How would a repeat impact Celtics’ legacy? Here’s what NBA history says originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
The NBA is in an age of parity, which for this league is pretty rare.
The Boston Celtics won the 2024 NBA Finals back in June for their record 18th championship. They extended a streak of six consecutive seasons with a different champion. The last time we saw six seasons of different champions in pro basketball was 1975 through 1980.
The previous five champions before the Celtics didn’t even advance past the second round of the playoffs the following season.
Can the Celtics reverse that trend? If they do, they will join a special group of teams that have repeated as champions. There have been 13 instances in league history where a team won consecutive titles. It’s a remarkable achievement to win one title, but doing it in back-to-back years is a unique challenge, and it’s one that many phenomenal teams failed to overcome.
The San Antonio Spurs of Tim Duncan, David Robinson, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili won five titles from 1999 through 2014, but they never repeated. These Spurs teams will forever be viewed as iconic, but there’s no question their legacy would be enhanced even more had they won back-to-back rings at some point.
The Celtics of Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish in the 1980s went to the Finals five times and won three titles but never repeated, despite winning the Eastern Conference four consecutive seasons from 1983-84 through 1986-87. These Celtics teams were amazing, but the Los Angeles Lakers were the team of the 1980s after winning five championships, including back-to-back in 1986-87 and 1987-88.
The 2024-25 Celtics have an opportunity to go down as an all-time group if they repeat as champions, especially since they brought back nearly their entire roster from the first title.
And with the new CBA making it increasingly harder for high-spending teams to keep championship-caliber rosters intact long term, the days of repeat champions could be gone for a while. But the Celtics, based on the extraordinary depth and high-end talent on their roster, are better positioned to repeat than any of the previous five champs that all failed.
Which teams have repeated in recent NBA history, and how did achieving that impressive feat impact their legacies? Well, whenever anyone discusses the best teams of all time, most of the squads below are among the first mentioned.
2016-17 and 2017-18 Golden State Warriors
The Warriors officially became a dynasty when they won their second straight title and third in four years with a sweep of the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2018. Those two teams met four consecutive years in the Finals, with the Warriors winning in 2015, 2017 and 2018. The Cavs overcame a 3-1 deficit to win in 2016.
These Warriors teams were all-time greats. They added superstar forward Kevin Durant during free agency in the summer of 2016, and then he won back-to-back Finals MVP awards. Durant, Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green represent one of the best foursomes in league history.
After the Warriors repeated in 2018, it was impossible to talk about the greatest teams in league history without mentioning them. Without a repeat, these teams would rank a tier below where they currently stand.
2011-12 and 2012-13 Miami Heat
The Heat’s Big Three of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh faced more criticism, pressure and expectations than most teams in league history. They were villains after James and Bosh left the Cavaliers and Raptors, respectively, to join Wade in Miami as free agents in 2010. Much of the pressure was self-induced, especially after James said during a rally before their first season together that the Heat would win “not one, not two, not three …” titles.
After a disastrous 2011 Finals loss to Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks, the Heat beat the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2012 and the San Antonio Spurs in 2013 to claim back-to-back titles. The 2013 NBA Finals is iconic, mostly due to Game 6 and Ray Allen’s famous 3-pointer to force overtime. Miami won in Game 7 a few nights later.
These two titles were huge for the Heat’s legacy as an all-time team, but it was really James’ legacy that vaulted higher. After many years of playoff failures, James finally became a champion, and he won Finals MVP in both of the Heat’s victories.
Some people consider the James-Wade-Bosh Heat teams a disappointment because they won only two championships in four consecutive Finals appearances. That’s probably a little harsh. The Heat’s run was a little shorter than anticipated, but these teams had James at his apex, and that’s enough to be considered an all-time great squad.
2008-09 and 2009-10 Los Angeles Lakers
These two championships had a massive impact on Kobe Bryant’s legacy. The 2008-09 title wasn’t just Bryant’s fourth ring with the Lakers, it was his first without Shaquille O’Neal as his teammate. For the first time, Bryant guided the Lakers to a championship as the undisputed No. 1 player on the team. Critics could no longer claim that Bryant wasn’t able to win a title as the main superstar.
The 2009-10 championship was important for Bryant because he beat the Celtics. After losing to the Celtics in the 2008 NBA Finals, another defeat in the 2010 Finals would have been a tough knock against Bryant’s resume. But the Lakers prevailed in Game 7, even though Bryant struggled to score 23 points on 6-for-24 shooting.
1999-00, 2000-01, 2001-02 Los Angeles Lakers
By the time the new millenium rolled around, it was finally the Lakers’ turn to run the league. Michael Jordan had retired. The Utah Jazz were old. The Houston Rockets were old. Many great players from the 1990s — including Patrick Ewing, Anfernee Hardaway, Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp, David Robinson, etc. — were all past their primes and/or dealt with injuries.
After three embarrassing playoff exits in 1997, 1998 and 1999, the Lakers finally broke through in 2000 when Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant won their first of three straight titles together. They became the first team since the 1960s Celtics to win three straight championships, and no team has done it since.
The Lakers were never tested in these three NBA Finals with a 12-3 record in those series, including a 4-0 sweep of the New Jersey Nets in 2002. The 2000-01 Lakers went 15-1 en route to a title. Only two other teams in league history have won the Finals with only one playoff loss (2016-17 Warriors went 16-1, 1982-83 76ers went 12-1).
These Lakers teams are iconic. Winning three titles in a row pushed their legacy to a stratosphere very few teams have seen. And they didn’t just win these Finals. They absolutely dominated opponents.
1990-91, 1991-92, 1992-93 and 1995-96, 1996-97, 1997-98 Chicago Bulls
There’s no better example for how winning consecutive titles boosts your legacy than the 1990s Chicago Bulls.
They are one of only two franchises to win three straight titles multiple times. And if Michael Jordan didn’t retire after the first three-peat, the Bulls might have won eight championships in a row.
Many people consider these Bulls teams as the best of all time, particularly the 1995-96 squad that won 72 regular season games and then dominated the playoffs.
These titles enhanced Jordan’s legacy in a massive way, too. Before winning his first title in 1991, Jordan was viewed by many people as a great player but not someone who would make his teammates better and lift them to a championship level. Not only did he shatter that narrative, but by winning three titles in a row he accomplished something that Larry Bird and Magic Johnson before him had never done.
These Bulls teams didn’t just win six titles in eight years, they never once faced elimination in the NBA Finals. In fact, they never trailed 2-1 in any Finals series. It was a historic run that almost certainly will never be replicated.
1993-94 and 1994-95 Houston Rockets
When you look at all of the teams that have repeated as champions over the last 40 years, the Rockets of the mid-1990s probably garner the least amount of respect, attention and admiration.
Some of that might be because the Chicago Bulls won three straight titles on either end of the Rockets’ back-to-back championships, and Michael Jordan wasn’t in the league when Houston won its first title in 1994.
Even if winning two straight championships didn’t vault the Rockets into the pantheon of the sport’s greatest teams, it definitely helped the legacies of Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler. Olajuwon won his first ring in 1994 when he also won league MVP and Finals MVP.
Drexler won his first ring in 1995 after the Rockets acquired him in a trade in the middle of the season. Drexler was one of those great-player-but-no-ring stars of the 1980s and 1990s, but joining Houston helped erase his name from that list.
1988-89 and 1989-90 Detroit Pistons
When people think of the NBA in the 1980s they remember the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers. When they think of the NBA in the 1990s, the Chicago Bulls come to mind. People often forget that for a two-year span in between two golden eras of basketball, the “Bad Boys” Detroit Pistons beat all three of those teams on their way to back-to-back championships.
The Pistons beat the Celtics and the Bulls in the Eastern Conference playoffs before sweeping the Lakers in the 1989 NBA Finals, avenging their Game 7 defeat to Los Angeles the year before. They needed a Game 7 to dispatch Michael Jordan’s Bulls in the 1990 Eastern Conference Finals before eliminating the Portland Trail Blazers in five games in the Finals.
These Pistons teams don’t get the respect they deserve. They were historically elite teams, particularly on the defensive end of the floor with Joe Dumars and Dennis Rodman locking down opponents nightly. Isiah Thomas is one of the top three point guards in league history, and Mark Aguire was an elite scorer. Vinnie Johnson was one of the best sixth men of his era.
Detroit played a very tough, physical brand of basketball — one that made them among the most disliked teams in recent memory. But that shouldn’t take away from the fact that the 1989 and 1990 Pistons were among the best of all time.
1986-87 and 1987-88 Los Angeles Lakers
When the Lakers won their fourth championship of the decade in 1987, head coach Pat Riley decided to motivate his group for the following season by guaranteeing at the championship parade, “Next year, we’re gonna win it again.”
The Lakers’ previous three titles were followed by disappointing playoff defeats. Riley was hoping to change that, and he did. It didn’t come easy, though, the Lakers needed three Game 7s to beat the Utah Jazz in the conference semifinals, the Dallas Mavericks in the conference finals and the Detroit Pistons in the NBA Finals. The 1988 Mavericks and Pistons rank among the best teams never to win a title.
The Lakers repeating was a huge deal at the time. It hadn’t happened since the Bill Russell-led Celtics in 1967-68 and 1968-69. The Lakers of the 1980s were already iconic, but winning back-to-back titles did launch the franchise, and players such as Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, into a different stratosphere.
