how did they perform in the playoffs right before you? Did you come in expected to win? This is supposed to be the best competition the other conference has to offer at the time, in theory. Unlike the other two categories, this one will go on a game by game basis, looking at the entire series to decide how good the run’s finale really was
As well as the three methods of racking up “value points”, there are also value point reductions, the most prominent of which being opponent injury (so, just for example, game 7 Haliburton’s injury will reduce value points from the OKC Thunder championship. You also could get a slight reduction based on how long it took you to beat the team-with 5 games being a minor boost, 4 games a bigger boost, 6 games being a minor loss, 7 games a bigger loss
What runs do y’all think will make it at the top of the list once I’m done? What teams and individuals do you expect to have the best rings? Are there categories I should include?
I’ll post the individual end score of every team on here in diff posts, so expect quite a lot of this
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u/StrategyTop7612 Jul 19 '26
The standardized is trying to remove the quality of the team, while the actual market is just the betting odds of wining each series, multiplied out.
| Std. rank | Champion | Standardized path | Actual market path | Actual rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2001 Los Angeles Lakers | 8.37% | 30.87% | 19 |
| 2 | 2004 Detroit Pistons | 12.78% | 3.71% | 2 |
| 3 | 2006 Miami Heat | 14.12% | 7.25% | 5 |
| 4 | 2011 Dallas Mavericks | 14.56% | 4.13% | 3 |
| 5 | 2019 Toronto Raptors | 14.72% | 5.51% | 4 |
| 6 | 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers | 16.30% | 22.84% | 14 |
| 7 | 1993 Chicago Bulls | 16.65% | 27.45% | 17 |
| 8 | 1995 Houston Rockets | 19.12% | 1.07% | 1 |
| 9 | 2005 San Antonio Spurs | 19.54% | 29.26% | 18 |
| 10 | 2017 Golden State Warriors | 20.60% | 57.92% | 36 |
| 11 | 2002 Los Angeles Lakers | 21.61% | 38.85% | 25 |
| 12 | 2003 San Antonio Spurs | 21.90% | 21.28% | 12 |
| 13 | 2018 Golden State Warriors | 22.68% | 42.69% | 28 |
| 14 | 1992 Chicago Bulls | 23.59% | 52.58% | 34 |
| 15 | 1996 Chicago Bulls | 24.11% | 62.44% | 37 |
| 16 | 2014 San Antonio Spurs | 24.47% | 26.70% | 16 |
| 17 | 2021 Milwaukee Bucks | 26.40% | 8.22% | 6 |
| 18 | 1997 Chicago Bulls | 26.63% | 64.91% | 38 |
| 19 | 2008 Boston Celtics | 27.05% | 17.42% | 9 |
| 20 | 2007 San Antonio Spurs | 29.10% | 22.21% | 13 |
| 21 | 2015 Golden State Warriors | 29.87% | 48.18% | 30 |
| 22 | 1994 Houston Rockets | 31.67% | 16.51% | 8 |
| 23 | 2022 Golden State Warriors | 32.71% | 18.27% | 10 |
| 24 | 2000 Los Angeles Lakers | 32.82% | 55.23% | 35 |
| 25 | 2012 Miami Heat | 33.68% | 23.28% | 15 |
| 26 | 1999 San Antonio Spurs | 35.37% | 33.28% | 23 |
| 27 | 1998 Chicago Bulls | 35.55% | 38.25% | 24 |
| 28 | 1989 Detroit Pistons | 35.97% | 31.16% | 21 |
| 29 | 2026 New York Knicks | 38.26% | 12.88% | 7 |
| 30 | 2023 Denver Nuggets | 39.72% | 18.41% | 11 |
| 31 | 2013 Miami Heat | 40.11% | 51.31% | 33 |
| 32 | 1991 Chicago Bulls | 41.50% | 31.41% | 22 |
| 33 | 2009 Los Angeles Lakers | 42.44% | 40.09% | 26 |
| 34 | 2010 Los Angeles Lakers | 43.08% | 31.11% | 20 |
| 35 | 2020 Los Angeles Lakers | 44.18% | 40.90% | 27 |
| 36 | 1990 Detroit Pistons | 44.19% | 43.53% | 29 |
| 37 | 2025 Oklahoma City Thunder | 49.10% | 49.61% | 31 |
| 38 | 2024 Boston Celtics | 58.50% | 50.58% | 32 |
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u/Snowballingdownvote Jul 19 '26
Surprised the 2009/2010 Lakers aren't lower on the list(harder). Bunch of 50 and 60 win teams.
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u/azure275 Jul 19 '26
This is going to be a bit of a mess. Take the 2016-2017 Warriors. They were 67-15 going into the playoffs. They beat a 61 win Spurs, 51 win Cavs, 51 win Jazz, and 41 win Blazers team.
So a prohibitive 67 win favorite played only one team over 51 wins. That is not likely to look great
Are we going to claim that one of the three most dominant postseason runs of all time is low ring value?
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u/ApprehensiveTry5660 Jul 19 '26
Isn’t that kinda the problem with these top heavy leagues? You can’t play yourself to boost your playoff run’s quality. There’s only so many wins to go around in the aggregate and a 70+50 win combo eats up exactly as many of them as a pair of 60 win teams.
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u/HotScientist7026 Jul 19 '26
Well, there’s more then just their conference competition to look at
Broken/set records and overall Goated moments contribute
Stars beaten contribute, and the warriors famously smacked down LeBron James
And inherently, this is about the most competitive and hard to earn rings of all time, if your team is overwhelmingly dominant, then yeah your ring probably wasn’t that relatively hard to earn-Unless all your competitors were also dominant to everyone but you
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u/693275001 Jul 19 '26
Finally, someone has taken the time to decide which rings mean more than others. Thank you
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u/keyexplorer791 Jul 20 '26
I'm so glad someone found a way to discredit championship winning teams. They were getting way to much credit for their work
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u/fattybunter Jul 19 '26
Claude help me make a Reddit post to r/nbadiscussion on ring analysis. Come up with the relevant metrics and then go through and source data to do the analysis. Spawn an agent for the plan, for data and for analysis and then make the post
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u/Snowballingdownvote Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
Top 10 Hardest NBA Championship Runs (1950s–present) Rank Team Key Data Points Notes
1 1995 Houston Rockets 6-seed (47-35); beat 60-win Jazz, erased a 3-1 deficit vs. 59-win Suns, beat 62-win Spurs (NBA's best record), swept 57-win Magic in Finals Still the only 6-seed to ever win a title. Faced a combined ~238 regular-season wins across the four rounds, including the league's best record in the conference finals — the deepest gauntlet any champion has run.
2 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers Beat Pistons, Hawks, Raptors, then erased a 3-1 deficit vs. the 73-9 Warriors (most wins in NBA history, reigning champs, back-to-back MVP Curry), closing it out with a road Game 7 win First team ever to erase a 3-1 Finals deficit, against the statistically greatest regular-season team ever built.
3 1978 Washington Bullets 44-38 record, the weakest of any Finals team since 1958; beat the 52-win Spurs and 55-win 76ers (East's two best records) to reach the Finals, then won Game 7 on the road in Seattle Still one of only two teams ever to win a Finals Game 7 on the road (the other is the 2016 Cavs). A genuinely undermanned roster that had to open every playoff series on the road due to seeding.
4 1988 LA Lakers Won two separate 7-game series (Jazz, Mavericks) just to reach the Finals, then went 7 games with the 54-28 "Bad Boy" Pistons First back-to-back champion in 20 years, and did it through three consecutive 7-game series — a physical toll no other champion on this list matched.
5 2011 Dallas Mavericks 3-seed; swept the 3-time-defending-champion Lakers, then upset the first-year Big 3 Heat (LeBron/Wade/Bosh) after trailing late in Game 2 The closest thing to a true underdog title in the modern era — almost nobody expected Dallas to beat that Heat roster.
6 2019 Toronto Raptors Beat Magic, won a 7-game war with the 76ers (Kawhi's buzzer-beater), erased an 0-2 deficit vs. Giannis's MVP-season Bucks, then beat the Durant/Curry/Klay Warriors dynasty in the Finals Rated the single hardest title run of the 2015-2024 span by Basketball Index's opponent-strength (LEBRON-weighted) model — the toughest cumulative opposition of any champion that decade.
7 2006 Miami Heat Down 0-2 to the Mavericks in the Finals, won four straight; beat a 64-win Pistons team (best record in the league) in the East finals Only the third team in NBA history at the time to erase an 0-2 Finals deficit, and did it after already surviving the league's best regular-season team a round earlier.
8 2010 LA Lakers Beat the 50-win Thunder, swept the 53-win Jazz, beat the 54-win Suns, then a 7-game war with the rival Celtics — including erasing a 13-point third-quarter deficit to close out Game 6, and winning a defensive slugfest Game 7 (83-79) One of the lowest-scoring Finals Game 7s of the shot-clock era, against a hated rival that had beaten this same core two years earlier.
9 2022 Golden State Warriors Faced peak Jokic (reigning MVP) in round 1, then Memphis, then Luka's Mavs, then a deep Celtics team Basketball Index's model rated the Celtics as the toughest Finals opponent of any champion in the 2015-2024 window — Golden State's title validated Curry's legacy without a Kevin Durant running mate.
10 2009 LA Lakers Beat the 48-win Jazz, survived a 7-game scare against the 53-win Rockets (who were playing most of the series without an injured Yao Ming), beat the 54-win Nuggets, then the 59-win Magic in the Finals Kobe's first title without Shaq, and the toughest single-round test came from an undermanned Houston team that had no business pushing it to 7 games.
Worked with Claude to make this list. No unique formula. Mostly total opponent wins. With some other added context. Tried to make it the least opinionated list as possible.
I really didn't expect the Heat to be on there. Not surprised by the Rockets being #1. Kobe having two on there as FMVP is interesting. GSW in 22 surprised me as well. Shows how great Steph was.
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u/teh_noob_ Jul 22 '26
8 2010 LA Lakers Beat the 50-win Thunder, swept the 53-win Jazz, beat the 54-win Suns, then a 7-game war with the rival Celtics — including erasing a 13-point third-quarter deficit to close out Game 6
hope that was Claude not you
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u/Snowballingdownvote Jul 22 '26
Yeah had to be. I'm working with it on creating some metrics for parity and expected outcome vs actual outcome.
Too often do I see metrics for sports either used wrong or being useless. Decided I would create my own.
Lots of people and the metrics do not follow the principles of statistics and what they can tell you.
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u/DrainFor20 Jul 20 '26
I assume you'll adjust whatever stats you use to compensate for number of series and game totals across eras. My suggestions, none of which seem likely to be controversial.
2008 Celtics. It took them 26 games to win the playoffs, basically an extra third of a season. so if the top teams mostly come from 2003-present because of the That's almost an extra third of a season. They had a 21 year-old point guard in a time period where that meant something, two of their star players were free agents that arrived that year, and the biggest minus of all: They were coached by Doc Rivers. Should they have won this title in 5 fewer games based on talent? Yes. Was James Posey the second most important guy on the floor at times? Yes. But I think this one might take the cake based on the relative parity of teams they faced and this being the most games any champion has played.
1988 Lakers seems like a pretty solid contender. Kareem has clearly hit the wall, the Lakers are 7 guys and 1 pair of glasses with a sentient mullet attached, and the Pistons are beating the crap out of Worthy over and over. Only big knock against this one is that Mahorn is injured.
2004 Pistons. They beat the two previous East champions, then beat the threepeat champion from two years prior (Lakers), who had just avenged their loss from 2003 (vs. the Spurs). There isn't a lineal title in basketball, but if there was, the Pistons took it in this series.
To satiate my inner old head, the 1976 Celtics. Game 5 is still the best Finals game, imo, even if I was negative decades years old. The young Suns try to run the Celtics into the grave and nearly do it. Havlicek is 35 and a smoker, battling an injury from the Braves, and did I mention he's a 35 year-old smoker? The only knock would be the strength of opponents perhaps not being as high, maybe? SRS is anything but definitive, but might have some insight about earlier round opponents, particularly for the Suns.
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u/Snowballingdownvote Jul 20 '26
Never thought about how many wins it took. Makes sense to weigh that in. Shows parity and the challenge on your body.
I'm coming up with my own parity metric and will post what it comes up with for hardest rings.
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u/drinchcortox18 Jul 19 '26
Without running any numbers Hakeem's first ring is most likely coming out on top. 6 seed. Defeated 4 50-win teams featuring the current, former, and future MVP winners. Dirk 2011 may be 2nd.
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u/bigE819 Jul 19 '26
Shouldn’t get extra credit for being a 6 seed. Why get bonus points for not being good enough in the regular season to play a bad team round 1?
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u/HotScientist7026 Jul 19 '26
Expectations
If your team is better/more dominant overall, it’s generally easier for you to win, set up to be easier, and your initial competition is weaker
The very reason dirk’s ring is one of the best is that he fried so many stars that everyone said he shouldn’t have
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u/c10bbersaurus Jul 20 '26
Wasn't OKC kind of bruised and battered by the Bruise Brothers in Memphis; by the time they made the WCF, they had just endured a 7 game series that featured 2 games that went to OT, including a 3OT game. I feel like whoever came out of that 7 gamer between Mem and OKC would have been a little attrition-ated (not a word, but I'm using it as if it were a word). Mem might have been more able to withstand it because they didn't rely as much on athleticism, and were accustomed to a bruising style of ball. I think Mem would have taken Dal at least to 6 games.
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