Top 5 single season turnarounds in NBA History

The New Jersey Nets (2001-2002)

Can the newly assembled trio of LeBron James, Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving take the Cleveland Cavaliers to a championship in only their first season together? Rather than assuming they will, let’s suppose they can. Last season the Cavaliers won only 33 games and in order for the current team to have home court advantage in the East, they would have to register a minimum of 55 wins. If they were to want home court advantage even in the NBA Finals, if they make it that far then they must have the best record in the league. Given the tough Western Conference, Cleveland would need a 60+ win record to play 4 games out of the 7 at home in the Finals. Anyways all these are just assumptions with a lot of ifs and buts included. Long story short the Cavaliers have a chance of breaking into the list of top 5 single season turnarounds in the history of the league.Here are the top 5 teams on that list in terms of improvement in games won:

#5 New Jersey Nets (2001-2002)

The New Jersey Nets (2001-2002)

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2000-2001: 26-56

2001-2002: 52-30

Actually the New Jersey Nets are ranked 10th on the list when measured according to the number of games they improved by but jump to the 5th because they were the only team to from 5th to 10th position that actually made it to the NBA Finals after not making it to the Playoffs the year ealier.

The catalyst for the drastic positive change in record was one man-point guard Jason Kidd.His amazing skills and talent at the one spot were well utilized by Head Coach Byron Scott with the pieces he had in the roster around him. Kerry Kittles, rookie Richard Jefferson, Lucious Harris, Kenyon Martin and center Todd MacCulloch were the key contributors to the Nets making a spectacular run through the East.

They had a fantastic season which saw them have the best record till the All-Star break making coach Scott the Head Coach of the East All-Star team which included Kidd. The team recorded their first 50 win season in franchise history and made it to the Finals after recording the top seed in the East. In the Finals however they were completely overpowered by two time defending champions Los Angeles Lakers. They lost the Finals without registering a single win in the series.

#4 Phoenix Suns (2004-2005)

Phoenix Suns (2004-2005)

2003-2004: 29-53

2004-2005: 62-20

The roster from the year before and the year of the turnaround were more or less similar, except for one key man Steve Nash. The Suns let go Stephon Marbury and Penny Hardaway in order to have the amount of cap space to bring in point guard Nash. The trick worked so well that his first two years with the Suns, Nash won two league MVP awards while Coach Mike D’Antoni and General Manager Bryan Colangelo won the awards in their respective categories at the end of the first season, the year of the turnaround.

Although Nash was the final piece to the puzzle, there were important pieces already present in Phoenix. Shawn Marion and Amar’e Stoudemire were the leaders among the rest of the players. Nash, Marion and Stoudemire all won the Western Conference Player of the Week at least once in the regular season. Among the rest Joe Johnson and Quentin Richardson were the notables.

Alas, a fairytale regular season did not result in a championship as the Suns were outsed by the San Antonio Spurs in the Conference Semifinals of the Playoffs.

#3 San Antonio Spurs (1989-1990)

David Robinson

1988-1989: 21-61

1989-1990: 56-26

The credit for the then best single season turnaround goes to David Robinson. He signed with the Spurs after tour of duty with the Navy was done. He was unanimously named Rookie of the Year with season averages of 24.3 points, 12 rebounds and 3.9 blocked shots.

Back then these sort of single season turnarounds were not so common so to see a team led by rookie improve their regular season record by 35 games took the league and media’s attention. Soon Robinson became the center of a system which steamrolled Denver Nuggets in the first round of the Playoffs but then lost to eventual Conference Champions Portland Trailblazers in seven games of the Conference semifinals.

#2 San Antonio Spurs (1997-1998)

David Robinson and Tim Duncan

1996-1997: 20-62

1997-1998: 56-26

Eight years after making history with the best single season turnaround on the back of David Robinson, the Spurs did it again. This time it was a two man show comprising of Robinson and number one overall pick rookie Tim Duncan. the franchise acquired the rights to the top pick due to a miserable previous season where their center Robinson played only 6 games due to injuries.

The duo known as the “Twin Towers” quickly became the best front court in the league. Duncan who was unanimously named the Rookie of the Year recorded 57 double-doubles in the season with averages of 21.1 points and 11.9 rebounds, while his veteran front court partner Robinson had 40 double-doubles with averages of 21.6 points and 10.6 rebounds. The duo led the team to a 36 game improvement from last season, but couldn’t beat the Utah Jazz in the Conference Semifinals.

Among the role players in this team were future Head Coaches Avery Johnson, Monty Williams and Vinny Del Negro.

#1 Boston Celtics (2007-2008)

Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett

2006-2007: 24-58

2007-2008: 66-16

After the end of the season in 2007, 21 years removed from their last championship the Boston Celtics were in no position whatsoever to contend for the division title let alone the NBA Championship. The only valuable player they had as face of the franchise for the past decade was Paul Pierce.

It was then that Celtic great and then General Manager Danny Ainge orchestrated a couple of trades that would turn the fortunes in the favor of the C’s. He made one trade to acquire Ray Allen from the Seattle Supersonics and another to bring in former MVP Kevin Garnett from the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Before the much hyped Miami Heat, was this Big Three which set the record for the best single-season turnaround by improving their number of wins by 42 and not only winning the division title, but also the NBA Championship against arch rivals and nemesis the Los Angeles Lakers.

Their spectacular season led to awards other than the title also coming their way. Garnett won the NBA Defensive Player of the Year award, while Ainge won NBA Executive of the Year award.

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Edited by Staff Editor