The Golden State Warriors spent most of this season chasing history, battling with the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls for the title of greatest NBA team of all time. With a Game 7 finals loss to the Cavaliers, it’s clear that they came up short. But how far down the rankings did they fall?

A month ago, we took a slightly premature look at Golden State’s all-time ranking using Elo ratings, a simple measure of relative team strength based on head-to-head results (we use it here a lot). We generated a single value for each season in NBA history by blending each team’s peak, average and final Elo rating (since these ratings are based only on game-by-game results, they don’t take into account whether a team actually won or lost the title). When that article was published — with the Western Conference finals tied at one game apiece — the Warriors’ playoff record was 9-3, and their blended Elo of 1813 was just a hair behind the 1815 rating held by the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls. A title, even with a couple more losses along the way, would have all but guaranteed them the top spot.

And then they blew it. Golden State went 6-6 during the rest of the playoffs, getting outscored by 32 points in the process. Their updated rating of 1798 puts them in third, below both the 1995-96 and 1996-97 Bulls:

SEASON ELO SEASON TEAM TITLE PEAK AVG END BLEND 1 1995-96 Chicago Bulls ✓ 1853 1770 1823 1815 2 1996-97 Chicago Bulls ✓ 1811 1792 1802 1802 3 2015-16 Golden State Warriors 1839 1800 1756 1798 4 2014-15 Golden State Warriors ✓ 1822 1745 1822 1796 5 1985-86 Boston Celtics ✓ 1816 1735 1801 1784 6 2015-16 San Antonio Spurs 1800 1768 1759 1776 7 2008-09 Los Angeles Lakers ✓ 1790 1726 1790 1769 8 1991-92 Chicago Bulls ✓ 1782 1759 1762 1768 9 1997-98 Chicago Bulls ✓ 1788 1719 1785 1764 10 1990-91 Chicago Bulls ✓ 1785 1693 1785 1755 11 1988-89 Detroit Pistons ✓ 1788 1675 1788 1750 12 1982-83 Philadelphia 76ers ✓ 1777 1731 1739 1749 13 2012-13 Miami Heat ✓ 1774 1715 1754 1748 14 2013-14 San Antonio Spurs ✓ 1764 1696 1764 1742 15 2008-09 Cleveland Cavaliers 1765 1708 1742 1738 16 1984-85 Los Angeles Lakers ✓ 1764 1680 1764 1736 17 1996-97 Utah Jazz 1764 1693 1748 1735 18 1966-67 Philadelphia 76ers ✓ 1755 1715 1733 1734 19 1997-98 Utah Jazz 1766 1695 1737 1733 20 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers ✓ 1753 1717 1726 1732 21 2009-10 Orlando Magic 1782 1669 1744 1732 22 2000-01 Los Angeles Lakers ✓ 1779 1634 1779 1731 23 2002-03 San Antonio Spurs ✓ 1757 1674 1757 1730 24 1986-87 Los Angeles Lakers ✓ 1750 1699 1740 1730 25 2015-16 Cleveland Cavaliers ✓ 1759 1670 1759 1729 26 2004-05 San Antonio Spurs ✓ 1771 1719 1696 1729 27 1998-99 San Antonio Spurs ✓ 1756 1674 1756 1728 28 2003-04 San Antonio Spurs 1764 1696 1719 1726 29 2015-16 Oklahoma City Thunder 1767 1666 1744 1726 30 2011-12 San Antonio Spurs 1771 1671 1733 1725 The greatest NBA teams of all time, according to Elo

Again, these ratings are championship-agnostic, so the Warriors and Spurs are ranked much higher than you’d expect. (This wasn’t really much of an issue until this season. Through 2015, the 12 highest-ranked teams ever all won titles.) There’s also some recency bias here — fewer teams, shorter seasons and shorter playoffs in earlier NBA decades made it harder to accumulate a really high rating — but it’s still clear that the 2015-16 season was something special. Only four teams really threatened for the title at various parts of the season , and all four ended up ranked in the Top 30 all-time. The Warriors may not have ended up as the greatest team ever, but no “second-best” team was ever stronger than the Spurs, no third-best stronger than the Cavaliers, and no fourth-best stronger than the Thunder. Not even close:

For now, these same four teams have the best odds of winning the 2016-17 title, by a wide margin. The Bulls may stay unsurpassed, but it’s hard to imagine we’ll see a season as great as the one we just witnessed any time soon.





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