Latrinsorm
12-30-2013, 09:53 PM
basketball-reference.com has records of Finals starters going back to 1985. In that time, there have been 8 teams to reach 3 Finals in a row: Heat, Lakers, Lakers, Bulls, Bulls, Pistons, Lakers, Celtics (a stretch of 4, but 1984 is prehistory for the purpose of this exercise). The differences in turnover struck me as interesting:
85-87 Celtics
Bird, DJ, McHale, Parish, Ainge started all Finals games all 3 years.
87-89 Lakers
Worthy, Kareem, AC Green all
Magic missed 1 game in 89
Byron Scott started the first two, Michael Cooper the last
88-90 Pistons
Isiah, Dumars, Laimbeer all
Mahorn two, Edwards one
Dantley one, Aguirre 1.6, Rodman the other two games
91-93 Bulls
Jordan, Pippen, Grant, Cartwright all
Paxson two, BJ Armstrong one
96-98 Bulls
Jordan, Pippen, Longley all
Harper all but 2 games
Rodman two, Kukoc one and the other 2 games
00-02 Lakers
Shaq the only Laker to start all games
Kobe missed 1 game in 2000
Harper one, Fisher two
AC Green(!!!) one, Fox two
Glen Rice, Horace Grant, Robert Horry
08-10 Lakers
Kobe, Pau, Fisher all
Odom one, Bynum two
Vlad Rad, Ariza, Metta World Peace
11-13 Heat
LeBron and Wade all
Bosh missed 1 game in 2012
Haslem that game and 3 more in 2013, Miller the other 4 in 2013, Battier, Anthony
Bibby one, Chalmers two
Not counting guys who started 1 game, the number of starts used in each run of Finals were:
Celtics - 5
Lakers - 6
Pistons - 8
Bulls - 6
Bulls - 6
Lakers - 9
Lakers - 8
Heat - 9
The Heat have been running a LeBron/Wade/Bosh/Battier/Chalmers starting lineup this year for the most part, and while those starts have been disproportionately successful (11-2 vs. 12-5), Battier has looked pretty bad. It's totally plausible that if the Heat make it back to the Finals they could put someone else in Battier's place, and they have a wide variety of options depending on the West opponent: Allen? Andersen? Beasley? Cole???
Like I said, the starts only go back to 1985, so there's no way to be sure who the starters were for the last 4-Finals teams (82-85 Lakers and 84-87 Celtics), but my guess is...
Magic
Kareem
Worthy/Rambis
Wilkes/Cooper
Nixon/Scott
...8 for the Lakers and...
Bird
DJ
McHale
Parish
Ainge/Maxwell
...6 for the Celtics.
85-87 Celtics
Bird, DJ, McHale, Parish, Ainge started all Finals games all 3 years.
87-89 Lakers
Worthy, Kareem, AC Green all
Magic missed 1 game in 89
Byron Scott started the first two, Michael Cooper the last
88-90 Pistons
Isiah, Dumars, Laimbeer all
Mahorn two, Edwards one
Dantley one, Aguirre 1.6, Rodman the other two games
91-93 Bulls
Jordan, Pippen, Grant, Cartwright all
Paxson two, BJ Armstrong one
96-98 Bulls
Jordan, Pippen, Longley all
Harper all but 2 games
Rodman two, Kukoc one and the other 2 games
00-02 Lakers
Shaq the only Laker to start all games
Kobe missed 1 game in 2000
Harper one, Fisher two
AC Green(!!!) one, Fox two
Glen Rice, Horace Grant, Robert Horry
08-10 Lakers
Kobe, Pau, Fisher all
Odom one, Bynum two
Vlad Rad, Ariza, Metta World Peace
11-13 Heat
LeBron and Wade all
Bosh missed 1 game in 2012
Haslem that game and 3 more in 2013, Miller the other 4 in 2013, Battier, Anthony
Bibby one, Chalmers two
Not counting guys who started 1 game, the number of starts used in each run of Finals were:
Celtics - 5
Lakers - 6
Pistons - 8
Bulls - 6
Bulls - 6
Lakers - 9
Lakers - 8
Heat - 9
The Heat have been running a LeBron/Wade/Bosh/Battier/Chalmers starting lineup this year for the most part, and while those starts have been disproportionately successful (11-2 vs. 12-5), Battier has looked pretty bad. It's totally plausible that if the Heat make it back to the Finals they could put someone else in Battier's place, and they have a wide variety of options depending on the West opponent: Allen? Andersen? Beasley? Cole???
Like I said, the starts only go back to 1985, so there's no way to be sure who the starters were for the last 4-Finals teams (82-85 Lakers and 84-87 Celtics), but my guess is...
Magic
Kareem
Worthy/Rambis
Wilkes/Cooper
Nixon/Scott
...8 for the Lakers and...
Bird
DJ
McHale
Parish
Ainge/Maxwell
...6 for the Celtics.