Greatest NBA single-season teams

1995-96 Bulls (72-10)▲ Rising

Michael Jordan's revenge tour after baseball and the Pistons-induced heartbreaks produced the winningest record basketball had ever seen, capped by a Finals MVP run and Jordan collapsing in tears on Father's Day clutching the trophy. Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman gave it teeth, but this was fundamentally one man's fury turned into a 72-win statement that still defines the ceiling for regular-season dominance.

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2015-16 Warriors (73-9)▲ Rising

Steph Curry turned basketball into a video game, jacking threes from the logo and hitting the shot in OKC that broke the internet, all en route to breaking Chicago's hallowed 72-win mark. The story's tragic twist — blowing a 3-1 Finals lead to LeBron and the Cavs — is exactly why this team is debated so fiercely: unmatched regular-season greatness undercut by the one thing that matters most.

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1985-86 Celtics▲ Rising

Bird, McHale, and Parish anchored maybe the deepest starting five ever assembled, going 40-1 at the Garden and steamrolling to a title many consider the platonic ideal of team basketball. Bill Walton coming off the bench as Sixth Man of the Year on a 67-win juggernaut is the detail that seals it — this wasn't just talent, it was surplus talent stacked on genius.

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1986-87 Lakers▲ Rising

Magic Johnson's junior-junior skyhook over the outstretched arms of Boston's front line in Game 4 of the Finals is the signature freeze-frame of Showtime basketball reaching its peak. Kareem, Worthy, and a young Byron Scott surrounded Magic's MVP brilliance, and the Lakers' 65-win, title-winning campaign remains the gold standard for stylish, fast-break dominance.

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2016-17 Warriors

The superteam experiment — adding Kevin Durant to a 73-win core after the most infamous collapse in Finals history — produced a 16-1 playoff run that felt less like competition and more like a coronation. Durant's Finals MVP and the sheer, almost unfair combination of four All-Stars make this the answer to 'what happens when a dynasty gets angry and adds a top-five player.'

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1970-71 Bucks▼ Falling

A 25-year-old Lew Alcindor, freshly renamed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, paired with a aging-but-still-brilliant Oscar Robertson to produce a 66-win wrecking crew that swept the Finals and lost only two games total in the playoffs. It's the most criminally underrated great season in league history, a blueprint for pairing a generational big man with a genius orchestrator that gets buried by era and lack of footage.

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1982-83 76ers

Moses Malone's famous prediction — 'Fo', Fo', Fo'' — nearly came true as Philadelphia steamrolled through the playoffs 12-1, validating one of the most lopsided trades in NBA history that brought Moses in to pair with Julius Erving. This team's brutal, physical dominance and shocking Finals sweep of the Lakers stands as the answer for anyone who thinks talent alone wins titles — sometimes you just need one unstoppable force in the middle.

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2012-13 Heat▼ Falling

LeBron James's transformation into an unguardable, title-repeating force peaked with the Ray Allen corner three in Game 6 that saved the season and sent the Heat to a second straight championship, part of a 27-game win streak that remains one of the sport's great sustained runs. This is the era when LeBron shut every criticism up at once, and the Heatles' back-to-back title run cements their place among the era's defining teams.

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