The best NBA team ever
Are the Golden State Warriors, who wrapped up their second title in three seasons Monday, June 12, the greatest basketball team of all time?
Last year they posted the best regular season record in NBA history (73-9), and this year the team roared through the playoffs — winning 16 games, losing just one.
But how would they stack up against the other top candidate for G.O.A.T. (greatest of all time), the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls team that Michael Jordan led to a 72-10 record and a title?
Last week, ESPN asked several Las Vegas bookmakers how the odds would stack up if today’s Warriors played that Bulls team of yesteryear. Five of six had the Warriors as the favorites with the spread ranging from two to eight points. One bookmaker said it would be pick ’em.
Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook oddsmaker Jeff Sherman set the line for a game played on a neutral court (no home advantage) at Golden State -6.5 points. He had a series price of Chicago +300 and Golden State -360 (that means you’d have to bet $360 on Golden State to win just $100).
“It’s a different era now, and today’s game is played at a pace unlike (that of ) the 1990s,” Sherman told ESPN. “Players are bigger, faster and stronger than back then.”
The bookmakers’ tilt toward the Warriors differs from the result forecast a year ago by computers at a site called PredictionMachine.com, a sports forecasting service that advises gamblers. PredictionMachine ran 50,000 simulations of virtual games played between the 2015-16 Warriors and the 1995-96 Bulls, and the Bulls won 63.8 percent.
So whom should we trust, a computer or a few oddsmakers? I side with the oddsmakers; their livelihoods depend on getting sports betting lines right, and athletes keep improving. Today’s players really have advanced to a level well above their predecessors, so it’s probable that not only the Warriors but also the Cleveland Cavaliers would beat the mid’90s Bulls.
When Jordan rose to fame, there had never been a player with his talent — and today you could say the same about Stephen Curry, LeBron James and this year’s Finals MVP, Kevin Durant.
When asked last week if Golden State could beat the outstanding NBA teams of past eras, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr satirically said of other great teams: “They would all kill us. The game gets worse as time goes on. Players are less talented than they used to be. The guys in the ’50s would’ve destroyed everybody.”
Kerr played on that Bulls team with Jordan, but admits as good as they were, he knows they wouldn’t have much of a chance against these Warriors.
The Warriors are listed as -200 to win next year’s championship (bet $200 to win $100), a historic price. “They’re going to be the highest favorite we’ve ever had going into a season, any team in any sport,” Sherman said.