I commemorated the 20th anniversary of the Detroit Pistons’ memorable demolition of the heavily-favored Los Angeles Lakers in the 2004 NBA Finals with an article questioning whether the Lakers should have been favored based on the evidence going into the Finals. One point I focused on was that while the Lakers, which had won three of the previous four NBA Championships, posted a better regular season record than the Pistons (56-26 to 54-28), the Pistons had posted a significantly better regular season Net Rating, which is the team’s Offensive Rating (points scored per 100 possessions) minus the team’s Defensive Rating (points allowed per 100 possessions) than the Lakers (+6.6 to +4.2). The Pistons also had a better playoff net rating through the first three rounds, albeit the Lakers faced better competition – notably the Spurs, which had the league’s second best record and best net rating — in the Western Conference Semifinals. Why did I prefer net rating to raw records or margin? I explained:
The significant point is that over the course of the season, the Pistons were better than the Lakers in terms of their net margin. While we need not get too far in the weeds here, scoring margin is a better indicator of success than the raw win/loss total, which is subject to randomness. (The 2006-07 case of the 58-24 champion Spurs having a better margin than the 67-15 Dallas Mavericks (eliminated in the first round) is a fun, albeit extreme, example case.)
Nicholas A. Ferrell
I noticed a more recent article I wrote examining whether NBA champions are typically stronger (relative to league average) on offense or defense has been receiving some views lately. That, combined with my writing on the 2004 NBA Finals, inspired a new article topic. I present my question: When the team with the NBA’s best record does not have the NBA’s best net rating, does the team with the best record typically have more success in the playoffs than the team with the best net rating?
To illustrate what I mean – let us take a look at the 2003-04 NBA season since that has been the primary subject of two articles (see my related essay on the Pistons’ 2003 NBA Draft decision). While the Pistons and Lakers were the last two teams standing, neither of the finalists topped the NBA in record or net rating. The NBA’s best record belonged to the 61-21 Indiana Pacers, which fell to the Pistons in the East Finals. The 58-24 San Antonio Spurs posted the best net rating at +8.1, but they fell one round earlier to the Lakers in the West Semifinals. So for my query, I would be assessing how well the team with the best record (Pacers) and team with the best net rating (Spurs) fared in the playoffs.
All of this gave me an interesting (I think, at least) survey idea. I decided to go back to the 1973-74 NBA season (the same sample I used in my does defense win championships survey) and for each season since then examine how far the team with the best record and the team with the best net rating advanced in the playoffs . Even if we assume arguendo that net rating is a better marker of team strength than raw win-loss totals, the playoffs bestows home court advantage on the team with the better record – not better net rating – in each series. While the value of home court advantage varies depending on the team and other factors – teams are typically stronger at home than on the road. Because we are looking at the team with the best record in every season going back to 1973-74, we are selecting for the team with home court advantage throughout the NBA Playoffs.
This survey is limited and not entirely fair in cases where the team with the best record and the team with the best net rating are in different conferences. For example, looking again at 2003-04, the team with the best net rating (San Antonio) had a more difficult playoff draw than the team with the best record (Indiana) on account of the fact that the Western Conference was much stronger from top to bottom than the Eastern Conference. While the Spurs were being eliminated by a Shaquille O’Neal/Kobe Bryant-led Lakers team that had won three of the four previous NBA championships in the Western Conference Semifinals, the Pacers were fending off a spirited challenge from a 42-40 Miami Heat team with a (+0.6 net rating). Someone with more time and inclination could do something more interesting with my basic idea.
As a threshold matter, we have to sort out which seasons – going back to 1973-74 – had two different teams secure the best record and best net rating distinctions. It should not come as a surprise to learn that in many seasons, the team with the best win-loss record also had the best net rating. It turns out that of the 51 seasons in our sample, the team with the best record had the best net rating on 30 occasions. I begin by presenting the list of unified best record-best net rating teams along with a column on how far they advanced in the playoffs. See the legend for the advanced column below before the chart:
- Champion: Won NBA Championship
- Finals: Lost in NBA Finals
- ECF/WCF: Lost in Eastern or Western Conference Finals
- ESF/WSF: Lost in Eastern or Western Conference Semifinals (note: In some earlier seasons, the semifinal was the first round, I will add a “(1R)” in the case a team was elimited in a semifinal first round)
- EQF/WQF: Lost in the Eastern or Western Conference Quarterfinals
| Season | Team | Rec | Net | Result |
| 1973-74 | Milwaukee Bucks | 59-23 | +7.6 | NBA Finals |
| 1975-76 | Golden State Warriors | 59-23 | +6.1 | WCF |
| 1977-78 | Portland Trail Blazers | 58-24 | +5.9 | WSF (1R) |
| 1978-79 | Washington Bullets | 54-28 | +4.7 | NBA Finals |
| 1979-80 | Boston Celtics | 61-21 | +7.5 | ECF |
| 1981-82 | Boston Celtics | 63-19 | +6.3 | ECF |
| 1982-83 | Philadelphia 76ers | 65-17 | +7.4 | Champion |
| 1983-84 | Boston Celtics | 62-20 | +6.5 | Champion |
| 1985-86 | Boston Celtics | 67-15 | +9.2 | Champion |
| 1986-87 | Los Angeles Lakers | 65-17 | +9.1 | Champion |
| 1991-92 | Chicago Bulls | 67-15 | +11.0 | Champion |
| 1993-94 | Seattle SuperSonics | 63-19 | +9.5 | WQF |
| 1995-96 | Chicago Bulls | 72-10 | +13.4 | Champion |
| 1996-97 | Chicago Bulls | 69-13 | +12.0 | Champion |
| 1998-99 | San Antonio Spurs | 37-13 | +9.0 | Champion |
| 1999-00 | Los Angeles Lakers | 67-15 | +9.1 | Champion |
| 2000-01 | San Antonio Spurs | 58-24 | +8.6 | WCF |
| 2001-02 | Sacramento Kings | 61-21 | +7.9 | WCF |
| 2007-08 | Boston Celtics | 66-16 | +11.2 | Champion |
| 2008-09 | Cleveland Cavaliers | 66-16 | +10.0 | ECF |
| 2011-12 | Chicago Bulls | 50-16 | +9.1 | EQF |
| 2013-14 | San Antonio Spurs | 62-20 | +8.1 | Champion |
| 2014-15 | Golden State Warriors | 67-15 | +10.2 | Champion |
| 2016-17 | Golden State Warriors | 67-15 | +11.6 | Champion |
| 2017-18 | Houston Rockets | 65-17 | +8.7 | WCF |
| 2018-19 | Milwaukee Bucks | 60-22 | +8.5 | ECF |
| 2019-20 | Milwaukee Bucks | 56-17 | +9.5 | ESF |
| 2020-21 | Utah Jazz | 52-20 | +9.3 | WSF |
| 2021-22 | Phoenix Suns | 64-18 | +7.5 | WSF |
| 2023-24 | Boston Celtics | 64-18 | +11.6 | Champion |
In most cases, a team which combines the best record and the best net rating should be safely recognized as the best regular season team. However, as my chart shows, regular season excellence does not guarantee playoff success. Of the 31 best record/best net teams, 14 won the NBA championship for a championship success rate of roughly 45%. To be sure, most teams would happily take 45% championship odds going into the playoffs – but most of our undisputed best teams come up short of the championship. See some other interesting notes on the playoff success of the 31 unified best record/best net teams below:
- While only 45% of the teams with the best record/net rating combo won the championship, 14 of the 15 teams that made the NBA Finals won in the Finals. The only best record/best net team to lose in the Finals was the 1973-74 Milwaukee Bucks from the first season in our sample.
- From the 1982-83 through 1999-00 seasons, we had 10 teams unify the best record and best net crowns and 9 of those teams won the NBA Championship. But things were less rosy on the ends of our survey. The first six teams on top of the chart all failed to win the championship, and five consecutive teams at the tail end of the chart came up short prior to the Boston Celtics winning from the best record/net position in 2023-24.
- 28 of the 31 best record/best net teams won at least one playoff round. Two of the one-and-done exceptions, the 1977-78 Portland Trail Blazers and the 2011-2012 Chicago Bulls, were reeling from injuries to their best players, Bill Walton and Derrick Rose respectively. The 1993-94 Seattle SuperSonics suffered a harder-to-explain defeat to the 42-40 Denver Nuggets.
- The best team in both categories to fail to win the championship was the 2009-2010 Cleveland Cavaliers, which posted a 66-16 record (best by one game) and +10.0 net rating (best by 0.5). While hindsight is 20/20 and the Cavaliers’ lack of a top-line talent next to 2008-09 NBA MVP LeBron James makes their coming up short less surprising than the statistics indicate, it is worth noting that the Cavaliers posted a 39-2 regular season record at home – and were 39-1 going into their last regular season home game.
There were 21 NBA seasons wherein the team with the best record did not have the best net rating. This, to me, is the more interesting sample since we can compare how these teams fared in the playoffs. I present the chart below:
To begin, my survey could have been complicated in a scenario wherein (A) the teams with the best record and best net rating are from different conferences and (B) they are independently eliminated from the playoffs in the same round. Perhaps surprisingly, this did not happen in any of the 21 cases in our sample – so I can choose which team advanced further in the playoffs in each case.
The first thing to look at is how many NBA Champions come from this table. We see that there are five cases each where the team with only the best record and the team with only the best net rating won the championship.
| Best Record Only Champion | Best Net Only Champion |
|---|---|
| 2012-13 Miami Heat | 2006-07 San Antonio Spurs |
| 2002-03 San Antonio Spurs | 2004-05 San Antonio Spurs |
| 1988-89 Detroit Pistons | 1990-91 Chicago Bulls |
| 1987-88 Los Angeles Lakers | 1984-85 Los Angeles Lakers |
| 1980-81 Boston Celtics | 1976-77 Portland Trail Blazers |
Teams with the best record have a small advantage in NBA Finals runner-up finishes (4-2) while best net rating teams have the advantage in winning at least one playoff round (12-10). Each category features two teams which failed to win a single playoff round despite their lofty credentials going into the postseason. Every other team on the table won at least one playoff round.
The team with the best record advanced further in the playoffs than the team with the best net rating on 11 out of 21 seasons in sample – which comes out to a wash for all practical intents and purposes.
Perhaps the most interesting years to consider are where the team with the best record met the team with the best net rating in the playoffs. This happened in 10 of the 21 seasons on our survey – perhaps not too surprising given that having either the best record or the best net rating credential bodes well for potential playoff success. Let us draw a new table to isolate these showdowns.
| Season | Round | Best Record | Best Net | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 74-75 | East Finals | Boston Celtics | Washington Bullets | Bullets 4-2 |
| 76-77 | West Finals | Los Angeles Lakers | Portland Trail Blazers | Trail Blazers 4-0 |
| 80-81 | East Finals | Boston Celtics | Philadelphia 76ers | Celtics 4-3 |
| 84-85 | NBA Finals | Boston Celtics | Los Angeles Lakers | Lakers 4-2 |
| 89-90 | West Semifinals | Los Angeles Lakers | Phoenix Suns | Suns 4-1 |
| 92-93 | West Finals | Phoenix Suns | Seattle SuperSonics | Suns 4-3 |
| 97-98 | West Finals | Utah Jazz | Los Angeles Lakers | Jazz 4-0 |
| 02-03 | West Finals | San Antonio Spurs | Dallas Mavericks | Spurs 4-2 |
| 04-05 | West Finals | Phoenix Suns | San Antonio Spurs | Spurs 4-1 |
| 10-11 | East Finals | Chicago Bulls | Miami Heat | Heat 4-1 |
Despite lacking home court advantage, the team with the better net rating won 6 of the 10 best record/best net showdowns in our sample. Eight of the 10 match-ups occurred in the conference finals, with one coming in the NBA Finals and another in the West Semifinals. While some of these match ups were close in records and ratings – for example in 1989-90 Lakers and Suns finished with the same net rating to the first decimal and the Spurs and Mavericks had matching 60-22 records in 2002-03 – it is notable that net rating did, slightly more often than not in our very small sample, overcome home court advantage.
Before continuing, I want to highlight one very peculiar season from our larger chart showing seasons when different teams posted the best record and best net rating. Let us turn our attention to 2015-16. In that season, which happens to be the last NBA season I followed closely, the Golden State Warriors posted what remains the best single-season record in NBA history at 73 wins and 9 losses. One would think that a team with a 73-9 record would easily lead the league in net rating. Notably, the team that had previously held the best single-season record mark, the 1995-96 Bulls at 72-10, did have the best net rating in our 51-season sample by a wide margin (+13.4, 1.4 points better than second place, the 1996-97 Bulls). However, 2015-16 defied expectations in the net rating department. While the Warriors had the best-ever record, their net rating of +10.7 was only good for second-best in the NBA. The San Antonio Spurs, which finished six games back of the Warriors at a monstrous 67-15, posted the NBA’s best net rating of +11.3. For perspective, the Spurs +11.3 mark in 2015-16 was the fifth best single-season net rating of the last 51 years, trailing only the 95-96 and 96-97 Bulls (+13.4 and +12.0 respectively) and the 2016-17 Warriors and 2023-24 Boston Celtics (both +11.6). In a season in which one team posts the best record in NBA history and another the fifth best net rating in a 51-season sample, one would think that we have identified the season’s NBA champion! Alas, it was not to be. The Spurs were defeated in the Western Conference Semifinals by the Oklahoma City Thunder, which posted an excellent but comparatively pedestrian 55-27 record and +7.5 net rating. The Warriors then had to overcome a 3-1 series deficit to defeat that Thunder team in the Western Conference Finals before taking a 3-1 series lead in the NBA Finals. However, the Warriors created a second bit of history, after having been the first (and to date, only) NBA team to end a regular season with single-digit losses, the Warriors became the first, and to date only, team to lose a 3-1 series lead in the NBA Finals. When it was all said and done, the NBA Champion in the season in which the Warriors and Spurs made history was the Cleveland Cavaliers – with a regular season record of 57-25 and a net rating of +6.4.
Now let us combine our two major charts – the first showing the teams which had the best record and net rating in a single season and the second showing the teams which had the best of one but not the other. In 14 seasons, the NBA Champion had the best record and net rating. In five additional seasons, the champion had the best record but not the best rating, and in five other seasons the champion had the best net rating but not the best record. Thus, we find that 19 of the last 51 NBA Champions had the best regular season record and 19 of 51 had the best regular season net rating. Let us go through some of our findings:
- In the 31 seasons where one team had the best record and the best net rating, 14 of those teams won the NBA championship (45%).
- 19 of the last 51 NBA champions had the best regular season record but not the best regular season net rating (37%)
- 19 of the last 51 NBA champions had the best regular season net rating but not the best regular season record (37%)
- 24 of the last 51 NBA champions had at least either the best regular season record or the best net rating (47%)
- In seasons where the different teams had the best regular season record and best net rating, one of those two teams won the championship 10 out of 21 times (48%)
- In seasons where different teams had the best regular season record and best net rating, the team with the best record won the championship 5 out of 21 times (24%)
- In seasons where the different teams had the best regular season record and best net rating, the team with the best net rating won the championship 5 out of 21 times (24%)
Taken together – no matter how you slice it – the field beats the team (or teams) with the best record/net rating slightly more often than not. However, in light of the fact that there are either 14 or 15 out of 16 playoff teams (post “play-in tournament” these days), both best record and best net rating are good places to start in making an NBA championship prediction.
After I put together my initial survey charts, I came across another statistical measure that I could test instead of net rating. This measure is called Simple Rating System, or SRS. To put it simply, SRS takes into account the margin of the team being evaluated and the margin of the team’s opponents against the league average. See a simple explanation. I am not as familiar with SRS as I am with net rating, but it differs in that it considers raw margin instead of the difference between offensive and defensive rating and it takes into account the average performance of the team’s opponents.
I suspected that SRS would not differ greatly from Net Rating in identifying the strongest team in a given regular season, and that turned out to be correct. In our 51 season sample, there are only six seasons where the top-ranked team in SRS was not the top-ranked team in Net Rating:
| Season | Best Net | Best SRS |
|---|---|---|
| 78-79 | Washington Bullets | San Antonio Spurs |
| 84-85 | Los Angeles Lakers | Milwaukee Bucks |
| 94-95 | Utah Jazz | Seattle SuperSonics |
| 97-98 | Los Angeles Lakers | Chicago Bulls |
| 15-16 | San Antonio Spurs | Golden State Warriors |
| 21-22 | Phoenix Suns | Boston Celtics |
In the first two cases, the team with the better Net Rating advanced further in the playoffs. The Bullets made the Finals in 1978-79, defeating the top-ranked team in SRS, the San Antonio Spurs, in the Eastern Conference Finals (the Spurs were in the Eastern Conference back in the day). 1984-85 is the biggest miss for SRS vs Net Rating. The Lakers led the NBA in Net Rating and won the championship while the Bucks were unceremoniously swept out of the second round of the Eastern Conference Playoffs.
While the Bucks’ 84-85 playoff run may have been a disappointment, it was nothing compared to the Net Rating vs SRS wash we saw in 1994-95. The Utah Jazz had the best Net Rating and lost in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs to the surprising eventual champion Houston Rockets. In full consideration of the facts and circumstances – things went even worse for the SRS-leading Seattle SuperSonics. While the Jazz were bounced by the defending and eventual NBA Champions, the Sonics fell 3-1 to the Los Angeles Lakers, a team which actually posted a negative 0.01 SRS to go with a minus 0.2 net rating.
The final three splits all favor SRS. The best season for SRS is 1997-98, where the SRS-leading Chicago Bulls (third in net rating) won the NBA Championship while the Net Rating leading Lakers were swept in the Western Conference Finals. If we used SRS instead of Net Rating, this would have been a case of the team with the best SRS defeating the team with the best record in the NBA Finals – although the best-record Utah Jazz and Bulls both finished 62-20, with the Jazz taking home court advantage by virtue of having won both regular season meetings against the Bulls. In 2015-16, the Warriors ranked first in SRS over the Spurs and, as I noted in a long aside above, advanced further in the playoffs. Finally, in 2021-22, the SRS-leading Celtics made the NBA Finals while the Phoenix Suns, which had the best record and net rating, were swept in the Western Conference Semifinals.
Below, I prevent a chart showing the two unique “best record vs best SRS” matchups that were not covered by my best record vs best net rating chart.
| Season | Round | Best Record | Best SRS | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 78-79 | East Finals | Washington Bullets | San Antonio Spurs | Bullets 4-3 |
| 97-98 | NBA Finals | Utah Jazz | Chicago Bulls | Bulls 4-2 |
1978-79 only appears on this chart because the Bullets had the best record and net rating. 1984-85 was a best record vs best net matchup but does not appear here because the Bucks, which had the best SRS, did not meet the team with the best record. 1997-98 remains on the chart, but whereas the best record vs best net chart was a win for the team with the best record, with the Jazz beating the net-rating leading Lakers in the Western Conference finals, it flips on the SRS chart with the SRS-leading Chicago Bulls defeating the Jazz one round later in the NBA Finals.
For the limited purposes of my survey – there is very little difference between Net Rating and SRS since the team with the best of one has the best of the other in 45 of the 51 seasons in our sample (88%) and the six seasons in which they differ do not show a decisive trend with respect to playoff success one way or the other. However, I am sure that more serious and thorough studies may yield useful information regarding whether regular season Net Rating or SRS is a better predictor of playoff success. I will submit that in light of the fact that NBA teams play more games in conference than out, the distinctiveness of SRS vs Net Rating likely varies to some extent based on the difference in strength between the conferences (or more often than not this century, how much better the West is than the East in any given year).
Having completed my simple survey – I can conclude from a small sample that having the best record, net rating, or SRS bodes equally well for a team’s championship prospects. Moreover, it should come as no surprise that having the best record, net rating, and SRS bodes far better than having the best of one but not the others. But in the end – a tiny majority of NBA champions do not lead any of the categories (we come out to 25/51 if we add the SRS-leading 1997-98 Bulls to our list), so the field wins slightly more often than not.
