The 2015-2016 San Antonio Spurs could be likened to the 1996 Seattle Sonics. Viewed through one basic lens, that comparison is obvious and entirely legitimate. Yet, on another fundamental level, that comparison doesn’t hold.
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Here’s why the Spurs can be compared to the 1996 Sonics:
When the 1996 Chicago Bulls laid waste to the rest of the NBA and became the first team to hit the 70-win barrier, the Sonics became one of the quietest 64-win teams in history. Few teams enjoyed the pronounced success of the 1996 Seattle ballclub and yet became so comparatively un-remembered in the larger scope of NBA history.
Champions are remembered the most, and had the Sonics existed in a different year or time, they might have been lauded in a manner befitting their greatness. Yet, they flourished in the year when a fresh-legged version of Michael Jordan (after his baseball tour) and a reborn Dennis Rodman made the Bulls into a wrecking ball. The best team of its era, led by the sport’s best player — quite possibly the NBA’s best player of all time — dwarfed Seattle during the season and in the NBA Finals. Phil Jackson, the most successful NBA coach of all time (maybe not the best, but no one has more rings than the Zen Master), guided Jordan and Rodman and Scottie Pippen to the mountaintop.
The Sonics? They didn’t get swept. They put up a brave fight after stumbling in a Finals spotlight they weren’t accustomed to. Yet, their 64 wins lived in the shadows of the Bulls’ 72 victories, and the rock-star identity of a legitimate NBA dynasty at its peak.
The 2015-2016 San Antonio Spurs could be to the Golden State Warriors what the 1995-1996 Sonics were to the Chicago Bulls.
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Here, however, is why the comparison doesn’t work: The Sonics did not reside in the same conference as the Bulls. In 1975, Chicago was a Western Conference team, but in 1996, the fact that two great teams met in the Finals gave Seattle a stage and a level of prominence worthy of the team’s stature and accomplishments.
What is the truer and more precise comparison to the 2016 Spurs, a 14-3 team getting lost in the euphoria and amazement surrounding the unbeaten Warriors? It’s the 1971-1972 Milwaukee Bucks.
When the 1996 Bulls went 72-10, they eclipsed the single-season win record set by the 1972 Los Angeles Lakers, who went 69-13. (The 1973 Boston Celtics came close, going 68-14.) The 1972 Lakers, though no longer blessed with an active Elgin Baylor, still had Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain and Gail Goodrich on their roster. Motivated by so many “almost seasons” and late-stage playoff failures, the Lakers finally constructed the season of their dreams. They slammed the New York Knicks in five games in the NBA Finals, finally capturing the title the Boston Celtics had denied them so many times before. The Lakers also avenged their loss to the Knicks in the 1970 Finals, the Willis Reed series which captured the imagination of New Yorkers during a golden age in the Big Apple’s sports history.
The Lakers’ toughest playoff series in 1972 was not the Finals. It came in the West Finals. The opponent was the defending NBA champion, a team with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson. The 1972 Milwaukee Bucks did not stumble in their title defense. Going 63-19 represents a pretty darn good title defense in any season and any context. The Bucks pushed the Lakers to six games in a series marked by the Lakers’ near-constant discomfort. Los Angeles scored one blowout win, in Game 5, but registered its other three wins in the series by four points or fewer. The Bucks averaged more points per game in the series, but the Lakers won all three of the nail-biters in the series.
We have a long way to go before we reach Memorial Day Weekend and the 2016 West Finals. Yet, the Spurs could be that 63- or 65-win team which doesn’t even make the NBA Finals, due to the transcendent power and beauty of an all-time great team, one which stands at the top of the league’s Mount Olympus.
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The Golden State Warriors deserve every last syllable of praise they’re receiving. The Warriors aren’t just a great team; they embody something perfect. They offer an aesthetic ideal which is married to their bottom-line consistency and competitive hunger. They play with a fluidity and selflessness which delight basketball purists, and yet they embrace the three-point shot and other components of the sport which are in sync with the thought processes of analytics advocates.
One can so readily see why and how Golden State has hit the sweet spot for pro basketball fans. Yet, the casualty of all this — if you can call it that — is that the 13-3 Spurs have been relegated to the shadows, at least on a comparative level.
San Antonio enters Nov. 28 as the one NBA team allowing under 90 points per game. Kawhi Leonard, still so early in his NBA career, is already one of the league’s two or three best defenders, without any question or doubt. Tony Parker looks good, which means the engine of the Spurs’ offense is functional enough to provide lucid endgame possessions. Even with LaMarcus Aldridge not (yet) hitting his stride, this team’s professionalism and vigilance — the Spurs are nothing if not an organization which displays the best habits on an annual basis — has San Antonio in position to forge the league’s second-best record, better than the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Yet, this team might not make the Finals, because an all-time-great team could very well reside in its conference.
The Spurs hope to become the 1973 Knicks, a 57-win team which upended the 68-win Celtics in the East Finals and then won it all against the Lakers. San Antonio would love to upset the Warriors in the West Finals and then take down Cleveland for another ring.
However, it’s quite possible that this team will be remembered as the 1972 Bucks of the new century, the team which performed at a supremely high level… yet was exceeded by a conference opponent and therefore locked out of the Finals.
We’ll revisit this drama over the course of the season, but through one month, the Spurs — though dynastic and fantastic — have made their way to a noticeably quiet 14-3 record.
It’s hard to believe. Yet, the 2016 Golden State Warriors are hard to believe in the first place.
