Adi: The Golden State Warriors are on the cusp of a perfect postseason: 16-0, something that’s never happened in NBA history. And that number really stands out to me: The NBA playoffs used to require eight wins, then 12, then 15 and now 16 (the number jumped around a lot in the early days, but that’s pretty much it). Yet no one’s ever had a perfect postseason.

And now we’re at 16, which of course is a number most associated with the NFL regular season. And we saw a 16-0 team a decade ago in the New England Patriots — the only 16-0 season we’ve ever seen in NFL history.

Now, I know you’re a fan of the Carolina Panthers, who made a run at 16-0 two years ago but lost the second-to-last game of the season. That loss to the 8-8 Atlanta Falcons really says it all about the difference between the NFL and NBA: There’s no way these Warriors were going to lose to a .500 team in a game they really cared about. The gap between the best and the mediocre is so large.

Still, I tend to think that a 16-0 NBA postseason is more difficult to accomplish than a 16-0 NFL regular season, and not just because one ends with a championship and the other leads to a postseason. But you seem to see it the other way, so I’ll let you defend the No Fun League.

Steven: Defend the NFL, I will. It may not be fun, but football is clearly the more brutal of the two sports, which is what makes a 16-0 season — or just a 16-game win streak in general — so improbable. By the time December rolls around, an NFL team’s depth chart bears almost no resemblance to its depth chart in early September. Over a four month period, major injuries are bound to occur. The run the Warriors are on has covered, what, about a month-and-a-half? Golden State did lose Kevin Durant for a few games, but have been completely healthy otherwise. And they had such an easy time dismantling the Blazers, they were able to be patient with Durant and not rush him back. That’s not a luxury any NFL team enjoys.

Why? Because the Super Team does not exist in the NFL. Golden State features four of the NBA’s 25 best players. Working with a hard salary cap, it’s impossible for an NFL team to collect that much talent. The gap between the Warriors and the second-best team in the NBA is so much wider than the gap between the Patriots and the second-best team. More importantly, the gap between the NFL’s best team and a team picking in the top-10 of the draft is probably smaller than the gap between the Warriors and the eighth seed in the West. So, sure, a 16-game schedule against playoff teams is more difficult on paper, but I’d argue that a run-of-the-mill regular season schedule in the NFL is nearly as arduous.

Throw in the injury factor and 16 NFL games spanning a much longer time period — we’ve seen plenty of teams in both sports get hot for six weeks — and that gap in quality of opponents doesn’t seem so significant.

Now, here’s your chance to defend your precious No Balance Association (I tried).

Adi: This isn’t about getting hot. It’s also about staying engaged and getting every break — or making those breaks, as the Warriors have for the most part. They’ve now been up 3-0 four times. And the first three times, they won that fourth game despite it being so easy to justify letting up a bit and going with the gentlemen’s sweep (h/t Graydon Gordian and Matt Moore).

Also, NFL teams play once a week, and they don’t play the same team any more than twice, usually with a bunch of weeks between those games. In this case, opposing teams and coaches — Terry Stotts, Quin Snyder, Gregg Popovich and Tyronn Lue are all great ones — have had all this time to make adjustment during each series. And still, nothing.

Also, you haven’t addressed those EIGHT (!!) teams that only lost one game in an NFL season compared to the only two one-loss NBA postseasons.

Steven: Please do not bring up coaching in any NFL v. NBA debate. In the NFL, a great game plan can take down a great team. This Warriors team has proved how little coaching matters in the NBA, where talent trumps all. What is Golden State’s winning percentage in games Steve Kerr doesn’t coach? Like .900? And sure, NFL teams play once a week, but that gives opposing coaches six days to break down a team and devise a plan to stop them. NBA coaches have only a day or two in between games. There’s only so much tinkering they can do.

As for the eight one-loss NFL teams, the reasoning is simple: Only one team can possibly go 15-1 in the NBA playoffs every year, while multiple teams can finish 15-1 every NFL season. I’m not a mathematician, so I can’t tell you how many teams can go 15-1 in a given year, but I know for a fact it’s more than four. So the 4-to-1 ratio actually works against your argument here!

Adi: OK, that math point is a fair one. Still, the fact remains that as of today, eight NFL teams have completed perfect regular seasons (going back to the 1920 Akron Pros, who went 8-0). Yet no matter the length of the postseason, no NBA team has ever avoided a playoff loss.

What that speaks to is the value of singular effort in the NBA. That’s what makes this so darn impressive — particularly if they can complete a sweep against one of the five greatest players in NBA history. Basketball’s superstars hold so much influence on the outcome of games. Even quarterbacks can’t claim to be able to determine a game like that.

And the beauty of the NBA playoffs is, barring an injury, you absolutely must go through a superstar or two capable of tilting a series. And yes, the Warriors probably would have lost Game 1 at least vs. the San Antonio Spurs if not for a freak injury. And yes, they also avoided Russell Westbrook, James Harden and Chris Paul. But they are about to potentially sweep LeBron James — who is playing some of the best basketball of his life. The Patriots only had to beat Peyton Manning (not even equivalent but close enough) once.

Steven: I really can’t rebut your first point. The math is against me there. But I’ll try anyway. More teams have had the opportunity to go undefeated in an NFL season than teams have had the opportunity during the NBA playoffs — especially if we’re going back to the 1920s. I’d also add that it’s a much harder feat to pull off in today’s NFL than it was for the Dolphins in the ’70s or the Akron Pros in the ’20s. That’s why there were seven perfect teams in the 70-plus years before the salary cap was instituted and there has been only one in the 22 seasons since. Teams just can’t build a roster like they could in the days before the salary cap.

The superstar point is also a valid one. An NFL superstar cannot take over a game like an NBA superstar can. But I think there is an NFL equivalent to the NBA superstar, and that’s the dominant unit. Whether it’s an unblockable pass rush, like the one that helped the Giants upset New England in Super Bowl XLII. Or a dominant running game, like the Chargers possessed that season. These units can decide a game like an NBA superstar can, and Patriots faced plenty of those units during their 16-0 run.

There’s really only one way to settle this. Answer this question, assuming the Warriors keep their roster intact for the most part: Which do you think is more likely? The Patriots, far and away the best team in the NFL after a superb offseason, going undefeated in 2017 or the Warriors pulling off the 16-0 feat next postseason?

It’s a difficult question to answer, for sure, but, without hesitation, I’m going with Golden State.

Adi: Listen, we’re talking about truly great feats either way. One thing I think we agree on: The Warriors’ 16-0 run is a lot more important. It ends in a ring, while the Patriots’ 16-0 ended up as 18-1 and one of the most stunning results in Super Bowl history.

These are the types of things that only can happen when you do something crazy like adding Randy Moss to a 12-4 team or Kevin Durant to a 73-9 team.

But let’s put this to the people. Vote in the poll and prove Steven wrong.