Trilogies, it seems, are inescapable in today’s entertainment industry. Enjoyed reading The Hobbit as a child? OK, then, let’s stretch that out into three movies. Big fan of the original Star Wars trilogy? Well, Lucasfilm has started production on a third trilogy — that’s right, a trilogy of trilogies!
So if you’re looking to avoid trilogy-mania this summer blockbuster season, you would do well to stay “far, far away” from the NBA playoffs, where three-peats come almost as easily as they do in Hollywood. If the Miami Heat conquer the San Antonio Spurs yet again in the 2014 Finals, they will join the 1991-’93 Chicago Bulls, the 1996-’98 Bulls and the 2000-’02 Los Angeles Lakers as the league’s fourth three-peat champion in the last quarter century.
That’s 12 years of three-peating action — a child born in 1990 will have spent half his life watching three-peats. Threes! Threes everywhere!
Though the frequency of the three-peat of late would not diminish the Heat’s potential accomplishment — if they beat the Spurs in seven games, they will have played a total of 68 postseason games in the past three years — this does seem to be a fairly unique NBA phenomenon. Over the same span, the three other major North American sports have produced just one three-time champion: the 1998-’00 New York Yankees.
So what makes the NBA such a bastion of three-peating, and why does three seem to be the limit for consecutive championships?
Parity-Proof
Since the beginning of the ‘90s, all four major North American sports leagues have trended toward more teams and a more restrictive salary structure — two concepts that should, in theory, make it more difficult for the same team to dominate year after year.
The NFL famously hasn’t seen a three-peat champion since the 1970 merger, but they’ve had a few close calls. The Miami Dolphins and Pittsburgh Steelers (twice) won back-to-back titles in the ‘70s, but were ultimately done in by the brutal competition of the AFC at the time. Those would-be three-peaters not only had to deal with each other, but those legendary ‘70s Oakland Raiders teams as well.
The ‘88-’90 San Francisco 49ers came the closest to pulling off three titles in a row, but were felled by a fumble from running back Roger Craig in the final minutes of the 1991 NFC Championship game, which was then won on a final-play field goal, 15-13, by the New York Giants. The Dallas Cowboys then won three titles in four seasons between 1992 and ‘95.
When a hard salary cap was instituted in 1994, these potential dynastic teams were further limited by an inability retain key members of their 53-man rosters. Still, there have been two teams with chance to complete a three-peat since: the ‘97-’98 Broncos (who lost Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway to retirement after their second championship) and the ‘03-’04 New England Patriots, who fell just short of the prize.
There hasn’t been a three-peat champion in the NHL since the New York Islanders won the Stanley Cup four straight times from 1980-’83. Even the powerhouse Edmonton Oilers teams, who won the Cup five times in seven seasons ending in 1990, could never quite get over the hump. They lost their three-peat (or possible five-peat?) in the most ridiculous fashion imaginable, as Edmonton’s Steve Smith passed the puck off the leg of his own goalie for a deciding own-goal in Game 7 against the Calgary Flames in the 1986 playoffs.
It should be noted, however, that those Edmonton teams succeeded in a league with only 21 teams and no salary cap. The NHL underwent a massive expansion in subsequent years, to 30 teams — two of which (Anaheim Ducks and Tampa Bay Lightning) have won a Cup. Two clubs — the Pittsburgh Penguins (in 1991 and ’92) and the Detroit Red Wings (in 1997 and ‘98) — won back-to-back championships in the ‘90s, but were turned away in the playoffs of their third attempts.
The NHL hasn’t seen even a repeat champion since implementing a hard salary cap in the wake of the 2005 lockout. (Admittedly, that is not a terribly long period of time, so we’ll have to wait and see whether or not the league still has what it takes to produce a dynasty.)
Major League Baseball, unfettered by a true salary cap, would seem an ideal place to build a dynasty. But only the Yankees have been able to win three in a row in the four decades of the free agent era, and that team was a rare, harmonic convergence of spending and spectacular young talent.
Most young Yankee fans don’t quite seem to understand what a once-in-a-lifetime experience those teams provided. “Why don’t they just develop talent better, like they did in the ‘90s?” — as if finding the greatest closer of all time (Mariano Rivera), one of the five best shortstops of all time (Derek Jeter), a borderline Hall of Fame catcher (Jorge Posada), perhaps the greatest starter in franchise history (Andy Pettitte) and a five-time All-Star center fielder (Bernie Williams), just happens, if only your scouts would try a little harder. (Since then, of course, the Yankees literally have spent billions of dollars on free agents in an attempt to recapture the old magic, with just one championship to show for their efforts.)
They, too, have a salary cap, they too have undergone expansion. What makes the sport so parity-proof? Simply put, it’s just the nature of the game.
Basketball maintains, by far, the smallest rosters of any of these sports; its teams rely on but a handful of players. If you have two or three of the best players, you’re going to win. A lot. Come playoff time, the NBA produces precious few legitimate upsets. It’s not like the NHL, where a superior team can be thwarted by a hot goalie, or MLB, where a mediocre team with two great starters can dominate a playoff series.
The Association thrilled its fans — both hardcore and casual, alike — with seemingly chaotic action in the first round of this season’s playoffs, when four of the top five teams were taken to seven games by lower seeds. But lost amid that excitement was the fact that all four favorites won their series. The biggest upset by seeding — the No. 3 Toronto Raptors losing to the No. 6 Brooklyn Nets — wasn’t exactly Earth-shattering. And, in the end, the NBA playoff machine gave us who we expected in the Finals: the two best teams.
Even the NBA’s salary cap has worked out in Miami’s favor, as the franchise with the most talent, the Oklahoma City Thunder, facing looming luxury tax issues, traded future All-Star James Harden for pennies on the dollar. The hall of champions is like the Mafia — once you’re made, nobody can mess with you.
Burnout
Even in the NBA, all good things must come to an end. No team has won four championships in a row since the Bill Russell Celtics teams of the ‘60s. The main culprit appears to be burnout — mental, physical, or both.
The “Repeat Three-peat” Bulls teams of ‘90s experienced both kinds of fatigue. Michael Jordan — perhaps the most pathologically competitive player of all time — quit the game for two years at the age of 30:
“I always said to the people that have known me that when I lose that sense of motivation and that sense that I can prove something, it’s time for me to leave. It was just a matter of waiting until this time, when basketball was near, to see if my heart ticked for it,” Jordan said. “I went through all the different stages of getting myself prepared for the next year, but the desire … was not there.”
Jordan rediscovered the desire after a brief sabbatical exploring the joys of bus travel in minor league baseball, and the Bulls ran roughshod over the league for the next few years, but the ‘98 Bulls started to wear down physically, too, as Jordan, Pippen and Rodman were then past their primes. They were pushed to the limit by the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals, with a cold-shooting Jordan getting to the free-throw line (10-15 FT) just enough to eek out an 88-83 win. After slipping past the Utah Jazz in six games for the second straight Finals, the 35-year-old Jordan would once again retire after that season.
Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant were still in their physical primes at the end of the Lakers’ three-peat, but by 2003 the cracks in their tumultuous relationship were already beginning to show. They lost to the Spurs in the 2003 conference semis, and then the Pistons in the 2004 NBA Finals. Soon after, Shaq was on his way to Miami, and head coach Phil Jackson was on his way to a one-year break from the game.
If the burnout factor is going to derail the Heat, it will likely be physical and not mental. Unlike Shaq and Kobe, the Heat’s best players like each other. They didn’t come together through the draft or through trades; they are essentially a self-made entity. But the cracks in their health have already started to show. Dwyane Wade played only 54 games during the regular season as the team tried to rest his chronically balky knee. The condition is degenerative, and there’s no guarantee that the 33-year-old Wade will even return next year.
Still, the Heat have one big factor in their favor — the comical weakness of the Eastern Conference. Their main competitors are either way too old (Brooklyn), way too injured/cheap (Chicago), or way too … ??? (Indiana). There’s a very good chance that the Heat could lose Wade next year and still waltz back into the Finals, simply due to the genius of LeBron James.
The Finals, of course, will truly test the Heat’s mettle. They are facing a Spurs team that took them to the brink last season; a team that looks even better now. We’ve seen how a fluke play — a fumble, an own-goal — can derail even the greatest of champions. Will the offensive rebounds that fell the Heat’s way in Games 6 and 7 last year continue to do so? Will Tim Duncan miss another late-game bunny, the way he did last season?
The Heat are on the cusp of an astonishing feat — despite the fact that it is one that has become astonishingly common in the NBA. Nothing should take away from the grandeur of their accomplishment. They have morphed from a petulant group that beat us over the head with its expectations of greatness to a battle-tested unit that has seized greatness at every opportunity.
If these Spurs can’t stop them, there is every reason to ask who can? And there’s plenty of history to assume someone — or something — next season will.
@ChinaJoeFlynn is a writer and a recovering ex-pat English teacher. His work has been featured in SB Nation, Bleacher Report and The Classical.
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