How the 6 teams to win NBA Finals 1 year after missing playoffs did it (2024)

Winning an NBA title is extremely difficult. Winning an NBA title with a team that missed the playoffs the year before, while not impossible, has been done only a few times.

The Dallas Mavericks became the 16th team in NBA history to make the NBA Finals after not qualifying for the postseason the year prior and are looking to be just the seventh team to go from a playoff miss to a parade in just one season.

While the chances that a team can manufacture such a quick turnaround are rare, the correlation between all six teams is clear: A generational superstar is a requisite. (Note: Finals MVP awards weren’t awarded before 1969)

In some cases, the comeback was fueled by a star returning to full health. In others, it was the offseason acquisition of complementary stars that spurred the leap.

Since the NBA expanded its playoff format to four rounds in 1984, seven teams before the Mavericks jumped from missing the postseason to the finals. Here’s how they did it:

2022 Golden State Warriors

How 2021 ended: The Warriors finished eighth in the Western Conference in the regular season, going 39-33. However, they lost Play-In Tournament games to the Los Angeles Lakers and Memphis Grizzlies, thus missing the playoffs.

How 2022 ended: NBA champs following a 53-29 regular season, good for the third seed in the West, and a 16-6 postseason run.

What changed:Fully healthy roster plus career-peak performances (up until now) from Andrew Wiggins and Jordan Poole.

After missing nearly all of 2019-20, Curry had a dominant 2020-21 season but received little help from an injury-depleted roster that lost Klay Thompson for a second straight season due to an Achilles tear. Thompson returned for 32 games in 2022 and then played all 22 games in the postseason as Curry’s sidekick. Draymond Green also stayed healthy (and, crucially, was not suspended) for the stretch run.

More importantly, the Warriors got all-time performances from Wiggins and Poole in secondary roles. Wiggins finally realized his potential in the regular season and became a top-tier defender and rebounder in the playoffs. At the same time, Poole provided another scorer the team desperately needed. With Curry slowly recovering from a late-season injury, Poole started five playoff games and scored 20-plus points in seven times en route to the title.

2021 Phoenix Suns

How 2020 ended: A controversial invite to the NBA Bubble after a four-month hiatus due to COVID-19 — they were in 13th in the West and six games out of eighth when play stopped in March — the Suns swept all eight of their games at Disney. Still, they finished 34-39, 10th in the conference, and did not qualify for a Play-In game under the rules that the league used in that bisected season.

How 2021 ended: Runners-up with a loss to the Milwaukee Bucks in the NBA Finals after finishing second in the West following. 51-21 regular season. They fell two losses shy of a title, going 14-4 in the playoffs before losing four straight to the Bucks.

What changed: Chris Paul.

A leap in production from Mikal Bridges certainly helped, but the biggest difference for the suddenly contending Suns was the offseason arrival of Paul. At 35 years old, the point guard great averaged 16.4 points and 8.9 assists per game en route to a fifth-place finish in MVP voting. In the team’s 20 playoff games, he upped his production to 19.2 points per game and keyed the team’s finals berth with a maestro 41-point performance to close out the Los Angeles Clippers.

Paul’s arrival elevated the play of Bridges as well as young center Deandre Ayton. Bridges stepped into a full-time starting role for the first time and averaged 13.5 points per game while shooting 42.5 percent from 3. Ayton had a strong playoff run, averaging 15.8 points and 11.8 rebounds per contest, punctuated by a game-winning alley-oop dunk in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals, tossed by another key offseason veteran addition, Jae Crowder.

2020 Los Angeles Lakers

How 2019 ended:37-45, 10th in the Western Conference.

How 2020 ended: NBA champs following a 52-19 regular season, good for the West’s top seed, and a 16-5 postseason run.

What changed: Anthony Davis.

After LeBron James spent his first season in L.A. figuring out how to fit with a young core of Kyle Kuzma, Brandon Ingram and Lonzo Ball in 2019, the legend hurt his groin on Christmas Day and later returned to a Lakers team that soon fell below .500. By early March, he was on a minutes restriction and by the end of the month he was shut down for the season with the Lakers eliminated.

That offseason, the Lakers shipped much of that young core and a pile of draft picks to New Orleans for Davis. The move was long rumored, given Davis was a client of Klutch, the sports agency run by James’ long-time friend, Rich Paul. The team also hired Frank Vogel as head coach, replacing Luke Walton, and retooled the roster with reliable veterans such as Avery Bradley, Danny Green and Dwight Howard, while retaining Kuzma, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Rajon Rondo.

Davis dominated, averaging 26.1 points and 9.3 rebounds per game in his first season before climbing to 27.7 points and 9.7 rebounds in his first extended playoff run to win his first ring. He finished runner-up for Defensive Player of the Year, and he and James became the first teammates to both make the All-NBA First Team since 2007.

2020 Miami Heat

How 2019 ended:39-43, 10th in the Eastern Conference.

How 2020 ended: Runners-up with a loss to the Lakers in the NBA Finals after a 44-29 regular season, good for fifth in the East, and a 14-7 postseason run.

What changed: Jimmy Butler.

The arrival of Butler — and his postseason “Playoff Jimmy” persona — was a culture changer in Miami. He was acquired in exchange for the Heat’s previous leading scorer, Josh Richardson, and arrived in town shortly after franchise legend Dwyane Wade retired.

In what is now a tradition, Butler coasted through the regular season with averages of 19.9 points, 6.7 rebounds and 6.0 assists in 58 games, but elevated once the playoffs began. He carried Miami to a first-round sweep of the Indiana Pacers. He then led the Heat to stunning victories over the Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics to make the finals. He scored 25-plus points seven times in the postseason run and notched two triple-doubles.

2015 Cleveland Cavaliers

How 2014 ended: 33-49, 10th in Eastern Conference.

How 2015 ended: Runners-up with a six-game loss to the Warriors in the NBA Finals. Cleveland went 53-29 in the regular season, finishing second in the East, but only lost twice before in the playoffs before reaching the finals.

What changed: LeBron’s return and Kevin Love’s arrival.

The Cavaliers fell from championship contention to cellar-dwelling after James left for Miami in 2010. His return in 2014 immediately put them back in the forefront. He didn’t come back to a completely depleted roster, as he joined with rising star Kyrie Irving, who just made his second All-Star team, and Kevin Love, who Cleveland acquired weeks after James in exchange for Wiggins, whom the Cavaliers had just drafted No. 1 a month prior, among others.

James took on more of a facilitator role back in Cleveland, dishing 7.4 assists as Irving’s scoring average climbed again. Love struggled to acclimate in his first season out of Minnesota, then missed nearly all of the playoffs after dislocating his shoulder in the first round. James’ dominant postseason play (30.1 points, 11.3 rebounds, 8.5 assists per game) carried Cleveland to the finals and a 2-1 series lead against Golden State before the Warriors came back to win.

2008 Boston Celtics

How 2007 ended: 24-58, 15th in Eastern Conference.

How 2008 ended: NBA champs following a 66-16 regular season and a 16-10 postseason run

What changed: Paul Pierce’s health and trades for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen.

Pierce played in just 47 games in 2006-07, the lone time he missed an All-Star game in an 11-season stretch from 2002-12. After finishing with the second-worst record in the NBA in 2007, the Celtics were lottery victims and missed out on the chance to draft Greg Oden or Kevin Durant. Instead, they flipped the fifth-overall pick (Jeff Green) to Seattle in a package for 31-year-old All-Star Allen, who had been to the playoffs just once since 2001.

The deal for Allen convinced 31-year-old Garnett to commit to Boston long term, which greenlit a seven-for-one trade with Minnesota, the largest in NBA history. Allen and Garnett joined with Boston’s All-NBA forward Pierce to form a veteran big three core of hungry veterans.

The trio each sacrificed numbers in the regular season, but all three were All-Stars and Garnett won Defensive Player of the Year. In the playoffs, Garnett took over as leading scorer while Pierce was named Finals MVP and Allen broke the record for 3-pointers in a finals series en route to the Celtics taking down the Lakers in six games.

2002 New Jersey Nets

How 2001 ended: 26-56, 12th in Eastern Conference.

How 2002 ended: Runners-up with a loss to the Lakers in the NBA Finals after a 52-30 regular season earned them the East’s top seed. They went 11-10 in the playoffs.

What changed: Trades for Jason Kidd and Richard Jefferson.

The Stephon Marbury and Keith Van Horn-led Nets were entertaining in 2000-01 as Marbury could fill a stat sheet. But he couldn’t set the table or lead the young team, which struggled after Van Horn suffered a leg injury.

New Jersey and Phoenix made the rare All-Star-for-All-Star deal in swapping Kidd and Marbury one day after the Nets swung a draft-day deal to acquire Jefferson, a rookie out of Arizona. Kidd — who years earlier quipped that he would turn the Dallas Mavericks around “360 degrees” — truly turned the Nets around 180 degrees after he spent five seasons leading the Phoenix Suns.

Kidd was MVP runner-up in 2001-02 after averaging 14.7 points, 9.9 assists and 7.3 rebounds, transforming the franchise and leading the Nets to their first 50-win season. Kidd’s leadership was key for Jefferson, who finished second in Rookie of the Year voting, and sophom*ore Kenyon Martin, who averaged 16.8 points per game in his first playoff run.

The Nets earned their first finals berth after thrilling series wins over Reggie Miller’s Pacers, the Charlotte Hornets and the Celtics before running into the Shaq and Kobe Lakers, who swept New Jersey.

Pre-1984 teams

Before the NBA moved to its four-round format in 1984, the jump from missing the playoffs to making the finals was more frequent due to a smaller league. The NBA was a 16-team league before the NBA-ABA merger in 1976.

But even within the altered sample sizes, the same correlation from earlier holds true: Generational superstars are a must to win this kind of comeback title. Here’s every team that made the finals after missing the playoffs.

• 1978 Seattle SuperSonics: Runners-upto the Washington Bullets, but came back to win it all in 1979 behind Gus Williams, Dennis Johnson and emerging star Jack Sikma.
• 1977 Portland Trail Blazers: NBA champs thanks to a finally healthy Bill Walton. After his first two seasons were cut short by chronic foot injuries, Walton stayed on the floor for 65 games and all 19 playoff games to finish second in MVP voting, make defensive first team and be crowned Finals MVP.
• 1976 Suns: Runners-up to the Celtics, the “Sunderella Suns” had never won a playoff series before 1976 but rode an improbable ride to the finals after a 42-40 regular season. The finals featured a historic triple-overtime thriller in Game 5.
• 1975 Warriors:NBA champs over the Bullets, as future Hall of Famers Rick Barry and Jamaal Wilkes starred. Barry averaged 30.6 points, 6.2 rebounds and 5.7 assists in the regular season. The 1973-74 Warriors missed the playoffs despite going 44-38.
• 1967 San Francisco Warriors: Runners-upto the 76ers, the 1967 Warriors bounced back from a 35-45 season thanks to Barry’s breakthrough season. His scoring average jumped from 25.7 points to 35.6 points per game in his sophom*ore season. The Warriors were defeated by in the finals by old friend Wilt Chamberlain.
• 1964 Warriors: Runners-up to the Celtics, this season marked Chamberlain’s last finals appearance with the Warriors before he was traded to the 76ers the following season.
• 1959 Minneapolis Lakers: Runners-upto the Celtics. A year after Minneapolis went 19-53 and finished last in the Western Division, rookie Elgin Baylor boosted the team to a 14-win improvement and two playoff series wins before getting swept by Boston.
• 1956 Philadelphia Warriors: NBA champs over the Fort Wayne Pistons. Philadelphia improved from 33-39 to 45-27 behind the continued dominant pairing of Paul Arizin and Neil Johnston, and the addition of rookie Tom Gola.

(Photo: Noah Graham / NBAE via Getty Images)