Best team that didn't win the title?

[secund2nun]

Easily the 2011 Heat.

Not even close. They had no center, no chemistry because it was their first season together, and had no depth and had garbage starting outside of the big 3 like big z and bibby. To reach the finals in their first year was impressive.

2004 LA easily.

[jlip]

'69, '84 Lakers, 85 Celtics, '88 Pistons are a few NBA Finalists in the conversation.

There are several teams that lost in the Conference Finals to eventual champions who factor into this equation also.

[CelticBaller]

2000 trailblazers

[SamuraiSWISH]

2000 trailblazers

No.

Not when your best player is 36, and never could or had the ability to close out basketball games.

See why they gave up that huge lead in LA. No alpha closer to be seen.

[jlip]

No.

Not when your best player is 36, and never could or had the ability to close out basketball games.

See why they gave up that huge lead in LA. No alpha closer to be seen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Llgnf6gY_gM#t=8m0s

[Young X]

1989 Lakers

[embersyc]

1988 Pistons.

[Haymaker]

2011 Heat.

3 top ten players in their prime couldn't get it done.

Still have vivid nightmares about that series and the way LeBron crumbled. Shit traumatized me.

This

[Le Shaqtus]

Jameer wanted to fight me because I made fun of his hentai.

I'm past that, all I've been focused on is the NBA Season, Chandler Pasons, and the Houston Rockets.

Jameer don't have time for fools like you

[D.J.]

'96 Sonics. 64-18 with DPOY Payton, double-double Kemp, Hawkins, Schrempf, Sam Perkins. Filthy team. George Karl should have put Payton on MJ from the very beginning. They won 2 of the 3 games Payton guarded Jordan for the entire game.

[BoutPractice]

Reading the thread title I instantly thought of the 1988 Pistons. I didn't watch basketball at the time but I did watch several games and they came incredibly close playing against a stacked team.

As for teams I watched at the time... the 00 Blazers, 02 Kings, 05 Pistons, 10 Celtics and 13 Spurs. Ironically, the 06 Mavs don't belong on that list even though they should have won the championship and probably would've won that series 8/10 times. I don't count teams like the 04 Lakers and 11 Heat either because they had obvious chemistry issues, I judge teams by how they are actually playing.

[no pun intended]

[Odinn]

Since I started to watch...

2000 Blazers
2002 Kings
2004 Lakers
2005 Pistons
2005 Heat (they were even better than 2011 Heat)
2009 Celtics
2011 Heat

Actually 2004 Lakers weren't on par with the other listed ones. The names they had deserves to be remembered. Otherwise their game wasn't that special.

But the correct answer would be a team from the '80s probably. I've watched almost every Finals games in the '80s but it wouldn't be reliable if I have an opinion about them based on just one series.

[qrich]

BJax, Hedo, Brad all off the bench as well

[KyleKong]