NBA Playoffs: Coldiron’s 5-Star Postseason Success Formula

2. Continuity

Historically, NBA Champions win with a core of at least four key players who have been playing together for at least three years. If you have more guys and/or more years, all the better. There is no way to measure the value of teammates knowing what each other will do because they have been playing together for so long. ‘Continuity’ is the thing that is able to somewhat explain this.

Of our 36 past NBA Champions, only four won without meeting this criteria. Those teams were the 80′ and 82′ Los Angeles Lakers (who had a couple of guys named Kareem and Magic) and the 2012 and 2013 Miami Heat (who had LeBron and friends. And even those two teams had continuity on their side outside of LeBron and Bosh).

This means SUPER DUPER UBER good news for our defending champion Golden State Warriors and the San Antonio Spurs. The Warriors have playing with the same few main guys for a few years now. As for the Spurs, Nobody comes close to them in terms of continuity, which is a major reason they own 15 of the last 15 NBA Championships.

Of the teams still remaining from Factor 1, Factor 2 eliminates a few more.

Oklahoma City is fairly strong in continuity on the court, but the fact that they have a first-year Head Coach running them is a major potential issue. For now, they stay on the list, but this could easily be their demise.

Houston, Indiana, Boston, Detroit, Charlotte and Portland – you do not have the continuity in your roster and franchise to be able to win a title.

This leaves us with the Warriors, Spurs, and Cavs as teams with any possibility, with the Thunder (continuity-coach) just barely hanging on.

Next: Factor 3