Worst Team to Win a Championship

No, he had the right Rockets team. How are you going to knock a team that beat four 60-win teams en route to the title? It's very possible the Knicks beat the '94 Rockets if John Starks didn't think he was the second coming of Ray Allen.

 

Well there is the fact that 95 Rockets are the lowest seed ever to win an NBA title--only won 47 regular season games, finished third in their division, and were only a 6th seed in the West.

Conversely, the 94 team finished 1st in their division, won 58 regular season games, and were a 2 seed in the playoffs.

I'll concede the 95 team certainly peaked at the right time--they played fantastic in the playoffs and looked nothing like the same team that had struggled earlier in the regular season. But I assumed the thread topic was meant to take into account the entire season, and not just the post-season. And the fact is that team had about the weakest regular season of any NBA champ ever.

 

http://espn.go.com/page2/s/list/readers/champions/worst.html

Amazing to see two things with the #1 choice. The first is how wrong many were about his chances of future success and the second is how much undeserved credit he now gets for that title.

 

I was going with 2000 Ravens, but damn that defense wins championships thing gets me every time. Baltimore gave up only 970 rushing yards (60.6 per game) all year, folks. But TRENT F-ING DILFER...How in God's name did they ever score?

'98 Tennessee is a BS argument. Other than Stoerner's fumble, ya got nothing. The PI call was as close as the OSU/Miami no-call. Could've gone either way. But 2009 Bama had to block 2 FGs and have Lincoln miss another to beat Tennessee. Luck happens in championship seasons.

I would have to say the worst team I've ever seen win a title is the Tampa Bay. They were an okay defense, but Brad Johnson is a SB winning QB now. Come on!

 

1985 Royals [bitterJaysfanboilooser]

(Actually surprised some Cardinals fan didn't beat me to it.)

 

College football: 1984 BYU.
Baseball: 2011 Cardinals
Football: The current champs would be in the conversation.
Basketball: Maybe one of the Rockets teams in the 1990s.
College basketball: 1985 Villanova

 

The 2007 Giants had the worst point differential for a SB champion. Didn't dominate any of their final three postseason games.

The 2006 Colts were one of the weakest editions they had during their run.

The 2001 Patriots weren't excellent at any single thing. Beat the best teams still left in the postseason.

Same for the 1980 Raiders. They didn't make the playoffs the year before or after.

 

Not to mention, Maryland made the Final Four in 2001 before winning it all the next year. Their biggest stumbling block was Duke. That was an incredible rivalry those teams had in 2001-02. If it weren't for Duke, it's not a stretch to say Maryland might have won back-to-back titles.

 

While I understand that they were fortunate to get into the playoffs, I can't put them in this category for the mere fact they had more than a dozen players (including some key ones) on IR. Can't consider them one of the worst for overcoming that.

And that they only trailed in one playoff game (first half vs. Atlanta) before blowing the doors open.

 

1988 Kansas did have the national player of the year in Danny Manning, and one thing that's lost about that Kansas team is they didn't sneak into the tournament and suddenly catch fire. Kansas won 15 of its last 18 games that season. The only losses in that stretch were to Oklahoma (finalist), Duke (Final Four) and Kansas State (Elite Eight).

Kansas had a plethora of injuries/suspensions that year. Before a lot of those, Kansas was expected to be one of the nation's best teams. I believe they were preseason No. 7 in the AP poll.

 

Bobby Plump's 1954 Milan High team.

 

I believe Sports Illustrated actually picked KU to win it preseason after Manning decided to come back. Like you said, there were lots of injuries and other issues that led to a bad stretch in the middle of the season, but that team finished strong and avenged all three of those losses you mentioned in the tournament.

But there wasn't a ton of depth of talent outside of Manning. Danny was the only player who had much more than a cup of coffee in the NBA. Interesting to note that three players on the roster wound up working in NBA front offices if you count Mark Randall, who was a medical redshirt that year.

Since the '85 Royals were mentioned, how about teams that won a title, but weren't as good as others that failed from that franchise/school from the same era?