For those of us who have grown weary of the Golden State Warriors’ dominance over the past four NBA seasons, there are some folks who were around during the Boston Celtics’ unbelievable run of 11 championships in 13 seasons from 1957 through 1969 — in addition to current fans of the Golden State Warriors — who will gladly tell us to get over it. For reasons having everything to do with player movement, that type of run will never happen again, but NBA titles have still been concentrated largely in the hands of a few successful franchises. The Celtics’ and Lakers’ franchises have combined to win nearly half (33) of the league’s 72 championships, including 16 of the first 23 titles from the NBA’s inaugural 1946-47 season through 1969.
Then the 1970s happened.
WHAT’S GOING ON?
Marvin Gaye’s 1971 hit entitled “What’s Going On?” would have been the perfect theme music for the NBA in the 1970s.
The 1970s saw five NBA franchises win their first NBA titles: The New York Knicks (1970 and 1973), Milwaukee Bucks (1971), Portland Trailblazers (1977), Washington Bullets (1978) and Seattle Supersonics (1979). Not surprisingly, experienced hands like the Lakers (1972), Celtics (1974 and 1976) and Warriors (1975) were all too happy to fill in the gaps left open by the newcomers during that decade.
None of the five first-time winners in the 1970s have managed to win an NBA championship since.
For some reason, the decade of the 1970s was not considered the best of times for the NBA. Game attendance was poor. Television ratings were low. Stars of the 1960s like Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, Elgin Baylor and Wilt Chamberlain were nearing the end of their careers. Other stars like Tiny Archibald weren’t featured. But there was still good basketball being played and plenty of young talent ready to move in and pick up the slack, only enhanced by the NBA/ABA merger. But in the minds of many, players like Magic Johnson and Larry Bird came along just in the nick of time at the end of the decade.
THE 1970 AND 1973 NEW YORK KNICKS
The Knicks, led by Walt Frazier and Willis Reed, were considered one of the more cerebral units (they even had a Rhodes Scholar in Bill Bradley) and won two titles on the strength of crisp ball movement, balanced scoring and a smothering half-court defense. They were already a strong unit when they won the title in 1970, then they added Earl Monroe –who can lay claim to having made one of the bigger sacrifices in league history by blending seamlessly into a winning team and co-existing in the backcourt with Frazier — before winning the second title in 1973.
The Knicks had another successful run during the Patrick Ewing era with several deep playoff runs and two more trips to the Finals, but that unfortunately coincided with the Michael Jordan/Larry Bird years, and the 21st century has brought mostly grief to the fan base.
THE 1971 MILWAUKEE BUCKS
The Milwaukee Bucks added Oscar Robertson, who still had some game left, to a roster that included second-year player Lew Alcindor and the very underappreciated Bob Dandridge, and they led the Milwaukee Bucks to an NBA championship in 1971 in just the franchise’s third year of existence. They would advance to the Finals again in 1974.
Other than some strong finishes during the Don Nelson/Marques Johnson/Sidney Moncrief era, the Bucks haven’t been a serious contender since and have only advanced past the Eastern Conference semis once in 20 years.
THE 1977 PORTLAND TRAILBLAZERS
The Portland Trailblazers capitalized on the many talents of a healthy Bill Walton and a perfect complement in Maurice Lucas, fresh from a stint in the ABA to an unlikely NBA title in 1977, the franchise’s seventh season of existence. Their finals opponent, the Philadelphia 76ers, were clearly superior in terms of individual talent (Julius Erving, George McGinnis, Doug Collins, etc.), and also held a 2-0 lead in the series. But the Blazers confounded the Sixers with ball and player movement while winning the next four games with players — aside from Walton and Lucas — only a diehard would recognize outside of Portland.
The Blazers began the following campaign by winning 50 of their first 60 games before Walton’s injury problem’s kicked in. They went to the Finals twice in the 1990s with Clyde Drexler and others, but have largely been a one-round playoff participant since.
THE 1978 WASHINGON BULLETS
The Washington Bullets aren’t the same franchise as the Baltimore Bullets who won the NBA title in 1948. These guys rode the broad shoulders of Wes Unseld and Elvin Hayes, along with the aforementioned Bob Dandridge and others to a seven-game victory over Seattle in the 1978 NBA Finals. This was their one victory in four NBA Finals appearances in the 1970s, and they would return the very next year.
Since then, the Washington Wizards (as they are now called) have been mostly playoff spectators or first-round victims, though they have made some deeper playoff runs during the current era led by John Wall and Bradley Beal. The 1979 squad that lost to Seattle in the NBA Finals was the last Washington squad to win at least 50 games during the regular season.
THE 1979 SEATTLE SUPERSONICS
The Seattle Supersonics appeared in two straight NBA Finals as opponents of the Washington Bullets and won the whole thing in 1979 in five games. The franchise’s 40-year run in Seattle — one of the great U.S. cities — came to a close after the 2007-2008 season when an arena dispute resulted in the team’s relocation to Oklahoma City. The last few years in Seattle were barren, but the Sonics were otherwise consistent playoff participants and, led by Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp, earned another trip to the Finals in 1996, where they lost to you-know-who.
After their relocation, the Oklahoma City Thunder, led by Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, reached the Finals once in 2012 and probably should have gone again in 2016 before losing to Golden State in the Western Conference Finals. And they’ve managed to remain competitive after Durant’s departure at the end of the 2015-16 campaign.
IF TWO SMALL MARKET TEAMS MEET IN THE NBA FINALS AND NO ONE WATCHES…
Other than the Knicks, these champions of the 1970s were each located in smaller markets. The league has done a much better job of marketing its star players, so a Finals matchup between two teams from smaller television markets wouldn’t necessarily become a ratings disaster. Back then, a Washington – Seattle Finals pairing wasn’t exactly ideal, but folks weren’t flocking to their sets to watch anyway, as evidenced by a) the starting times of some of the games and b) the tape-delayed broadcasts, even in the championship round.
WAIT, WHAT WAS THE SALARY CAP FOR AGAIN?
Ironically, the NBA instituted its salary cap just a few years after all these “smaller” teams won titles, with the idea of “leveling the financial playing field” for teams in markets large and small. Immediately after we saw dominance from teams like the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers, while the San Antonio Spurs — with all their international players — were a small-market team in name only.
Fortunately, market size is probably not as much of an issue as it used to be; the best players, with more control over their landing spots, will select locations based on certain criteria, like climate, state tax structure, stability of ownership, and which top players are already locked in. So a place like Miami, though not considered a large market, still has an advantage over others with its climate, beaches, and no state tax.
LOOKING AHEAD
The way things are shaping up, we’re probably looking at yet another stretch of dominance from teams whose names we recognize based on past accomplishments, like the Celtics, Lakers, Sixers, etc., while the teams in “less desirable” locations struggle to hold onto their rising superstars. What we saw in the 1970s was an aberration.
We’ll likely never see it again.
