NBA Championship Run Win-Share Charts, 1990-2016

NBA Championship Run Win-Share Charts, 2016-1990 (Playoffs Only)

These charts look at each NBA champion’s distribution of “win shares” across players during their playoff runs. Win Shares are a measure of a players total contribution to a teams success, as explained here:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/about/ws.html

Some players on a championship team are not listed, either because they had negative win shares, a net of zero win shares, or did not play in the playoffs.

Some random observations on a few team’s championship team’s win-share distributions:

2014: The Spurs player with the most win-shares during their 2014 run was Tim Duncan, at 17% of their win-share total. This is by far the lowest percentage for any championship team’s top player. The 2014 Spurs really live up to their reputation as a team that shared the ball and had everyone contribute, as 6 different players had over 10% of the team’s playoff win shares apiece.

2013: This is the most recent year where the top player on a championship team had over 30% of the team’s playoff win shares (Lebron obviously). Interesting to note that the “Big Three” according to win-shares for this playoff run was not Lebron, Bosh, and Wade, but actually Lebron, Bosh, and Andersen. Wade had a bit of a down playoffs, and the Birdman was able to sneak into the top three in win shares.

2012: Like in 2013, one of the “Big Three” didn’t make the Heat’s top three in win-shares. In this case, the Big Three was Lebron, Wade, and Mario Chalmers, with Bosh falling to fourth in win-shares during this playoff run.

2004 Pistons: This is one of the most unique win-share distributions of any championship team. Chauncey Billups led the team with 20.4% of their playoff win shares (only Duncan on the 2014 Spurs had a lower % of win shares as the top player on a championship team), but Ben Wallace also had 20% and Richard Hamilton 19.4%. That means there was only a 1% difference between the top player and the third player in win-shares, by far the lowest of any team. This is one of the few championship teams without a clear-cut top player, or even top two players.

2003 Spurs: This was a very un-Spursy Spurs team, with Duncan carrying a massive load with little help at 34.9% of all the team’s playoff win-shares.

2000 Lakers: Shaquille O’Neal had the highest win-share % on any championship run, at 35.3%. During this playoff run Kobe wasn’t quite on his level yet, at only 15.8% of the team’s playoff win-share total.

 

NBA Win-Share Charts, as of 12/8/2016

NBA Win-Share Charts, 12/8/2016 (reverse alphabetical order)

These charts look at each team’s distribution of “win shares” across players. Win Shares are a measure of a players total contribution to a teams success, as explained here:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/about/ws.html

Some of the teams with interesting win share distributions:

New Orleans Pelicans: Anthony Davis has 42% of all New Orleans’ win shares, the highest % for any player. The next highest player on the Pelicans is Tim Frazier, all the way down at 9%.

Detroit Pistons: Andre Drummond has the most win shares on the Pistons, but this is only 18% of the teams total, which is tied for the lowest % for the top player on a team. The Pistons have a very egalitarian distribution of win shares, with 5 players having above 10% of the total win shares.

Denver Nuggets: The Denver Nuggets has two players tied for the most win shares on the team, both also at 18%: Danilo Gallinari and Kenneth Faried. The player with the third-most win shares, at 17% of the total, is Wilson Chandler, while Nikola Jokic has 16%. Thus the gap between the player with the fourth-most win shares, Jokic, and the player with the most, Gallinari, is only 2 percentage points, by far the lowest in the league.