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#3 2003-04 Detroit Pistons
Under Rick Carlisle, the Detroit Pistons reached the second round of the 2002 NBA Playoffs and the Eastern Conference Finals in 2003. During the 2003 NBA Playoffs, the team was swept by the New Jersey Nets in the Eastern Conference Finals, proving that Detroit had a good team but needed more to take the next step.
That next step started with Larry Brown taking over as head coach for the 2003-04 NBA season. The team got off to a 34-22 start before trading for Rasheed Wallace and becoming his third team of the season a little after the All-Star break.
Although the Pistons were second in the East at the time and had a good defense (fifth-best in the NBA with a 96.4 Defensive Rating), the team improved its defense to 88.3 in the final 26 games of the regular season, with Wallace playing in 22 of those games.
Detroit eventually mounted a title challenge that was capped off with a 4-2 win over the Indiana Pacers (top seed in the East) in the Conference Finals and a comfortable series win (in five games) against the Kobe Bryant-Shaquille O'Neal LA Lakers in the NBA Finals.
The Pistons then came within one win of repeating their run as NBA champions, and eventually made it to every Eastern Conference Finals until 2008.
#2 1981-82 LA Lakers
The 1981-82 LA Lakers' biggest move of the regular season came when the championship-winning coach from 1980, Paul Westhead, was fired 11 games into the regular season.
Pat Riley came in as Westhead's replacement and the team looked ready to compete for the championship again. Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Jamaal Wilkes formed the core of a stacked team.
On December 24th, 1981, as the LA Lakers were 24-7, the team traded a second-round draft pick to the New Jersey Nets for former NBA MVP Bob McAdoo. The forward was aged 30 at the time and his MVP season (1974-75) took place years ago.
However, the move proved effective for the LA Lakers in the 1982 NBA Playoffs, with McAdoo helping the team by recording a points-per-game average of 16.7 in 14 postseason games.
McAdoo provided 16.3 points per game in the team's six-game Finals series against the Philadelphia 76ers to lead the Lakers to the 1982 NBA championship.
#1 1994-95 Houston Rockets
The Houston Rockets were looking to defend their 1994 NBA championship in the 1994-95 campaig. The team had maintained its core from the 1994 title run, with Hakeem Olajuwon as the on-court leader and Rudy Tomjanovich on the sidelines.
Houston had a 29-17 record at the All-Star break and were playing well. However, a game after the All-Star break, the Rockets made a trade that brought in Clyde Drexler and sent Otis Thorpe to the Portland Trail Blazers. The Rockets were 30-17 before acquiring Drexler, but they only went 17-18 with him and finished sixth in the West.
The Rockets entered the 1995 postseason without home-court advantage and looked set to be in for a tough run. But the Drexler trade eventually paid off, with the team successfully defending its crown with a unique championship run.
Houston won four series without home-court advantage and became the lowest seed to win an NBA championship. Drexler played an important role as the second option behind Olajuwon, averaging 20.5 points, seven rebounds and five assists per game in the 1995 NBA Playoffs.
