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The NBA Finals MVP award was instituted in 1969 just as the Bill Russell era of the association came to an end. Russell won eleven championships with the Boston Celtics between 1956 and 1969, with his last two titles coming as player-coach. Had the Finals MVP Award been given out during the Celtics’ dominant run in the 1960s, Russell would surely have received the honor on more than a handful of occasions.
But since the award came into being only as the 1970s dawned, other franchisees benefitted in a relative sense as the Celtics’ fortunes dipped. The LA Lakers, the most dominant team of the 1980s, have five Finals MVP awards to their credit in that decade alone. The Chicago Bulls went one better in the 1990s, with Michael Jordan picking up six Finals MVP trophies as the Bulls three-peated twice between 1991-93 and 1996-98.
With this historical backdrop, we take a look at the top three teams to win the most Finals MVP award ever since the Lakers’ Jerry West received the honor the first time in 1969.
#3 Chicago Bulls – 6-time winners (1991-93, 1996-98)
![Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson hoist the NBA Finals MVP and NBA Championship trophies respectively [Image: Jeff Haynes/AFP]](https://staticg.sportskeeda.com/editor/2021/09/cc79e-16319061034601-800.jpg)
The team that is tied with the Celtics for Finals MVP awards. But the story of Chicago’s six MVP awards can be summarized in two words: Michael Jordan. As the Bulls won their only six titles in NBA history, all six in the period between 1990 to 1998, only one player dominated for them in each and every Finals appearance the team made. Jordan. He has the most Finals MVP awards in NBA history, two more than the next best individual (LeBron James has four).
The most important question one may ask is which of MJ’s six Finals MVP awards for Chicago ranks best? There is no single objective answer to this question. From a statistical standpoint, his showing in the 1993 Finals versus the Phoenix Suns, where Jordan averaged 41.0 ppg, 8.5 rpg, 6.3 apg while shooting 51% from the field and 40% from the three-point line, has to be one of the most dominant showings in NBA Finals history by any player.
But from a difficulty standpoint, given that Jordan was 35, and Chicago was a team running on fumes in 1998, his last Finals MVP award against the Utah Jazz may get a hat-tip from a lot more fans. Jordan averaged 33.5 ppg even at that age, hitting one of the biggest clutch shots in NBA history to shut out the Jazz. A measure of what Jordan meant to the franchise can be gaged by the fact that Chicago hasn’t even been to an NBA Finals since 1998.
#2 Boston Celtics – 6-time winners (1974, 1976, 1981, 1984, 1986, 2008)
The Celtics probably should have won the 1969 NBA Finals MVP award too because no other player on a losing team has received the honor since. The Celtics had a good candidate as well for Finals MVP, with John Havlicek averaging 28.3 ppg and 11.0 rpg in that series versus the Lakers.
However, Havlicek would get his due in 1974 when he won his only Finals MVP award as the Celtics bested Kareem’s Bucks in seven games. Havlicek put up 26.4 ppg, 7.7 rpg, 4.7 apg and 1.9 spg in an all-round display for Boston. Two years later, Boston guard Jo Jo White would pick up the franchise’s second Finals MVP Award as Boston beat the Phoenix Suns in six games.
The Celtics were the other dominant team in the 1980s besides the Lakers. They made it to five NBA Finals in that decade, coming out trumps on three occasions. Cedric Maxwell picked up the 1981 Finals MVP Award while Larry Bird, a three-time consecutive regular season MVP between 1984 and 1986, picked up the Finals MVP awards in 1984 and 1986.
There are some who believe that Bird could have had a hat-trick of Finals MVP awards because he should have been Finals MVP in 1981 too. In those Finals versus Houston, Bird averaged 15.3 ppg, 15.3 rpg, 7.0 apg and 2.3 spg, but it was Maxwell who bagged the award for his 17.7 ppg, 9.5 rpg and for his defense on Moses Malone.
The last of Boston’s six Finals MVP awards came in 2008 when a recent entrant into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Paul Pierce, helped the Celtics past their arch rivals, the Lakers. Pierce picked up the Finals MVP, averaging 21.8 ppg and 6.3 apg, as the Celtics won the last of their 17 championships.
#1 LA Lakers – 13-time winners (1969, 1972, 1980, 1982, 1985, 1987, 1988, 2000-02, 2009-10, 2020)
Jerry West winning the Finals MVP award in what is the only instance of a player receiving the honor while on the losing team. West won the honors for putting in an exemplary 37.9 ppg and 7.4 apg over a heart-breaking seven-game series loss for the Lakers against their arch rivals the Celtics. The Lakers won their next Finals MVP award on a happier note when Wilt Chamberlain bagged the honor after the Lakers trumped the New York Knicks 4-1 in the 1972 Finals.
The 1980s was a dominant phase for the Lakers. They went to eight Finals in that decade, missing only the 1981 and the 1986 NBA Finals. Of those eight Finals, they came out on the winning side five times. Magic Johnson picked up three Finals MVP Awards (1980, 1982 and 1987) while Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1985) and James Worthy (1988) received the honor once each. Magic winning the 1980 Finals MVP is the only instance of a rookie winning the award while Kareem’s win at age 38 made him the oldest recipient of the honor.
The Lakers then went on another dominant run between 2000 and 2002, picking up their first three-peat since the Minneapolis Lakers won three straight NBA titles between 1952-1954. Shaquille O’Neal was the alpha star on that Lakers roster, picking up all three Finals MVP honors for the team.
After the NBA renamed the Finals MVP award to the Bill Russell Finals MVP Award in 2009, Kobe Bryant picked up the individual trophy as the Lakers won title numbers 15 and 16 in 2009 and 2010. LeBron James then became the last player in a Lakers jersey to pick up then honor when the LA team won the Larry O’Brien trophy in 2020. James is the only player to win the award with three different teams (Miami, Cleveland and the Lakers).
Guess the Lakers players!
