Playoff Legacy Watch: the Cavs and the Spurs

The Cleveland Cavaliers
Last year, I examined every NBA champion since 1957 to find the team's second best player. I found that most NBA champions had a Hall of Fame quality second best player. Many NBA champions had even more Hall of Fame quality players. Nearly all NBA champions had a very good second best player, and/or a deep team. I found it is impossible to claim that any individual player "carries" his team to the title, as every individual who has won a title had at least one very good teammate to help him, or had several very productive teammates helping him.

If there is one possible exception, it is the 1975 Warriors. Rick Barry averaged 30.6 ppg in the regular season; the second leading scorer was rookie Jamaal Wilkes with 14.2 ppg (but the team did have two other scorers in double figures, and one double figure rebounder). Barry also led the team with 6.2 apg. In the playoffs, Barry averaged 28.2 ppg, 5.5 rpg, and 6.1 apg. Wilkes averaged 15-7, but other than that, you don't see a lot of great playoff contributions on the Warriors. It's a team of role players around Barry.

If LeBron James leads the 2007 Cleveland Cavaliers to the NBA championship, his accomplishment would outdo Barry's. LeBron would be the closest player to ever carry a team to a title. Which is also why I don't think he will.

Note: I also considered the '94 Rockets. But after Hakeem Olajuwon, the Rockets did have 14-10 Otis Thorpe, and in the playoffs had five players average between 9.4 and 13.8 ppg to compliment Hakeem's 28.9-11 masterpiece.

The San Antonio Spurs
The Spurs are attempting to win 4 titles in 9 years, but Tim Duncan is the only player still around from the 1999 team. But the nucleus of Duncan-Parker-Ginobli was intact for the 2003 and 2005 title teams. If the 2007 Spurs win the title, then, we can say this nucleus has won 3 titles in 5 years.

Here is the list of other teams that have won 3 NBA championships in a 5 year span.

The Minneapolis Lakers (5 of 6 from '49-'55)
The Boston Celtics (11 of 13 from '57-'69)
The Los Angeles Lakers (3 of 5 from '85-'88)
The Chicago Bulls (6 of 8 from '91-'98)
The Los Angeles Lakers (3 of 3 from '00-'02)

Winning 3 championships in 5 years would have to cement the Spurs as one of the great teams of all-time.