Denver blew the chance to go back-to-back in the West. Will Dallas pull it off?
There used to be order in the Western Conference. Dynasties ruled with an iron fist, extending their runs for a minimum of two years, maybe even three. We saw the Los Angeles Lakers run Showtime to 8 Western Conference Finals berths in the 1980s. Can you imagine an entire decade where you pretty much knew who was gonna win the West?
Then in the 90s the Houston Rockets and Utah Jazz both took the West in back-to-back seasons, giving their hometown fans two years to enjoy being the best of the conference.
When the 2000s came, the Lakers took seven western conference crowns that spanned across the decade, with three conference championship three-peats sprinkled in. The Spurs sprinkled in a few West titles through that era before going back-to-back in the 2013 and 2014 seasons.
But none of that compared to the death grip the Warriors put on the conference from 2015-2019, when they won five straight conference finals. FIVE STRAIGHT! Talk about putting the conference in a head lock and ruining the dreams of players, coaches, organizations, and fanbases for over the length of a presidential term.
And then for good measure they came back in 2022 and won the West again to remind everyone who owns the West. But since then they’ve declined a bit, getting elimintaed in the second round last season and missing the playoffs altogether this season.
And in their absence, there’s been no consistency. We live in chaos now. First the Denver Nuggets won in ‘23 and appeared set to dominate the conference for the near future. Here’s a quote from an October Yahoo piece entitled “Hot Takes We Might Actually Believe: The Denver Nuggets are a budding dynasty”:
We do not discuss enough just how dominant the Denver Nuggets’ championship run was last season.
The Nuggets played a single Game 6, never faced a Game 7 and lost once in the last two rounds, finishing the playoffs with a 16-4 record and 8.7 net rating, both of which would have led the NBA by a wide margin in the regular season, and three of the four losses were one-possession games inside the final 30 seconds.
Since the playoffs expanded to four rounds in 1984, only seven other championship cores have won 80% of their postseason games: Larry Bird’s Boston Celtics (15-3, 1986), Magic Johnson’s Los Angeles Lakers (15-3, 1987), Isiah Thomas’ Detroit Pistons (15-2, 1989), Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls (15-2, 1991; 15-3, 1996), Tim Duncan’s San Antonio Spurs (15-2, 1999; 16-4, 2007), Shaquille O’Neal’s Lakers (15-1, 2001) and Stephen Curry’s Golden State Warriors (16-1, 2017). Detroit’s two titles are the fewest among those squads.
So, yeah, the Nuggets could absolutely be a dynasty in the making.
Budding dynasty, eh? Well those buds were thoroughly smoked as the Nuggets wheezed to a Game 7 collapse at home against the Minnesota Timberwolves, blowing a 20-point lead in the process.
Now the Dallas Mavericks have taken the West’s throne…will they hold on to it like the great teams before them? Or will they be yet another one hit wonder in the jukebox of the NBA’s greatest hits?