IF the warriors get knocked out in the playoffs...

CSquare43

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How often does a team that win the championship only face teams that are healthy?


When Derrick Rose’s knee injury ruined the spring of every Chicago fan, I tweeted that 2012 was suddenly an “asterisk title.” The more I’m thinking about it, “footnote title” makes more sense. A basketball season always features collateral damage, whether it’s injuries, lucky breaks or someone stupidly assaulting a fire extinguisher. Asterisks should be saved for fishier achievements like Bonds’s 73 homers, Roger Clemens’s last few Cy Youngs and Pia Zadora winning a Golden Globe. A “footnote title” respects the champion while also acknowledging that, “Look, SOMETHING funky happened and you can’t discuss that postseason in detail without mentioning that one funky thing.”


The Footnote Title


:salute:
 
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Tribal Outkast

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If they get knocked out of the playoffs that just mean it wasn’t meant to be:yeshrug: This is why people shouldn’t be too mad about KD going there though. shyt happens.. We will see what happens in the ‘offs.
 

Kairi Irving

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I hope they are eliminated early. Annoying ass team, time for the Rockets, Thunder or Blazers to come out the West
 

The God Poster

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I just wanted to try to get the air cleared if my Rockets actually pull this shyt off and the Warrior Stan’s come out the woodwork trying to place the asterisk on the chip :beli:
Ahhh okay. Another insecure Houston fan:ehh:
 

Professor Emeritus

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How often does a team that win the championship only face teams that are healthy?

I'd be interested to see how often teams are healthy by the end of the run too.

Jordan's Bulls had their top-8 healthy for the playoffs for all six of his Finals runs. There was like twice where a bench player missed 3-4 games in an early round, that was it. Even in the regular season they only had a few instances where a player missed any meaningful time at all (the only consequential one being 1998).

I don't think any of the five players in the Warriors' death lineup has missed more than 1 game in the WCF or Finals during any of their runs.

Meanwhile, the Clippers seem to always lose guys left and right, and Bron has had at least one or more top-5 players miss critical time in like half his deep runs.

Spurs are in-between - they usually seem to be healthy, but when someone gets hurt it's always critical (Duncan in 2000, Ginobli in 2008, TP/Kawhi in 2017). Thunder were the same, losing Westbrook in one big year and then Durant in the next, but making it through with a really healthy team in the other years.

Some teams just get a lot, lot luckier with injuries than other teams do.
 

jwinfield

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I'd be interested to see how often teams are healthy by the end of the run too.

Jordan's Bulls had their top-8 healthy for the playoffs for all six of his Finals runs. There was like twice where a bench player missed 3-4 games in an early round, that was it. Even in the regular season they only had a few instances where a player missed any meaningful time at all (the only consequential one being 1998).

I don't think any of the five players in the Warriors' death lineup has missed more than 1 game in the WCF or Finals during any of their runs.

Meanwhile, the Clippers seem to always lose guys left and right, and Bron has had at least one or more top-5 players miss critical time in like half his deep runs.

Spurs are in-between - they usually seem to be healthy, but when someone gets hurt it's always critical (Duncan in 2000, Ginobli in 2008, TP/Kawhi in 2017). Thunder were the same, losing Westbrook in one big year and then Durant in the next, but making it through with a really healthy team in the other years.

Some teams just get a lot, lot luckier with injuries than other teams do.
I don't mean injuries that the winning teams get, but the teams that they face.
 
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