On May 30, 2026, the San Antonio Spurs won game seven of the Western Conference Finals on the road to advance to the franchise’s first NBA Finals since 2014. I just published an article on NBA Finals Droughts, which was inspired more by the 2025-26 Eastern Conference Champion New York Knicks making their first NBA Finals since 1998-99 than by the Spurs ending their comparatively modest Finals drought. In today’s post, we will step away from studying the NBA Finalists to look at the team which came one step short of the Finals in their loss to the Spurs – the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The 2025-26 Thunder were, much like their 2024-25 championship squad, an historically great regular season team. They posted a 64-18 regular season record, which is the fifth-best win-loss record for a defending champion (trailing the 2015-16 Warriors (73-9), 1996-97 Bulls (69-13), 1991-92 Bulls (67-15), and 2012-13 Heat (66-16)). The 2025-26 Thunder posted a Net Rating, which refers to points scored per 100 possessions minus points allowed per 100 possessions, of +11.1, which is good for 8th best in NBA history. They posted an SRS, which refers to margin of victory plus strength of schedule, of 11.04, which is good for sixth best in NBA history (the 2024-25 Thunder hold the record for best regular season SRS at +12.70).
The 2025-26 Thunder had about as good of a “championship” profile based on their regular season performance as one could imagine. However, the 2025-26 Spurs, which had an excellent regular season in their own right (62-20, +8.3 Net Rating, +8.28 SRS) served a reminder that there are no guarantees in the playoffs based on regular season performance. The Thunder coming up just short inspired me to survey how the teams with the best single-season regular season SRS marks have fared in the NBA Playoffs.
Rules for the Survey
We will survey the teams with the best 25 regular season SRS marks in NBA history, and I will also count the three Basketball Association of America (“BAA”) seasons, which took place from 1946-47 through 1948-49 (the BAA merged with the National Basketball League (“NBL”) to form the NBA, which began with the 1949-50 season). I settled on 25 because the 2025-26 Thunder were the 25th team in NBA history to post a regular season SRS better than equal to +8.50, and 8.50 seemed like an aesthetically pleasing cutoff. There are no other special rules or conditions for this survey: Every team with a regular season SRS of +8.50 is included.
I decided to use SRS for this survey instead of Net Rating because I think it holds up better for past seasons, most notably because the ability to measure pace before the NBA tracked all of the stats it does today is limited, and there are some debates about how “possessions” are counted even today. SRS relies only on margin of victory and strength of schedule. With that being said, both higher pace of play and the number of teams in the NBA may affect the range of probable margins of victory and potential schedule strength, so SRS is by no means a fool-proof way of comparing teams across eras. You can learn more about SRS on the Sports Reference Blog. It is worth noting that SRS and Net Rating tend to not differ too dramatically.
Table: Best 25 Regular Season SRS in NBA History and Playoff Ouctomes
The below table lists the 25 teams with the best regular season SRS in order from first to 25th, along with their regular season win-loss records and their playoff result.
| Rank | Season | Team | W-L Record | SRS | Playoff Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2024-25 | Oklahoma City Thunder | 68-14 | 12.7 | Won NBA Finals |
| 2 | 1970-71 | Milwaukee Bucks | 66-16 | 11.92 | Won NBA Finals |
| 3 | 1995-96 | Chicago Bulls | 72-10 | 11.8 | Won NBA Finals |
| 4 | 1971-72 | Los Angeles Lakers | 69-13 | 11.65 | Won NBA Finals |
| 5 | 2016-17 | Golden State Warriors | 67-15 | 11.63 | Won NBA Finals |
| 6 | 2025-26 | Oklahoma City Thunder | 64-18 | 11.04 | L. Conf. Finals. |
| 7 | 2023-24 | Boston Celtics | 64-18 | 10.75 | Won NBA Finals |
| 8 | 1996-97 | Chicago Bulls | 69-13 | 10.7 | Won NBA Finals |
| 9 | 1971-72 | Milwaukee Bucks | 63-19 | 10.7 | L. Conf. Finals. |
| 10 | 1991-92 | Chicago Bulls | 67-15 | 10.44 | Won NBA Finals |
| 11 | 2015-16 | Golden State Warriors | 73-9 | 10.38 | L. NBA Finals |
| 12 | 2015-16 | San Antonio Spurs | 67-15 | 10.28 | L. Semifinals |
| 13 | 2014-15 | Golden State Warriors | 67-15 | 10.1 | Won NBA Finals |
| 14 | 2019-20 | Milwaukee Bucks | 56-17 | 9.41 | L. Semifinals |
| 15 | 2007-08 | Boston Celtics | 66-16 | 9.3 | Won NBA Finals |
| 16 | 2012-13 | Oklahoma City Thunder | 60-22 | 9.15 | L. Semifinals |
| 17 | 1985-86 | Boston Celtics | 67-15 | 9.06 | Won NBA Finals |
| 18 | 1946-47 | Washington Capitols | 49-11 | 8.99 | L. BAA Semifinals |
| 19 | 2020-21 | Utah Jazz | 52-20 | 8.97 | L. Semifinals |
| 20 | 2024-25 | Cleveland Cavaliers | 64-18 | 8.81 | L. Semifinals |
| 21 | 1985-86 | Milwaukee Bucks | 57-25 | 8.69 | L. Conf. Finals. |
| 22 | 2008-09 | Cleveland Cavaliers | 66-16 | 8.68 | L. Conf. Finals. |
| 23 | 1993-94 | Seattle SuperSonics | 63-19 | 8.68 | L. Quarterfinals |
| 24 | 1990-91 | Chicago Bulls | 61-21 | 8.57 | Won NBA Finals |
| 25 | 1966-67 | Philadelphia 76ers | 68-13 | 8.5 | Won NBA Finals |
Analysis
The five teams with better regular season SRS than the 2025-26 Thunder all won the championship in their respective seasons, making the 25-26 Thunder the best non-champion in terms of regular season SRS. Overall, eight of the teams with the 10 best regular season SRS won the championship, with the 1971-72 Milwaukee Bucks joining the Thunder on the non-champions list. There is some symmetry between the 2025-26 Thunder and 1971-72 Bucks. Both teams were not only defending championships, but also had, in their prior championship season, posted what stands today as the top two regular season SRS marks in NBA history. Both came close to matching their previous regular seasons, only to lose in the Western Conference Finals (the Bucks were in the Western Conference in the early 70s). The 71-72 Bucks are unique, however, in that they lost to the team with the 4th best all time regular season SRS, the eventual champion 1971-72 Lakers, meaning that the 1972 playoffs would necessarily result in a team with an all-time great SRS not winning the championship.
As we move down to the list, we see less of a correlation between superlative regular season SRS marks and successful championship runs. Only 5 of the teams ranked 11-25 won the NBA championship. The 11-25 group features a second team from 2024-25 (Cleveland Cavaliers) and two teams from 2015-16 (the Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs, which remarkably both fell short in the playoffs), meaning that it would have only been possible for 13 of those teams to have won the championship.
One peculiar note from the survey is that of the 12 top-25 SRS teams that failed to win the championship, only the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors lost in the NBA Finals. The other 11 all lost before the Finals. Nine of the 11 won at least one playoff round – with the exceptions being the 1946-47 Washington Capitols (there was a single 3-game series before the BAA Finals, which they lost 2-1) and the 1993-94 Seattle SuperSonics (became the first 1-seed to lose to an 8-seed in the 16-team playoff era, albeit the Denver Nuggets were an unusually good 8-seed) – before bowing out before the Finals. If we look at it another way, the top-25 SRS teams have a 13-1 record in NBA Finals series.
A Few Fun Notes
Below, I offer some quick thoughts on some of the top-25 SRS teams.
- Three teams followed up a top-10 regular season SRS season with another: The 2025-26 Thunder, 1971-72 Bucks, and 1996-97 Chicago Bulls. However, only the 96-97 Bulls won the championships.
- Wilt Chamberlain, the starting center on the 1971-72 Lakers (which posted the 4th-best regular season SRS in NBA history, won 33 consecutive games at one point, had the best single-season win-loss record until 1995-96, and won the championship), opined in 1986 that his great 71-72 Lakers team was “mediocre” and inferior to the then-active 1985-86 Lakers squad. Right or wrong, the 1985-86 Lakers posted a +6.84 SRS and went on to lose in the Western Conference Finals to the Houston Rockets.
- 2015-16 is the only season with two top-25 SRS teams and no top-25 SRS champions. The San Antonio Spurs (12th) lost to the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference Semfinals. The Golden State Warriors (11th) went on to narrowly beat the Thunder in the Western Conference Finals before losing to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals. Had the Spurs defeated the Thunder, 2015-16 would have featured the first playoff series between two current all time top-25 SRS teams since 1971-72.
- I present some recent examples of SRS not being everything. The Spurs won championships in 1998-99, 2002-03, 2004-05, 2006-07, and 2013-14. While those teams all had excellent regular season SRS and Net Ratings, none of them made our top-25. The Spurs are instead represented by their 2015-16 squad, which lost in the second round of the playoffs. Similarly, LeBron James won the NBA Finals MVP on four championship squads in 2011-12 (Miami), 2012-13 (Miami), 2015-16 (Cleveland), and 2019-20 (L.A. Lakers). None of those teams made our SRS top-25 list. However. the 2008-09 Cleveland Cavaliers, which were led by Mr. James in his first MVP season, check in at 22nd. That Cavaliers team lost in the Eastern Conference Finals.
- The 1946-47 Washington Capitols are the only BAA team and pre-Shot Clock team to make our list, doing so in the inaugural BAA season (that Capitols squad was coached by Red Auerbach, who would go on to coach nine Boston Celtics championship teams in ten seasons from 1956-57 through 1965-66, and served as the top executive for seven more Celtics championship teams).
- Six franchises have multiple 8.5+ SRS campaigns. The Oklahoma City Thunder/Seattle SuperSonics, Milwaukee Bucks, and Chicago Bulls lead the way with 4 each. The Thunder/Sonics and Bucks each won just one championship in their four 8.5+ SRS seasons while the Bulls were a perfect 4/4 in championship runs. The Celtics and Warriors each have 3 top SRS seasons. The Celtics won the championship in all three of their 8.5+ SRS seasons while the Warriors went 2/3. Finally, the Cleveland Cavaliers have two 8.5+ SRS seasons, but failed to win the championship on both occasions.
Conclusion
Of the 25 teams with the best regular season SRS, 13 won the NBA championship. Moreover, three seasons had at least two teams with top-25 all-time SRS scores, so it would be fair to say that 13 of the 22 teams that could have won the championship did in fact do so (granting it is not possible for two teams to win the championship in a single season). Unsurprisingly, having a historically great SRS bodes well for playoff success.
