2 Trail Blazers Teams Rank Top 50 in NBA History

In the history of the NBA, 71 teams have won World Championships, from the original Philadelphia Warriors in 1947 to the current Golden State Warriors in 2018. For every team that won it, dozens more fell short, some of those great as well.

To sort out the Top 50 teams in NBA history, Kevin Pelton of ESPN.com went to the books, creating a statistics based list of the 50 best. The Portland Trail Blazers found themselves on the list twice, despite earning only one title.

Pelton used margin of victory in both the regular season and playoffs as the determining factor, with smaller weight given to season wins and postseason winning percentage.

The NBA Champion Trail Blazers from the 1976-1977 season ranked at number 50. Pelton used the team only winning 49 games to break a tie with the 1969-1970 New York Knicks and the 2006-2007 San Antonio Spurs, both of whom ranked just above Bill Walton’s Blazers.

The 1991-1992 Trail Blazers, whiich fell in the NBA Finals to the Chicago Bulls in six games ranked at number 37, based on its dominant +8.1 postseason point differential. For the record, the 1991-1992 Bulls finished at number 11. Clyde Drexler’s crew proved one of just seven teams to make the list despite losing in the finals. The 2015-2016 Golden State Warriors ranked highest among those at number 25, losing to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The 2016-2017 Golden State Warriors earned the top spot on Pelton’s list, followed by the 1995-1996 Chicago Bulls.