Ranking all 24 NBA Finals series of 21st Century (2024)

We're only one day away from the start of the 2024 NBA Finals, a highly-anticipated showdown between the Boston Celtics and the Dallas Mavericks. In celebration of this, the 25th NBA Finals series since the turn of the century, I took it upon myself to take a look at the previous twenty-four and develop a pseudo-scientific algorithm to rank each and every one of them.

So, what exactly is this pseudo-scientific algorithm and how does it work? Hey, I'm glad you asked!

I came up with four categories, and in each of the four categories, the NBA Finals series in question will be graded on a 1-10 scale. After all 24 Finals series' were graded, they were ranked from 24 to 1, with the total grade in parentheses next to the matchup. Those four categories are as follows:

Star Power:How many high quality, Hall of Fame caliber players were featured in the series? Were they at the peak of their powers? How did they perform in the NBA Finals?

Overall Competitiveness:How tight was the series? Was it a sweep or did it go to a Game 7? Were the games blowouts, or did they go down to the wire?

Historical Stakes:Going into the series, what were the stakesbeyondthe Larry O'Brien Trophy? Was it a legacy-defining Finals for a player or a team?

Iconic Games/Moments:When the NBA makes their intro packages for the NBA Finals, how many moments from the series are likely to be included? How many “Instant Classic” games were there?

In addition to those four categories, I also established a tie-breaker category — Aesthetic Appeal — which considers Style of Play, Announcers, Crowds, and all of the miscellaneous stuff that makes up an NBA Finals broadcast. And yes, there are plenty of ties, so the tie-breaker category turned out to be essential to the process.

24. 2007 NBA Finals – San Antonio Spurs vs. Cleveland Cavaliers (23)

The first of three NBA Finals matchups between the San Antonio Spurs and LeBron James is arguably the most forgettable NBA Finals series of the century… unless you're a LeBron James hater who likes to point out the fact that in his first appearance on the big stage, LBJ was swept and averaged only 22 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists — while conveniently neglecting to mention the following four facts:

A) The Cavaliers second-leading scorer during the regular season, Larry Hughes, was limited to two games in the Finals due to a torn plantar fascia. He averaged 1 point per game in those two games.

B) After James, the Cavaliers next three leading scorers in the series were Drew Gooden, Daniel Gibson and Sasha Pavlovic.

C) The San Antonio Spurs were the best defensive team in the league and had exactly one player that they needed to keep in check in the NBA Finals in order to win their fourth NBA Title since 1999.

D) LeBron James had just ripped through the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals, most notably with an audacious 48-point performance in a double-overtime thriller in Detroit in Game 5 of the series.

There's good reason why this series was the league's least-watched NBA Finals series of the decade.Heading into the Finals, virtually nobody in the media gave Cleveland anything more than a puncher's chance against the Spurs, and here's the cruel irony for Cavs fans: had it been 32 year-old LeBron James instead of 22-year old LeBron James on the floor, it's possible that Cleveland might've actually been able to give the Spurs a competitive series.But in 2007, the Cavs weren't ready and neither was LeBron.

As for the series itself, the Spurs won this ugly slugfest of a series by an average of only six points per game, but anyone who was there and watched it all unfold knows that it wasn't remotely that close. Sure, the Cavs had chances aplenty to potentially come away with wins in Games 3 and 4 in Cleveland, but the much better team won all four games.

23. 2002 NBA Finals – Los Angeles Lakers vs. New Jersey Nets (24)

If there was any series this century that felt more like a lock than San Antonio over Cleveland did in 2007, it was Los Angeles over New Jersey in 2002, and that's for very good reason. The Lakers entered the 2002 NBA Finals as the two-time defending champions, looking to give Phil Jackson his third three-peat as a head coach, and they were -750 favorites to do so. The Nets, who entered the season with an over/under win total of just 35.5 games, surprised everyone during Jason Kidd's first season with the franchise, winning an Eastern Conference-best 52 games and making the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history.

Jason Kidd and the Nets deserve their flowers, even if making the NBA Finals out of the Eastern Conference had never been easier than it was in 2002. The Nets finished the regular season as the league's best defense, and Kidd finished 2nd in MVP voting while leading the league in both assists, steals, and triple doubles. But for all intents and purposes, the NBA Finals had already been played by the time the Lakers and Nets began their series in early June.

While the Nets were struggling to get past the Boston Celtics, the Lakers were engaged in an all-timer of a series against the Sacramento Kings in the Western Conference Finals. The series itself has been marred for many fans due to conspiracy theories that stated the league had given officials a nudge to ensure that, A) The series would extend to seven games, B) The Lakers would advance to the NBA Finals, or C) Both. But regardless of whether it was LA or Sacramento who represented the Western Conference in the NBA Finals, the Nets were going to be colossal underdogs no matter what.

New Jersey did about all they could against Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant and the Lakers, but they were going into a gunfight armed with a sharpened steak knife. In three of the four games in the series, the Nets kept things reasonably close, but the two best players in the series donned the purple and gold. Shaq dominated the Nets frontcourt, averaging 36 points and 12 rebounds per game, and Kobe chipped in 27-6-5 in the four Lakers wins.

22. 2003 NBA Finals – San Antonio Spurs vs. New Jersey Nets (24.5)

The 2003 NBA Finals was a much closer series than anyone will remember, but my God, there was not a worse time for the aesthetic appeal of professional basketball than during the 2003 and 2004 seasons. The average score of the 2003 NBA Finals was 87.8 to 82.0, and I'll be honest, until I did my research on the series, I expected both of those numbers to be lower. Sure, the Nets and Spurs were elite defensively, ranking 1st and 3rd respectively in Defensive Rating during the 2002-03 regular season, but this entire series was a slog that was mercifully saved in Game 6 by an all-time great performance from Tim Duncan, who was at the absolute peak of his powers in 2003.

Duncan had won MVP two years in a row, and after defeating the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Semifinals, there was no longer a dispute: Tim Duncan, not Shaquille O'Neal or Kobe Bryant, was the best basketball player in the world, and the Spurs were the conference's best team. But the Nets presented a tricky challenge in the NBA Finals, if only because they could play the Spurs game and potentially beat San Antonio at it.

In Game 6 in San Antonio, the Nets led by 10 early in the 4th quarter and were seemingly on their way to forcing a Game 7, but the Spurs responded, going on a 19-0 run over the course of a five minute stretch in the final frame. For the game, Duncan finished with 21 points, 20 rebounds, 10 assists and 8 blocks, though some fans believe Duncan was shorted two blocks during the course of the game, robbing him from notching the first and thus far only quadruple-double in NBA Playoff history.

21. 2023 NBA Finals – Denver Nuggets vs. Miami Heat (25)

Just last year, the Denver Nuggets became the first Western Conference team outside of the state's of Texas or California to win the NBA Finals since the Seattle SuperSonics did so in 1979. They did so in mostly undramatic fashion against the 8th-seeded Miami Heat, who had already pulled off three upsets in three consecutive rounds against the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks, the New York Knicks, and the Boston Celtics, but ran out of magic by the time they ran into Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray and the Nuggets in the Finals.

The series itself lacks a truly memorable moment, performance, or game, though Game's 2 and 5 came right down to the wire. But with that said, Nikola Jokic's Finals MVP performance should be celebrated more than it has been. Just because 30 points, 14 rebounds and 7 assists per game never looked so casual — or just because Denver didn't defend their title this year — it doesn't mean we shouldn't be applauding Jokic and the Nuggets for their 2023 run to title. Fortunately, the Nuggets celebrated enough for all of us during their victory parade. In fact, I think you could make the case that the Nuggets' Finals hangover this year was just an extension of an actual hangover from the day of the parade.

20. 2004 NBA Finals – Detroit Pistons vs. Los Angeles Lakers (25)

The 2004 NBA Finals gets the edge over the 2023 NBA Finals in the Aesthetic Appeal category, but not because the series was more entertaining. Denver vs. Miami was a far more entertaining series than Detroit vs. LA if you're looking only at the flow of the game and the level of talent on the floor, but Pistons vs. Lakers justfeltmore like a Finals series than Nuggets vs. Heat did. I don't know how better to explain it.

Maybe it's because there was the history from a decade and a half earlier, when the LA and Detroit met in the Finals in 1988 and 1989. Maybe it's because we'd seen the this version of the Lakers (minus Karl Malone and Gary Payton) in the Finals three times prior, and Detroit was on their way to a mini-dynasty in the Eastern Conference — yes, six straight Conference Finals appearances qualifies as a mini-dynasty to me. Or maybe it's because Denver failed to defend their title this year, making last year's Finals run feel a little less significant than it might've felt two months ago.

Detroit came into the series as +500 underdogs, but never resembled as much, as they thoroughly dominated the Lakers in what many members of the media referred to as a “five game sweep.” LA's only win, a 99-91 overtime victory in Game 2, has been completely been forgotten and replaced by the memory of Detroit's stifling defense wearing the Lakers down and putting an end to the Shaq/Kobe dynasty. In their four wins, the Pistons held the Lakers to an average of 77.5 points per game — even worse than the '07 Cavs put up against San Antonio. Yucky!

This is the title that put “DETROIT BASKETBALL” back on the map — hey NBA, can we stick with starting lineup introductions for the Finals? — and it's given us countless opportunities for spectacular unintentional comedy each and every time Rasheed Wallace asserts that this Pistons team could beat a more modern (and clearly more talented) NBA Champions.

19. 2014 NBA Finals – San Antonio Spurs vs. Miami Heat (26.5)

Do you hear that sound?

Seriously, what is that?

Oh, that's just the 2014 San Antonio Spurs squeezing the life out of the Big Three Heat. Oh dear, that's graphic — but my God, it's so beautiful. Let's just move on.

18. 2009 NBA Finals – Los Angeles Lakers vs. Orlando Magic (26.5)

The 2009 NBA Finals were Kobe Bryant's redemption for his heavily criticized shortcomings in both the 2004 Finals (22 points per game 38 percent shooting) and the 2008 Finals (25 points per game on 40 percent shooting), and it gave him the title that solidified his standing within the pantheon of the biggest superstars in league history. The Black Mamba was brilliant in the '09 Finals, averaging 32 points, 6 rebounds and 7 assists against a very game Orlando Magic squad that had already shocked the world in the Eastern Conference Finals when they defeated the 66-win Cleveland Cavaliers in six games, knocking league MVP LeBron James out of the NBA Playoffs and preventing basketball fans from their best opportunity to see a Kobe vs. LeBron Finals series.

Before we move forward, let me just say this: No, it does not hurt the legacy of Kobe Bryant in any way shape or form that the Lakers beat the Magic in the 2009 NBA Finals and not the Cavaliers or even the Boston Celtics… but my God, can you imagine if we actually got the Kobe vs. LeBron Finals that hoops fans, and seemingly even the league, had been clamoring for ever since the 2008 Summer Olympics? From the time Kobe and LeBron led Team USA past Spain in the Gold Medal Game, it looked like we were on a collision course the following June. And then Dwight Howard, Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu happened, and all of the sudden, it was the Disney Series (no, not the 2020 Bubble Finals that took place at Disney… I'm talking about the original Disney Series.

17. 2018 NBA Finals – Golden State Warriors vs. Cleveland Cavaliers (27)

My pseudo-scientific algorithm boosts the 2018 NBA Finals, a rather convincing sweep in Golden State's favor, not only because it ranks so highly in the star power category, but also because Game 1 of the series goes down as one of the most iconic games, performances, and Finals gaffes in league history. Allow me to set the scene:

After both the Cavaliers and Warriors survived in all-time great Conference Finals series' against the Boston Celtics and Houston Rockets respectively, you couldn't help but feel like the Finals were going to be a little bit of a letdown. This particular Cleveland team was nowhere close to being as good as any of the three previous versions of the Cavaliers who made the Finals, but LeBron James was in the midst of one of the greatest postseason heaters we've ever seen. Almost single-handedly he defeated Indiana, then Toronto and then Boston, and now a familiar foe awaited him in the Finals.

LeBron James came out in Game 1 of the NBA Finals and hit the Warriors with his best punch, putting forth what isperhaps the greatest individual performance I've ever seen in a basketball game: 51 points on 59 percent shooting, 8 rebounds, 8 assists, and one big shot after another as the Warriors kept trying to pull away. Seriously, me writing about it does not do the performance justice. Just take the 4 minutes and 42 seconds needed to watch these highlights, then come back here. Don't worry, I'll be waiting.

Of course, what you don't see in that highlight package was the moment this game is most well-known for.

16. 2001 NBA Finals – Los Angeles Lakers vs. Philadelphia 76ers (27)

Much like the 2018 Finals, the 2001 NBA Finals are best known for both a Game 1 performance from a player on the losing side of the series, as well as one defining image that will live in NBA lore forever.

The Sixers stole Game 1 from a Lakers team that had been perfect in the postseason up to the point behind 48 points from Allen Iverson, who rendered Shaq's 44 point, 20 rebound performance in Game 1 forgettable. Of course, Shaq never slowed down, nearly notching a quadruple-double in Game 2 (28 points, 20 rebounds, 9 assists and 8 blocks) and earning his second consecutive Finals MVP Award after averaging 33 points, 16 rebounds, 5 assists and 3 blocks per game against the league's Defensive Player of the Year, Dikembe Mutombo.

15. 2020 NBA Finals – Los Angeles Lakers vs. Miami Heat (27.5)

Everyone wants to delegitimize the 2020 NBA Finals — and the entirety of the postseason for that matter — because it was played in the Bubble at Disney Resorts in Orlando, Florida, while conveniently ignoring the fact that multiple players who were in the Bubble and did NOT win the NBA Championship claim that the basketball played there was at the highest-level, and that the path to a title was brutal.

Damian Lillard: ” I feel it would have been hard to win that. People was fresh bruh… I feel like based off of how my body felt, and what I knew our experience was, we would never see a more fresh version of the opposition then we did at that time.”

Bam Adebayo: “That was the hardest championship to win in my opinion just because you're in there with just literally 15-deep lineup, plus coaches, staff, training staff. Other than that, it's you and your thoughts in one room boxed in. … It was literally you, your thoughts and your teammates. That's it. I ain't talking to nobody, from the other team. It felt like you were gang-affiliated when you were in the bubble. Lakers got purple, we got on black, the Bucks got green. Nobody was walking by themselves, like it's alpha male.”

Jamal Murray: “I think that was the highest level of basketball being played, because it was only basketball. And guys were so locked in. You go to the gym, you have shootaround, you eat, you play.”

And this doesn't even acknowledge the fact that the NBA showed the rest of the world how effective testing and isolation could be during the COVID-19 pandemic, setting the stage for the NCAA Tournament to go on without a hitch in 2021. Unfortunately, the legacy of the 2020 NBA Finals seems to ignore all of the good — COVID protocols, athlete activism, awesome basketball — and instead focus on two words: “Asterisk Title.”

It's stupid, and if it were any team but the Lakers who won the title being led by any player but LeBron James, the conversation would be totally different. I'm convinced of it. We'd be celebrating what was accomplished inside of the Bubble instead of minimizing it. We would have fonder memories of some of the all-time great games and performances, not just in the NBA Finals — like the instant classic Game 5 that kept the Heat's NBA Title hopes alive — but throughout the entire postseason, like Luka Doncic's heroics against the Clippers, the unbelievable Jamal Murray/Donovan Mitchell duel in round 1, the OG Anunoby game-winner against Boston, the Clippers blown 3-1 lead against the Nuggets, Anthony Davis' game-winner against Denver, the renewal of the Boston vs. Miami rivalry, and so much else.

14. 2000 NBA Finals – Los Angeles Lakers vs. Indiana Pacers (27.5)

The Los Angeles Lakers' first NBA Title of the Shaq/Kobe era was not the walkover that most people seem to remember it being. After having to scratch and claw their way back from a double-digit deficit against the Trail Blazers in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals, the Lakers then had their hands full in the NBA Finals against a very game, and very seasoned Indiana Pacers team — a group that had made four Eastern Conference Finals appearances between 1994 and 1999 —being coached by Boston Celtics legend/Hoosier state native Larry Bird, who we know wouldn't be intimidated by the aura of the Los Angeles Lakers.

The series, which the Lakers won 4-2, featured four games that could've swung either way, including Game 4, best known for the late-game heroics of a 21-year-old Kobe Bryant, playing on a bum ankle, who lifted the Lakers in OT on the road in front of a raucous Indiana crowd after Shaquille O'Neal fouled out in OT. With that Game 4 win, the Lakers took a commanding 3-1 lead and eventually closed the series out in a tremendously competitive Game 6, a game which they trailed by five going into the 4th quarter.

13. 2022 NBA Finals – Golden State Warriors vs. Boston Celtics (27.5)

The last chapter of the Stephen Curry/Klay Thompson/Draymond Green-led Warriors dynasty was written during the 2022 NBA Finals, a series that doubled as Curry's arrival into the tippy-top tier of the NBA Pyramid. Despite their well-established championship pedigree and home court advantage, the Dubs were only slim favorites against a Celtics team that the metrics loved heading into the postseason. Boston was 18-21 after a January 6th loss to the New York Knicks, but rampaged through their final 43 games, going 33-10 down the stretch of the regular season and then winning a pair of seven-game doozies against the Milwaukee Bucks (the defending NBA champs) and the Miami Heat ahead of the Finals.

Golden State presented a different challenge entirely than Brooklyn, Milwaukee or Miami had, but through the first three games, it looked like Boston was in control of the series. They had a 2-1 lead following a commanding 116-100 win in Game 3, but then Stephen Curry stepped up to the plate and played what was for my money the best game of his career. Yes, he's had better stat lines. Yes, there have been games in which Curry hit the final shot as the seconds ticked away late. But against Boston in Game 4, a fiery and demonstrative Stephen Curry broke the Celtics, scoring 43 points on 14-for-26 shooting, including 24 points in the 2nd half. It was as dominant a performance as a “small guard” has ever had in the NBA postseason.

The Warriors held the Celtics off in Game's 5 and 6, in large part due to Curry, who closed things out with a 34-7-7 performance in Game 6, and also Andrew Wiggins, who played the three best and most consequential games of his NBA career in the final three games of the Finals. The Dubs got their fourth ring, and the Celtics, who are back in the NBA Finals this year, got some valuable experience ahead of their matchup versus Dallas.

12. 2005 NBA Finals – San Antonio Spurs vs. Detroit Pistons (27.5)

By far the lowest-ranked seven game series on this list, the algorithm clearly didn't love the rock fight to end all rock fights. Stylistically, the series can be rough to watch, and despite the fact that the2005 NBA Finals pitted the two most underappreciated teams of the 2000's against each other, neither team is all that conventionallysexyand four of the seven games were total blowouts.

This series was saved by Game's 5-7, though Game 5 is the only one of them that is trulymemorable.With 18 ties and 12 lead changes, the Spurs and Pistons through one heavy haymaker after another at each other, until it was Big Shot Rob who was left open on the left wing with under 10 seconds to go in overtime.

(WHY ARE YOU DOUBLING OFF OF ROBERT HORRY, RASHEED? HUBIE TRIED TO WARN YOU! YOU ALWAYS LISTEN TO HUBIE!)

To the Pistons credit, they weren't ready to roll over after dropping Game 5 in dramatic fashion at home. Back in San Antonio for Game 6, Detroit stunned the Spurs in a game that was supposed to be a coronation for the West's best, becoming the first road team in NBA Finals history to force a Game 7. Game 7 was the ugliest one of the bunch, but close throughout. Behind a combined 63 points from Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili (who was flat out awesome in this series) and Horry, the Spurs held off the Pistons in Game 7 by the final scored of 81-74.

11. 2012 NBA Finals – Miami Heat vs. Oklahoma City Thunder (30)

Just a year removed from a memorable and highly-celebrated collapse in the 2011 NBA Finals against the Dallas Mavericks — we'll get to that series soon enough — the Miami Heat came into the 2012 NBA Finals as underdogs against a young and hungry Oklahoma City Thunder team led by Kevin Durant (23 years old), Russell Westbrook (23), and James Harden (22). In this matchup of Big Three's and weather phenomenons, it was the Thunder who struck first (pun intended), winning Game 1 behind a 36-point performance from Kevin Durant. The rest of the way, though, it was the experience of Miami's Big Three that won out.

Miami won Game's 2, 3 and 4 by an average of just 5 points per game, out-executing the Thunder down the stretch in each game, but it was LeBron James who was feeling the Heat late in the 4th quarter of Game 4. Dealing with leg cramps that kept him out of a portion of the 4th quarter, LeBron gutted out a few possessions at a time and managed to knock down the biggest shot of the game — a straightaway triple to give Miami the lead for good with just under three minutes to go.

What was lost in this game, besides the clutch LeBron three, was how relentlessly Russell Westbrook kept coming at the Heat, scoring what was at the time a postseason career high of 43 points. Westbrook is a player with plenty of warts, but in Game 4 against Miami, Russ was the reason why OKC even took Miami to the wire.

The Heat would close the Thunder out in Game 5, thanks to a LeBron James triple-double (one of his NBA record 11 NBA Finals triple-doubles) and a barrage of Mike Miller three-pointers that blew the game wide open in the 2nd half. It was this championship and this championship alone that validated the Big Three experiment, and this series — along with LeBron's massacre of the Celtics in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals — thatstarted to change the conversation about LeBron James.

10. 2019 NBA Finals – Toronto Raptors vs. Golden State Warriors (30.5)

While many NBA fans still look at the 2019 NBA Finals and see a series that was marred by catastrophic injuries to both Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson, a different read on this series is one that tells the story of one of the ballsiest trades in NBA history, and how it paid off for the Toronto Raptors. Let's rewind from June 2019 to July 2018.

After a very public falling out with the San Antonio Spurs, a team for which a young Kawhi Leonard collected a ring and an NBA Finals MVP Trophy with back in 2014, it was common knowledge that Leonard was going to be traded… it was just a question of who would bite. The winner of the Kawhi Leonard sweepstakes turned out to be the Toronto Raptors, a team that had plateaued as an Eastern Conference finalist in recent years. The Raptors shipped DeMar DeRozan, Jakob Poeltl, and a 2019 1st round pick in exchange for Leonard and Danny Green, knowing full well that there was no guarantee that Leonard, a free agent at season's end, would decide to stay in Toronto.

Fast-forwarding back to June 2019, the Raptors had emerged as the Eastern Conference's representative in the NBA Finals after narrowly escaping against Philadelphia in the 2nd round and then overcoming an 0-2 deficit against Milwaukee in the Conference Finals. Meanwhile, the Warriors had a much easier path to the Finals than they had in year's past, but came into the series with Kevin Durant's status up in the air. Durant would only play 12 minutes in the entire series, all in Game 5, before a calf strain turned into a ruptured achilles tendon. The Warriors overcame the emotional blow of losing Durant and won Game 5 by just a single point behind 57 points from the Splash Brothers.

Then in Game 6, as Klay Thompson was in the middle of a heater and trying to send the series to a 7th game, he came down awkwardly on a dunk attempt, resulting in a torn ACL. The Raptors hung on to win Game 6 in front of a stunned Warriors crowd in what would be the final game played inside of Oracle Arena.

Kawhi Leonard would be named Finals MVP and take his seat on the Iron Throne, and then he'd bolt for the Los Angeles Clippers just weeks later. But Masai Ujiri's bet paid off in what was a memorable and competitive NBA Finals series.

9. 2021 NBA Finals – Milwaukee Bucks vs. Phoenix Suns (30.5)

The entire story of the 2021 NBA Finals can be told by three separate plays, and yes, I'm fully aware that by summarizing a super competitive and really fun six game series with just three plays does a disservice to the series itself, but we're already nearing 5,000 words in this thing, and ultimately, these are the three plays that explain how the Bucks ultimately beat the Suns.

Play #1: Game 4 – Giannis Antetokounmpo blocks DeAndre Ayton

Play #2: Game 5 – Giannis Antetokounmpo catches a Jrue Holiday lob

Play #3: Game 6 – Giannis Antetokounmpo knocks down a free throw to score 50 points in the series clincher

So, how did the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Phoenix Suns? Because Giannis Antetokounmpo went supernova for three games, that's how.

8. 2008 NBA Finals – Boston Celtics vs. Los Angeles Lakers (31)

Yes, this was Lakers vs. Celtics renewed. Yes, this series set the stage for a seven-game classic two years later. Yes, had Kevin Garnett not gotten hurt in the 2008-09 season, maybe we would've had three consecutive Lakers vs. Celtics matchups in the NBA Finals. But I don't care what anybody says. I'll forever remember this series for Paul Pierce ~~hurting his knee~~ pooping his pantsand there's nobody out there who can change my mind or make me think about it any differently.

7. 2011 NBA Finals – Dallas Mavericks vs. Miami Heat (31)

6. 2006 NBA Finals – Miami Heat vs. Dallas Mavericks (31)

Y'all ever seen the movieUs, Jordan Peele's 2019 psychological horror classic? Well, if you haven't, then go do it, but also, here's the bare-bones spoiler-free summary of what you can expect: A family of four goes on a vacation, where they are terrorized by a red-jumpsuit-wearing group of four who look exactly like them. Simple enough, right?

Well, when I think about the 2006 and 2011 NBA Finals, I think ofUs, because these two series' are clear doppelgängers of one another, and the algorithm agrees with me. Same score, same teams, same cities, many of the same characters, and in the end, the same result — the underdog coming out on top. But here's the thing: I think the wrong team won each series.

Now one of my big sticking points as both a basketball fan and writer is that there should never be an asterisk next to a champions name, and I stand by that. There are no undeserving champs. Every team that wins the title needs some amount of luck along the way. I don't necessarily think that the 2006 Heat or 2011 Mavericksgot lucky. No, I believe that there was something much more cosmic at work here.

It'smy belief that the basketball gods simply swapped the correct winners of these two NBA Finals series. A classic mix-up, you could say. That means that the correct franchise won, they just didn't win the correct year, but in the end, all things evened out. The Mavericks and Heat weresupposedto split these two series.

Is this sentiment rooted in my unabashed LeBron James fandom? Perhaps it does. Naturally, I wish that LeBron didn't have the black mark of the 2011 NBA Finals on his career resume. But honestly, hand to God, most of this stems from truly believing that the 2005-06 Mavericks, who had to overcome the San Antonio Spurs and Phoenix Suns on their way to the Finals, were the best team in the league that season.

I recognize that I'm likely in the minority here. For good reason, folks love the 2011 Mavericks' run to through the postseason — a legacy-defining run for Dirk Nowitzki. But we shouldn't have even needed Dirk to get validation in 2011. The moment should've been his in 2006.

5. 2017 NBA Finals – Golden State Warriors vs. Cleveland Cavaliers (32)

The algorithm was quite favorable to the 2017 NBA Finals, in large part because the series earned a perfect 10 in the Star Power category, an 8.5 in Historical Stakes, and an impressive 7.5 in Overall Competitiveness, despite the fact that the Warriors won in five games and were, in hindsight, probably much larger favorites than we realized at the time. But make no mistake, the 2016-17 Cavaliers were no pushover. In fact, the Cavs were the only team that managed to steal a game from the Dubs in their first postseason with Kevin Durant on the roster, and you can make a compelling case that they could've gotten two.

The only iconic game or shot in this series was in Game 3, after the series had shifted to Cleveland. The Cavs had their chances to take Game 3 and put a little pressure on Golden State for the first time all postseason, but Kevin Durant answered the bell and hit what was certainly the biggest shot of his entire career.

The Cavs would take Game 4 from the Dubs, keeping Golden State from becoming the first team in league history to sweep the postseason. But that didn't matter, because just about everyone who was there says the same thing: the 2016-17 Warriors potentially the most talented and most unbeatable professional basketball team ever assembled.

4. 2015 NBA Finals – Golden State Warriors vs. Cleveland Cavaliers (32.5)

The 2015 NBA Finals have been largely forgotten about as time has passed because of how iconic the conclusion of the 2016 NBA Finals was. However, if you want to go game by game, it's fair to say that you can stack the 2015 NBA Finals up against the 2016 NBA Finals, or any series in recent Finals history for that matter.

The start of the Warriors-Cavaliers rivalry began in 2015, when an unexpected juggernaut in the Bay Area steamrolled to 67 wins in the regular season behind first-year head coach Steve Kerr, and NBA MVP Stephen Curry. Meanwhile, in Cleveland, LeBron came home, teamed with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, and after a rocky start to the season, the Cavaliers course-corrected and marched through the Eastern Conference to make the NBA Finals, LeBron's fifth consecutive trip there.

What resulted was a six-game masterpiece which at the time became the most-watched Finals series since 1998. It was a back-and-forth battle with five legitimately memorable and competitive games, including the opening two at Oracle Arena, both of which went to overtime. And even if it's legacy will be forever linked to the three subsequent Finals matchups that followed, my God this served as one hell of a prelude.

(Note: Andre Iguodala should NOT have won Finals MVP. And no, LeBron James shouldn't have either. That sucker belonged to Stephen Curry.)

3. 2010 NBA Finals – Los Angeles Lakers vs. Boston Celtics (32.5)

Another instance where basketball fans were robbed of a Kobe Bryant vs. LeBron James NBA Finals matchup, but how can you go wrong with LA vs. Boston. Two years after the Celtics won their first NBA Title in 22 years at the expense of the Lakers, LA would get their shot at redemption against a Boston team that went 25-24 in their final 49 games of the regular season.

Once the Finals began, though, you'd have no indication that Boston was barely a .500 team for over half of the season. Armed with a healthy Big Three and an emerging star in point guard Rajon Rondo, the Lakers got all they could handle from a Celtics team that came in as +160 underdogs.

The Celtics did what they needed to do in LA, stealing home court advantage with a Game 2 win behind a Rondo triple-double and eight Ray Allen three-pointers. The Lakers would regain home court advantage, but head home for Game 6 facing a 3-2 deficit. An 89-67 blowout in Game 6 — the only blowout of the series — forced the series to a 7th game, which was an ugly, beautiful mess of a basketball game.

I'm not going to sit here and pretend like I prefer basketball games with final scores in the 70s and 80s, but there's just something that feels right about a low-scoring, gritty, tense Game 7. It's how Game 7's are meant to be played, and often, how they do play out. Game 7 of the 2010 NBA Finals was no different. It was a game chockfull of ugly offense, desperate defense and more drama that Lakers or Celtics fans could handle.

The game, which Boston led by 13 early in the 3rd quarter, came down to a ballsy three-pointer from Ron Artest, and the relentlessness of both Pau Gasol (18 rebounds) and Kobe Bryant (15 rebounds) on the glass. Two years prior in the NBA Finals, the Celtics pulled down 16 more offensive rebounds than the Lakers in the six-game series. In Game 7 alone, LA out rebounded Boston by 15 on the offensive glass.

2. 2013 NBA Finals – Miami Heat vs. San Antonio Spurs (33.5)

Most hoops fans seem to only remember the 2013 NBA Finals for Game 6 — and that's admittedly for good reason — but let me tell you, this series was much more than just an iconic Ray Allen corner three in Game 6. Although there were only threegreatgames in this seven-game series, the stakes heading in couldn't have been much higher.

Miami was playing for a second-consecutive title in the Big Three era. A back-to-back would leave no doubt that this experiment was an undeniable success, and it would put LeBron James into the next stratosphere of superstardom. Additionally, because Miami famously went on a 27-game winning streak during the regular season and finished the year with a 66-16 record, they were playing for “Best Team of a Generation” consideration.

San Antonio, on the other hand, hadn't been to a Finals since 2007. After a few notable postseason failures — most notably, losing to Memphis as the #1 seed in 2011 — most people had begun writing off the Spurs as legitimate title contenders. But three things happened that kept San Antonio's championship window open:

A) Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili enjoyed extended primes, while Tim Duncan remained the steady presence at the center of everything for the Spurs.

B) The Spurs traded for Kawhi Leonard, who would soon turn into a superstar and two-time Finals MVP.

C) Gregg Popovich and the Spurs would craft one of the most beautiful offenses imaginable, predicated on constant ball and player movement that proved impossible to stop when the machine was humming properly.

Anyway…

Game 1 was a gritty nail-biter that neither team by more than nine points all game. It came down to a leaning, heavily contested bank shot from Tony Parker that wrapped the game up and allow San Antonio to steal home court advantage in front of a stunned Miami crowd.The teams split the next four games, meaning the Spurs led 3-2 as the series shifted back to Miami for Games 6 and 7.

Game 6 was a classic that is still talked about to this day as one of the all-time greatest Finals games. Ray Allen's corner three to send the game to overtime and keep Miami's championship hopes alive is etched in history as one of the biggest shots in league history. In fact, it'sso bigthat it rendered Tim Duncan's turn-back-the-clock performance and everything LeBron James did in Game 6 forgettable, which is a crime, because LeBron played arguably the best quarter of his NBA career in the 4th quarter of Game 6 to even give Ray Allen a chance at connecting on a corner three-pointer.

(Also, shout out Chris Bosh for securing the rebound to make Allen's three possible)

And then there was Game 7, which like Game 1, was a back-and-forth boxing match that was fought in a metaphorical phone booth. The Spurs biggest lead of the game was 7, early in the 1st quarter, and Miami's too was seven points, which was their final margin of victory. The game was sealed by a LeBron James mid-range jumper over Kawhi Leonard, a fitting conclusion for a series that many analysts believed hinged on LeBron's ability to knock down shots from the outside.

1. 2016 NBA Finals – Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Golden State Warriors (36.5)

There are some NBA Finals series that will forever stand the test of time. Finals that, just at the mention of a year, you know exactly who played, what happened, and maybe most importantly, what was at stake. 1969. 1977. 1984. 1998. The 2016 NBA Finals are the most recent addition to that list.It's impossible to overstate what was on the line in the 2016 NBA Finals. It was far more than just the Larry O'Brien Trophy, the prize that every team in the league enters every season hoping to earn.

Basketball immortality hung in the balance for both the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors, especially once the Warriors had taken their now notoriously unsafe 3-1 lead. At that point, what would transpire would either be the coronation of the 2015-16 Warriors as one of the greatest, if notthegreatestteam in NBA history, or the arrival of LeBron James in territory that only Michael Jordan occupied… not to mention the end of a five-decade-long title draught in Cleveland.

This series had everything that the algorithm looks for and more, coming to an emotional and dramatic climax in the final minutes of Game 7, a tight, white-knuckle barn-burner that came down to the final few possessions after Cleveland had fought off defeat in Games 5 and 6. By now, you surely know all of the beats:

The Block

The Shot

The Stop

I can't sit here and tell you that this selection comes without bias. I'd be a stone-cold liar if I tried to say as much. But I can rest comfortably because the algorithm rightfully agrees that the 2016 NBA Finals stands above the rest as the greatest and most iconic of the century.