1) ’18-’19 Toronto Raptors

This Raptors team doesn’t make the list as an indictment of them. They were clearly a great team, led by an all-timer postseason performance from Kawhi Leonard, and they defeated three consecutive top-level teams in the 76ers, Bucks, and Warriors to clinch the title. The issue here is that final opponent, the Warriors, who were without one superstar Kevin Durant for most of the series, and lacked another All-Star, Klay Thompson, for the last game-and-a-half. Though the ’18-’19 Warriors didn’t look nearly as unstoppable as the ’16-’17 and ’17-’18 editions that blitzed their playoff opponents, they were still almost assuredly going to win a third straight title if Durant hadn’t strained his calf during the Conference Semifinals. He rushed back to action and was dominating the early stages of game five of the NBA Finals before tearing his Achilles’ tendon. While many, especially fans in the Bay Area, consider this title merely a function of those injuries, you won’t get far telling that to Toronto fans, who long celebrated the city’s first championship since the ’66-’67 Maple Leafs.

2) ’54-’55 Syracuse Nationals

The NBA has never had its own version of baseball’s 1919 “Black Sox” scandal, but the ’54-’55 Finals might be enigmatically analogous. It was maybe the tightest NBA Finals ever, going the full seven games with every contest decided in the final minute and the underdog Nationals ultimately prevailing. If you asked Pistons star George Yardley (before he passed away in 2004), it was also illicit. He alleged that several of his Fort Wayne teammates took money from an organized crime outfit to purposefully throw the series while still keeping games close to keep up appearances. The smoking gun for Yardley’s theory is Jack Molinas, who played one partial All-Star season with the Pistons in ’53-’54 before receiving a lifetime ban for betting on games. He remained close with several players on the team and supposedly linked up his mob connections and NBA friendships to influence the series. This has never been proven or disproven definitively and will likely remain a mystery forever. One thing that’s clear is that multiple Pistons players made questionable decisions and unlikely blunders throughout the series, most notably late in game seven when Frankie Brian committed an unforgivable foul that set up the series-winning free throws and Andy Philip threw away an egregious turnover that clinched the game for Syracuse.

3) ’98-’99 San Antonio Spurs

Though it was a crowning achievement in the storied career of David Robinson and the beginning of the legend of Tim Duncan, the ’98-’99 Spurs title will forever be tainted with a dreaded asterisk. This is due to the infamous lockout, which lasted over six months, reduced the ’98-’99 regular season to 50 games, tarnished the league’s reputation, and led to many star players spending the season out of sorts and out of shape. Other anomalies that season included a 35-year-old Karl Malone getting named MVP, Allen Iverson winning the scoring title with just 26.8 points per game, and the bullying Heat finishing with the top seed in the East only to get upset by the Knicks in the Conference Quarterfinals. As for the Spurs, they essentially dominated the West from beginning to end, entering the playoffs as the #1 seed and then losing just one game total across their first three playoff series. They defeated the #8 seeded Knicks in the NBA Finals and Duncan earned Finals MVP in just his second season in the league. Though this title doesn’t carry much weight, the Duncan/Gregg Popovich Spurs eventually left no doubt on their legacy overall, crafting a dynasty that won further titles in 2003, 2005, 2007, and 2014.

4) ’50-’51 Rochester Royals
5) ’57-’58 St. Louis Hawks

The two stars who most dominated the first 20+ years of NBA history are George Mikan and Bill Russell. Mikan joined the league in 1948 when his Minneapolis Lakers came over from the NBL and proceeded to win five of the next six championships before retiring. Russell led the Celtics to the title in his rookie season, ’56-’57, and then again 10 more times in the next 12 years. One of the things both players had in common is “the one that got away,” a title lost only because they suffered an injury in the postseason. For Mikan, this came in the 1951 Conference Finals against the rival Royals.  He fractured his leg in game one of the series, a Lakers win, and was barely mobile around the court for the remainder as the Royals swept the last three games. The ’50-’51 Royals were a solid team, led by their own star center Arnie Risen, and they clinched the title soon after in a hard-fought seven games Finals series against the Knicks. But there’s little doubt a healthy Mikan would have earned six consecutive titles, as his Lakers teams had otherwise defeated Rochester in the 1949, 1952, and 1954 Conference Finals. In fact, Mikan played in the 1949 edition with a broken hand but was able to overcome that injury enough to prevail. As for Russell, he suffered a sprained ankle in game three of the 1958 NBA Finals and was unable to return for the rest of the series. Led by two-time MVP Bob Pettit, the Hawks eventually won the series in six games but remaining Celtics stars Bob Cousy, Bill Sharman, Frank Ramsey, and Tom Heinsohn put up a fight with Russell sidelined. Games three, five, and six were Hawks wins that came down to the wire, while game four was a Celtics upset in St. Louis. With Russell healthy, the Celtics knocked off the Hawks in their 1957, 1960, and 1961 Finals match-ups. One more factor that brings the legitimacy of this ’57-’58 Hawks title into question: the notoriously segregated franchise became the final team in NBA history to win a championship without a single Black player on the roster.