Ranking the last 25 NBA champions: 2017 Warriors, 2001 Lakers and the best teams of the 21st century so far

It’s the quarter pole of the 21st century, and we’ve been all over the All-Century NBA rankings — everything from the best players and shots to trades, draft picks, free agent signings and what-if scenarios. Now it’s time to rank the last 25 NBA champions. 

This isn’t based on who had the toughest path or necessarily even the best season, but simply, who were the best teams, in order, to win a championship. 

This is super subjective, obviously, but we did out best as a staff to analyze these teams through as consistent a lens as possible. Certainly there will be disagreements, but here’s where we came out. 

• Regular-season record: 67-15
• Playoff record: 16-1
• Finals opponent: Cavaliers (4-1)

This is the most talented team to ever set foot on an NBA court, and it’s not debatable. Stephen Curry. Kevin Durant. Klay Thompson. Draymond Green. Andre Iguodala coming off the bench for crying out loud. Just an unbelievable collection of basketball skill operating at the highest levels of team chemistry. 

There’s a reason everyone was so outraged when Durant joined this team. It honestly wasn’t fair. The Warriors nearly swept through the entire playoffs, winning 15 straight games and finishing with a record plus-13.5 point differential while making a team led by LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love (a better top three than, say, Michael Jordan ever faced in a Finals by a wide margin) look like child’s play. Again, this is not just the greatest team of the century. This is the greatest team ever. — Brad Botkin

• Regular-season record: 56-26
• Playoff record: 15-1
• Finals opponent: 76ers (4-1)

The middle championship of the Kobe-and-Shaq threepeat was a masterclass of domination. The Lakers only lost once on this run, to the Sixers in Game 1 of the Finals, which everyone remembers for the famous Allen Iverson step over of Tyronn Lue. What you might not remember is that L.A. won the next four games by 40 points. 

Now, this wasn’t a terribly deep Lakers team. Rick Fox, Derek Fisher and late-career Horace Grant were the other three starters. That Sixers squad was probably the weakest Finals team of the century. The Spurs team they beat in the conference finals by an average of 22 points per game was pre Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili; Terry Porter and Derek Anderson were starters and David Robinson was nearing the end. Still, the Lakers could only play the teams in front of them, and they wiped the floor with all of them. — Brad Botkin

3. Golden State Warriors (2018)

• Regular-season record: 58-24
• Playoff record: 16-5
• Finals opponent: Cavaliers (4-0)

Perhaps some fatigue was setting in for the Warriors, who had been to four straight Finals, and maybe the second year of Durant marriage was starting to show a crack two. Maybe Iguodala wasn’t quite the same guy anymore in his 14th season. 

But we’re really splitting hairs here. We are talking about the top-ranked offense and the top-ranked defense. Durant and Curry each averaged better than 26 PPG, and they were both great in the Finals where the Warriors swept a still-stacked Cavs team. 

But what everyone remembers from this run was how close it came to ending in the conference finals, where the Rockets had Golden State legitimately flummoxed with their switching defense. Houston led that series 3-2 and had Chris Paul not missed the final two games and/or had Houston not missed 27 straight 3-pointers in Game 7 there’s a good chance Golden State falls short of the Finals. 

But it didn’t happen, and being pushed to the brink by a great team, which Houston objectively was, shouldn’t count any more heavily against these Warriors than it does the 2002 Lakers, who barely escaped the Kings with their limbs intact. — Brad Botkin

4. San Antonio Spurs (2014)

• Regular-season record: 62-20
• Playoff record: 16-7
• Finals opponent: Cavaliers (4-1)

They had no award winners. Only Tony Parker made the All-Star Game. Nobody on the team averaged even 17 points per game. And yet, almost unquestionably, this will be the Spurs championship most fans remember and revere, the one in which they achieved basketball nirvana and ended the LeBron James era in Miami with some of the most beautiful basketball the NBA has ever produced. 

Here’s a mind-boggling statistic: in the NBA Finals, the Spurs averaged 100 more passes per game than the Heat in a four-game romp. Their 52.8% field goal percentage remains a Finals record. The first four Spurs championships were widely regarded as boring by casual fans. The fifth was anything but. It was everything we want basketball to be. They may not have been as talented as other champions, but they achieved levels of cohesion, clarity and creativity that no basketball team has reached since. — Sam Quinn

5. Golden State Warriors (2015)

• Regular-season record: 67-15
• Playoff record: 16-5
• Finals opponent: Cavaliers (4-2)

If you ever want to make an argument for the power of NBA coaching, point to the 2014-15 Warriors. With Shaun Livingston as the only meaningful addition to the roster, Steve Kerr took the 51-win team he inherited from Mark Jackson, which had just lost in the first round of the playoffs, and turned it into a 67-win NBA champion the very next season. 

At the time of this first Warriors championship, basketball traditionalists were not ready to accept Stephen Curry as a true superstar, and by extension, the Warriors as a true champion. They tried to poke every hole they could into this championship, namely by pointing to all the injuries Golden State’s playoff opponents were dealing with, punctuated by Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love being out for the Cavs in the Finals. 

But in the end, these Warriors were the best team in the league from start to finish — No. 1 in offense, defense, net rating, field-goal percentage, true-shooting percentage, effective field-gold percentage, 3-point percentage and assists per game. They had, arguably, the best offensive player in the world in Curry and the best defensive player in the world in Draymond Green. They had the two best shooters of all-time. They had one of the greatest Swiss-Army knife players in league history in Andre Iguodala, who won Finals MVP, and an elite rim protector in Andre Bogut. 

This team had it all, as evidenced not just by this championship but the 73-win season that it put together the following year with, again, mostly the same roster. Had that that 2016 team not blown the 3-1 lead to Cleveland, we would be talking about these Warriors as the greatest team in NBA history even before Kevin Durant showed up. — Brad Botkin

• Regular-season record: 66-16
• Playoff record: 16-10
• Finals opponent: Lakers (4-2)

Fun fact: When Kevin Garnett was on the court in the 2007-08 regular season, the Celtics outscored opponents by 16 points per 100 possessions. That number doesn’t even make sense. None of LeBron James’ teams has been that dominant in his minutes. None of Nikola Jokić’s, either.

In his first year with Boston, Garnett deservedly won Defensive Player of the Year. Less celebrated, though, is how he made everything work on offense. While he led the Celtics in scoring, usage and shot attempts, he did not demand the touches he got in Minnesota, empowering Paul Pierce and Ray Allen to be the stars that they were. 

Immediately, it felt like the Big Three had been playing together for years. Quickly, it became evident that the Celtics also had a championship-caliber supporting cast, headlined by a second-year starting point guard (Rajon Rondo), a 24-year-old starting center (Kendrick Perkins) and a steady wing off the bench (James Posey). Rarely is there a team that is so clearly the cream of the crop from beginning to end. — James Herbert

7. Los Angeles Lakers (2002)

• Regular-season record: 58-24
• Playoff record: 15-4
• Finals opponent: Nets (4-0)

A lot of extra points here for this being the third straight championship. That is rarefied air. It’s only been done by three teams in history, and two in modern history. Even with the weight of two straight championships and all that mileage on their bodies and minds, the Lakers still managed to win 58 regular-season games and seven of their first eight playoff games. 

Then came the Sacramento Kings in the conference finals in one of the wildest playoff series of the modern era. It took the Lakers seven games, and that’s not at all an indictment. The Kings were one of the best teams we’ve ever seen that didn’t win a championship. Much like the 2007 Suns. 

Many people, of course, will tell you both the 2007 Suns (with the Amar’e Stoudemire suspension) and the 2002 Kings were robbed. The Lakers needed a dumb-luck buzzer-beater from Robert Horry just to avoid going down 3-1, then they needed 27, shall we say, friendly free throws in the fourth quarter of Game 6 to avoid elimination, and finally they needed the Kings to miss 14 of their own free throws and 18 of their 20 3-pointers to win Game 7 in overtime. 

A lot had to go L.A.’s way here, but in the end, it did, and they finished off their third-straight title by sweeping the Nets in the Finals with three of the four games being decided by six points or less. It wasn’t easy, but threepeats aren’t supposed to be. — Brad Botkin

8. Miami Heat (2013)

• Regular-season record: 66-16
• Playoff record: 16-7
• Finals opponent: Spurs (4-3)

The 66 regular-season wins were by far the most the Big Three era in Miami, but the Heat won this ring by the skin of their teeth. They failed to win two consecutive games against Indiana in the conference finals, where they needed seven games to get past young Paul George and company, and then we all know about Ray Allen’s corner-3 miracle in the Finals with the Heat mere seconds from elimination. 

That said, needing seven games to get past an opponent isn’t necessarily an indictment of the dominance of the eventual victor. That Pacers team was very good, and the Spurs were great. Adding Allen to the roster was a big deal, and this was LeBron’s fourth and final MVP season. Top to bottom, this was probably the best roster of the Heat’s Big Three run. — Brad Botkin

9. Cleveland Cavaliers (2016)

• Regular-season record: 57-25
• Playoff record: 16-5
• Finals opponent: Warriors (4-3)

The only team in history to recover from a 3-1 deficit to win the NBA Finals was absolutely loaded. Peak LeBron and Kyrie with Kevin Love perfectly slotted as the floor-spacing big shooting better than 41% on over five 3s per game in the playoffs. 

Shooting. Depth. Rebounding. An elite offense and a top-10 defense. The 73-win Warriors were probably a better team, but the margin wasn’t much. Cleveland had a far easier path to the Finals, but when we talk about the vast superiority of the Western Conference, that’s collectively. Cleveland was stacked. When LeBron and Kyrie turned it on in Game 5, they went to a level that no Golden State player could come close to matching. 

Ultimately, this was one of the NBA’s signature championships. It was certainly the pinnacle of LeBron’s career, Kyrie’s too. Between LeBron’s block, Kyrie’s shot and Draymond’s suspension, you couldn’t have written a more dramatic script that ended the 52-year Cleveland sports curse. — Brad Botkin

10. Boston Celtics (2024)

• Regular-season record: 64-18
• Playoff record: 16-3
• Finals opponent: Mavericks (4-1)

You could throw a blind dart and hit some number that ranks these Celtics among the most dominant teams ever. They rewrote the modern shot book by making an NBA record 1,457 regular-season 3-pointers. They finished 14 games ahead of the East’s No. 2 team, the largest Eastern Conference margin between one and two in the play-by-play era. 

Boston also owns the highest points per possession and offensive-rating marks in league history. They held a 20-point lead in 41 of their 82 regular-season games (think about that). They won 19 games by at least 25 points, most in league history, and three games by 50 or more, also a league record. They won their first 20 games at home and lost just four times all season in Boston. 

The domination didn’t stop in the postseason, where they lost just three games and piled up three wins by at least 20 points over the Mavericks in the Finals. Did these Celtics benefit from a an injured opposing superstar during every postseason round leading up to the Finals? Yes. But that’s a lazy argument against what was one hell of a team that could, and did, dominate you on both ends of the court. — Brad Botkin

11. San Antonio Spurs (2007)

• Regular-season record: 58-24
• Playoff record: 16-4
• Finals opponent: Cavaliers (4-0)

No. 2 in defense. No. 27 in pace. Yup, if you’re looking for the quintessential mid-2000s Spurs champion, this is probably the one you’re envisioning. By this point Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili were established All-Stars. Bruce Bowen was still making All-Defensive Teams. Tim Duncan was still in his prime. And, as was the case for so much of the 21st century, the Eastern Conference served up an underwhelming finalist. LeBron and the LeBronettes offered little resistance in a four-game San Antonio sweep that cemented San Antonio’s place as a dynasty with a third championship in five years (and fourth since the run began in 1999). — Sam Quinn

• Regular-season record: 68-14
• Playoff record: 16-7
• Finals opponent: Pacers (4-3)

OKC had one of the most dominant regular seasons in history, finishing with an NBA record plus-12.9 point differential by way of 63 wins by at least 10 points (NBA record), 40 wins by at least 15 points (NBA record), and 12 wins by at least 30 points (NBA record). 

Add in the 16 playoff victories, and OKC’s 84 total wins ranks second all-time among NBA champions, trailing only the 87 amassed by the 1996-97 Bulls. The defense was historic, as evidenced by the following numbers. 

• 18: OKC’s postseason turnovers created per game, the most since the 1996 Bulls (minimum 15 games)
• 16.4: OKC’s postseason steals+blocks per game, the most since the 1983 Lakers (minimum 15 games)
• 1,689: OKC’s total steals+blocks for regular and postseason combined, the most since the 1981-82 76ers (1,813)
• 10.7: OKC’s postseason steals per game, the most since the 1975 Warriors (minimum 15 games)
• 247: OKC’s total postseason steals, an NBA record
• 1,094: OKC’s total steals for regular and postseason combined, fifth most all-time
• 131: OKC’s total postseason turnover margin, an NBA record
• 62: OKC’s number of games (regular and postseason) with at least 10 steals, seventh most all-time
• 468: OKC’s total postseason deflections, 100 more than any team over the last decade
• 2.5: The Thunder defense finished 2.5 points per 100 possessions better than the next-best defense (Orlando was 109.1). That is the second-biggest gap over the last 25 seasons. Only the 2015-16 Spurs were better with their 98.2 defensive rating registering 2.6 points/100 possessions better than the 100.8 Atlanta Hawks. 

Pairing that kind of defense with an MVP offensive star in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is basically like putting the 2000 Ravens with prime Aaron Rodgers. All of this said, the Thunder weren’t consistently dominant enough on their postseason run to be counted among the greatest teams ever, as many of their numbers suggested they would be. 

They required a seventh game twice and might very well not even be on this list had Tyrese Haliburton not ruptured his Achilles in Game 7 of the Finals, where Indiana looked poised to give OKC everything it could handle. In the end, the ceiling wasn’t quite as high as we thought it might be for the Thunder. But the floor might’ve been one of the highest in history. This team’s worst night was better than a lot of teams’ best. — Brad Botkin

• Regular-season record: 58-24
• Playoff record: 16-8
• Finals opponent: Warriors (4-2)

A true one-hit wonder, the Raptors were a good team for a long time but never honest contenders with LeBron James in the way and no true superstar to lean on until Kawhi Leonard showed up.

This was not an all-time great team, but it was, make no mistake, a great team. Would they have won had Kevin Durant not torn his calf earlier in the playoffs, which caused him to miss the first four games of the Finals, before rupturing his Achilles early in Game 5? Probably not, but who knows. Did they get past the Sixers in the second round by way of a pinball game-winning shot that could’ve bounced four different ways? Absolutely. 

Nonetheless, these Raptors were stacked. In addition to Leonard, who arguably operated a higher peak level than anything Kobe Byrant every showcased in a postseason, they rolled out Kyle Lowry, Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, Marc Gasol, Serge Ibaka, Fred Van Vleet and Danny Green all in early, mid- or late-prime form and all playing at least 20 MPG, with Norman Powell at 15 MPG, in the playoffs. They were an elite defensive team that pressured you in ways as intense as they were innovative. People talk about this team as if Leonard pulled off a one-man show. Not even close to the case. These Raptors were extremely talented. — Brad Botkin

14. Los Angeles Lakers (2009)

• Regular-season record: 65-17
• Playoff record: 16-7
• Finals opponent: Magic (4-1)

This was Gasol’s first full season with the Lakers after the trade with Memphis that felt like such a deck-stacker that Gregg Popovich went so far as to call for a league investigation. Gasol, a supremely skilled seven-footer in perfect concert with the Triangle offense, was added to a team that had made the Finals the previous year and had Andre Bynum for a twin-tower lineup in support of Bryant. 

It added up to two straight titles, but this team, despite the 65 regular-season wins, didn’t face the same kind of competition that the 2010 title team did. These Lakers needed seven games to get through a Rockets team that only had Yao Ming for three games and started Luis Scola, Aaron Brooks, Shane Battier and Chuck Hayes, and Orlando, while very good and ahead of its time with the spaced-out offense around Howard, wasn’t exactly a juggernaut Finals opponent.

Any team led by prime Kobe Bryant and Gasol is a beast, as evidenced by the 65 wins, but when measuring the 2009 Lakers against the 2010 Lakers, I personally give the edge to the latter for the simple fact that winning a second straight title is always harder than the first, and it also came against a tougher opponent in the Celtics. But my colleagues see it differently.  — Brad Botkin

15. San Antonio Spurs (2003)

• Regular-season record: 60-22
• Playoff record: 16-8
• Finals opponent: Nets (4-2)

David Robinson was no longer David Robinson. Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili weren’t quite Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili. This was a Spurs team that happened to win a title midway through the transition from one era to the next. How did they do that? This was the absolute peak of Tim Duncan’s powers. 

Duncan followed up a regular-season MVP award with a postseason in which he averaged roughly 25 points, 15 rebounds, five assists and three blocks per game, culminating in his near quadruple-double in the championship-clinching Game 6 against the Nets. This wasn’t the best San Antonio team ever, but it was the best season any individual Spur has ever had. — Sam Quinn

16. Miami Heat (2012)

• Regular-season record: 46-20
• Playoff record: 16-7
• Finals opponent: Thunder (4-1)

LeBron’s first championship came a year later than expected, and it was much tougher sledding that the 4-1 win over the baby Thunder in the Finals would suggest on the surface. The Thunder won the first game of that series, and Kevin Durant missed a shot to tie Game 2 with less than 10 seconds to play. In fact, Games 2, 3 and 4 were all within three points or less with under 20 seconds to play. 

It’s not a knock on the Heat. It’s merely to point out that they were never quite as dominant as everyone thought they would be when LeBron started rattling of his infamous “not three, not four, not five …” ring claims. The Heat lost to Dallas in 2011, were beaten or taken to the brink in four of the five Finals games against OKC in 2012, got saved by a Ray Allen miracle in 2013, and got smoked by San Antonio in five in 2014. There is a realistic world in which the  Heat fail to win a single championship in the LeBron era. — Brad Botkin

17. Los Angeles Lakers (2010)

• Regular-season record: 57-25
• Playoff record: 16-7
• Finals opponent: Celtics (4-3)

Kobe Bryant won his second straight Finals MVP award despite shooting 6 for 24 in Game 7 against the Boston Celtics. That itself is a decent metaphor for the whole title run: Compared to the Lakers’ previous season, in which they won 65 regular-season games and beat the Magic in five games in the NBA Finals, this was something of a slog. 

Pau Gasol’s hamstring started acting up during the preseason. Andrew Bynum tore the lateral meniscus in his right knee in the first round of the playoffs (and kept playing). Metta World Peace (known as Ron Artest at the time) made a monumental 3-pointer in Game 7 and then delivered the best press conference in NBA history, which rendered his season-long difficulties on offense more or less forgotten.

That the Lakers successfully defended their 2009 title is a testament to their collective defense and rebounding. It is also, of course, a testament to the myriad problems that Bryant, Gasol and Lamar Odom posed for opponents throughout their time together. — James Herbert

• Regular-season record: 54-28
• Playoff record: 16-7
• Finals opponent: Lakers (4-1)

These Pistons are sometimes valorized for what they didn’t have. There was no traditional “superstar,” no one who averaged 18 or more points per game, no one who ever made an All-NBA First Team. They won the title despite finishing 19th in the league in offensive efficiency, despite having just drafted Darko Miličić (over Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade), and despite their lone All-Star being an undersized, un-drafted center who didn’t take jumpers and still shot 42% from the field. All of this makes for a tidy contrast to their Finals opponent, a Shaq- and Kobe-led Lakers team that added Karl Malone and Gary Payton the previous summer. 

This framing, however, shortchanges Detroit’s sheer talent. The 29-year-old Rasheed Wallace, acquired by the Pistons at the trade deadline, was worlds better than Malone and Payton at that stage of their respective careers. Chauncey Billups and Richard Hamilton were just beginning to establish themselves as a premier backcourt. Tayshaun Prince was about to join Ben Wallace as a perennial All-Defense guy. A couple of years later, four Pistons checked into the All-Star Game together. Hamilton will tell you that it should have been five. Back then, you didn’t need to play a particularly pretty style to reach the top, as long as you were one of the best defensive teams in the history of the sport. — James Herbert

19. Dallas Mavericks (2011)

• Regular-season record: 57-25
• Playoff record: 16-5
• Finals opponent: Heat (4-2)

In retrospect, it makes sense: Dallas surrounded Dirk Nowitzki with top-tier rim protection, reliable wing defenders and playmakers who complemented him perfectly. At the time, though, the Mavericks’ title run was a total shock. Even though they’d won 31 of their last 42 regular-season games (including 18 of 19 in a six-week stretch), they were considered much more likely to lose to the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round of the playoffs than go all the way.

Following a superhuman performance by Portland’s Brandon Roy in Game 4, that series was tied 2-2. Then Dallas won Games 5 and 6 against the Blazers, swept the Lakers, ousted the Thunder in five games and shocked the Heat — and the world — in six. 

Nothing about the Mavericks’ road to the title was easy. They had a knack for erasing big deficits and they were one of the most clutch teams in NBA history. They were old, they were kind of weird and they were dismantled in the offseason that followed, but they will be remembered as the overachievers that stymied LeBron James in the Finals, cementing their superstar’s legacy and forcing a superteam to evolve. — James Herbert

20. Los Angeles Lakers (2020)

• Regular-season record: 52-19
• Playoff record: 16-5
• Finals opponent: Heat (4-2)

You can argue all you want about how this title shouldn’t be viewed any differently than other but there’s just no getting around it: This is the Bubble Championship, forever and always. It’s different. There were no fans in the stands. They were playing basically in a high school gym, which undoubtedly aided in Anthony Davis morphing into Kevin Durant with a shooting stretch so much better than anything he’s ever put together at any other point of his career that calling it an outlier would be an understatement. No two players, let alone two teams, were in the same mental space during this stretch. The whole world was flipped upside down. 

That said, this Lakers team was a monster and likely would’ve won the title had it been played in Staples Center or on Mars (though the Bucks were actually the best team that year until they got Jimmy Butler’d in the playoffs). The Lakers won this title, primarily, with defense and size. Dwight Howard took over games for stretches on the offensive glass. Alex Caruso and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope were perimeter stoppers. Put these kinds of players around LeBron James with Davis shooting out of his mind and you’re not going to lose many basketball games. — Brad Botkin

• Regular-season record: 53-29
• Playoff record: 16-4
• Finals opponent: Heat (4-1)

Nikola Jokić has now put together five consecutive MVP-caliber seasons. To lead a team to a championship, though, even the best player on the planet needs the pieces to fall into place around him. Right in the middle of this run, it did: In the 2023 postseason, the Nuggets ran through the West with relative ease and took home the franchise’s first Larry O’Brien Trophy in a gentleman’s sweep. 

Playoff Jamal Murray was a superstar in his own right. Aaron Gordon was a monster on both ends. The starting lineup was an absolute juggernaut, and Denver’s defense meaningfully improved when it mattered. Compared to some champions, Denver didn’t have overwhelming depth, but, between sixth man Bruce Brown, veteran Jeff Green and rookie Christian Braun, they had enough.

In other words, Jokić can do it all, but the 2023 iteration of the Nuggets didn’t force him to do absolutely everything. Relative to his other recent seasons, Jokić’s usage and shot attempts were down, but he dished more assists than ever on a per-minute basis and had a career-high true shooting percentage of 70.1%. These numbers tell a straightforward story, and they might provide a template for Denver as it chases another championship. — James Herbert

22. Milwaukee Bucks (2021)

• Regular-season record: 46-26
• Playoff record: 16-7
• Finals opponent: Suns (4-2)

Kevin Durant’s foot will always be associated with this postseason; Milwaukee almost certainly would’ve been eliminated in the second round had KD’s toe not been on the line on the shot that tied the game — rather than putting Brooklyn up one — with one second on the clock in Game 7. That said, the Bucks prevailed in overtime, survived a legit test against Trae Young Young and the Hawks in the conference finals, and finally rattled off four straight wins after going down 0-2 in the Finals. 

This is a hard team to rank. The Bucks were stacked, no doubt, with Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton, Jrue Holiday and Brook Lopez all at the peak of their powers and excellent depth in Pat Connaughton, Donte DiVincenzo, Bobby Portis and P.J. Tucker (and don’t even think about forgetting Bryn Forbes). But they were fortunate, too. Durant’s foot was on the line, it was a shortened season, and this was also the year the 76ers imploded. Even still, the Hawks might’ve beaten them in the conference finals if Trae Young didn’t get hurt.

In the end, though, the Bucks proved to be the best team when they had to, with Giannis punctuating the title with a 50-point, 14-rebound, 5-block masterpiece in Game 6 of the Finals to finish off the Suns. All things in a vacuum, this is not a team that will be talked about as an all-time great one, and it wasn’t, but a defense led by Holiday on the perimeter and Lopez and Antetokounmpo at the rim, with prime Middleton as an elite half-court shotmaker is one hell of a squad and as such I rank it higher I think that most people would, and I say this as a long-time doubter of teams led by superstars who can’t shoot. — Brad Botkin

23. San Antonio Spurs (2005)

• Regular-season record: 59-23
• Playoff record: 16-7
• Finals opponent: Pistons (4-3)

Of San Antonio’s four 21st century championships, the 2005 squad was the only one to rank No. 1 on defense. There’s a bitter irony to that seeing as how the 2004 vintage of their 2005 Finals opponent, the Detroit Pistons, is widely regarded as one of the best defenses in NBA history. 

Yet the Spurs, playing in a harder conference, ranked higher on defense in both seasons, and they obviously won their Finals grudge match in seven games. It was the rock fight to end all rock fights: across those seven games, only Detroit in Game 4 ever reached 100 points. Both defenses lived up to their billing, but the Spurs, as they were in the regular season, were a hair better. — Sam Quinn

24. Miami Heat (2006)

• Regular-season record: 52-30
• Playoff record: 16-7
• Finals opponent: Mavericks (4-2)

This was Dwyane Wade’s official superstar coming-out party, and while Shaq was past his prime, he was still an All-NBA first teamer. This was end-of-career Gary Payton and Alonzo Mourning, as the Heat relied far more on the likes of Jason “White Chocolate” Williams, Udonis Haslem, James Posey and Antoine Walker. 

That’s a lot of big names, but this was an underdog team. This title qualified as something not too far from a world shocker (D-Wade might still be at the free-throw line) over a 60-win Dallas team that went up 2-0 in the Finals and had a 13-point fourth-quarter lead in Game 3. — Brad Botkin

25. Golden State Warriors (2022)

• Regular-season record: 53-29
• Playoff record: 16-6
• Finals opponent: Celtics (4-2)

This is probably the crowning achievement of Stephen Curry’s career. To win a title with Andrew Wiggins as, arguably, your second best player sets this ring apart from any that LeBron, Kobe or Duncan ever won. 

Golden State was not a great team in 2021-22. They were the league’s 16th ranked regular-season offense for crying out loud. As always, defense was their bedrock and Curry took matters into his own hands in the Finals, where he averaged 31 points, six boards, five assists and two steals on a 62.2 true-shooting percentage to win his first and only Finals MVP. — Brad Botkin