Ranking the Most Dominant Dynasties in NBA History | News, Scores, Highlights, Stats, and Rumors

Championships: 6
Finals: 6
Elite Years: 6
Average Wins: 64.7
Average League Size: 28.0

The Chicago Bulls dynasty, led by Jordan, is still more impressive to me than the Boston Celtics run. And I can hear you shouting through space and time over the Internet, “Didn’t you just say the Celtics had the greatest stretch in the history of the world?! Bill Russell had almost twice as many rings, how can you give it to the Bulls?!”

Just bear with me a moment, and I will explain.

Awarding it to Russell’s Celtics based on rings assumes all other things are equal. They aren’t.

There are three massive differences between the league that Jordan dominated and the one Russell did.

First, the size of the league when the Celtics were winning was significantly smaller. The average league size while Bill Russell played was 9.2 seasons. Under Jordan it was 28. Statistically speaking, Russell had slightly less than twice as many rings, but it was three times easier to win one.

Second, the league the Bulls dominated was vastly different in terms of quality. I remember watching an interview with Russell on NBA TV where he told a story about how he defied convention by jumping to challenge shots. At the time, he explained, it was considered bad defense.

Players were not as well-trained or well-compensated (which ties into not having to work offseason jobs and develop during the offseason).

The NBA wasn’t a league like it is today. It was emerging from a fledgling league to a major sport, but it was still 20 years off from even having the Finals broadcast live.

By contrast, Jordan’s Bulls played in six of the 10 highest-rated Finals in history, including the four highest-rated. While that doesn’t directly mean something about quality, it means a lot indirectly. All that means a lot more money, and that means a lot more is put into training, training facilities, player development, etc.

In summary, Jordan played in a major league, while the Celtics of the '60s were in something closer to a minor league by contemporary standards.

Third, the Celtics didn’t have to deal with free agency and player movement. That Boston had 71.2 percent of their minutes played by Hall of Famers is phenomenal, but there’s no way that an NBA franchise can carry eight Hall of Fame players in their prime right now.

Free agency is a challenge the Celtics never had to worry about. And while you can argue that the same applied to every team, it’s an argument that actually works against the Celtics. It means a static league, where the worst teams remain the worst and the best teams remain the best.

Fourth, the playoffs were much a shorter run for the Celtics. They had to go through two or three teams (depending on the year) to win the title. The Bulls had to go through four.

Yet in spite of all their challenges, the Bulls' dominance over the league was greater than Boston’s. The Celtics averaged 57.8 wins per season during their dynastic run. The Bulls averaged 64.7 (best of any dynasty). The Celtics were 96-51 (.653) in the postseason when they won their 11 titles. The Bulls were 90-26 (.776, also, the best of any dynasty, based on original research) winning theirs.

The Celtics may have won almost twice as many championships as the Bulls, but even if everything is equal, it was three times as hard to win in the Bulls era, and all things were not equal. In spite of that, the Bulls were even more dominant. That’s why I have them ranked No. 1.

Stats are courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com, unless noted otherwise.