Over the last twenty years, the most common route to the NBA championship has been to pair one elite superstar with another legitimate all-star (or better). Think through the last two decades: Jordan-Pippen, Olajuwon-Drexler, Shaq-Kobe, Shaq-Wade, and Kobe-Gasol have won 14 of the last 20 titles. 13 of those 14 times, both players made All-NBA (essentially the top 15 players in the league).
According to Wikipedia, All-NBA team voting:
“is conducted by a panel of sportswriters and broadcasters throughout the United States and Canada…
Players receive five points for a first team vote, three points for a second team vote, and one point for a third team vote. The five players with the highest point totals make the first team, with the next five making the second team and so forth…
…each team has consisted of two forwards, one center, and two guards beginning with the 1956 teams.”
First, a couple of notes on using All-NBA teams as data. 1) There is no distinction between point/shooting guards or small/power forwards; overall, there are 60 centers, 75 power forwards, 45 small forwards, 55 shooting guards, and 65 point guards. 2) Players are sometimes incorrectly categorized (Amar’e Stoudamire is always listed as a Center while he’s usually played PF) and some have switched the positions they were elected for between years (Dirk Nowitzki, Tracy McGrady, Paul Pierce).
Anyway, pairings of two All-NBA are common: 58 teams in 20 years. That’s to say that the competition among elite teams is tough enough that 78% of these “1-2 punch teams“ don’t win a title. The Suns even had three guys (Nash, Stoudamire, Marion) on the All-NBA teams in 2004-05 and didn’t win.
If one were a GM, one would want to know if history gave any clues as to how to go about putting together a “1-2 punch” of all-stars. Are any positions or combinations of positions especially valuable?
This converges with another topic I’ve wanted to explore. The Suns, for as long as I’ve known them, have been more often than not: 1) championship contenders/interesting in the Playoff discussion and 2) led into that discussion by an All-Star point guard and one other All-Star. Between KJ (3-time All-Star), Jason Kidd (3 All-Star games as a Sun), and Steve Nash (5 All-Star games as a Sun), we’ve had an All-Star point guard 11 of the last 21 years. KJ led us to the ’90 conference finals and with Barkley to the ’93 NBA finals. Nash, with Amar'e and Marion (until he was abandoned in favor of the great Shaq disaster in Feb. 2008) has brought us 3 conference finals appearances (all great series) in six seasons.
So why did we never break through? Is it related to having a point guard occupy one of our two slots?
Which brings me back to the 58 teams who had two All-NBA guys. It turns out that 27 did not feature an All-NBA point guard, while 31 of them did. Of the 27 without All-NBAs at point, 13 won championships. Of the 31 starring elite PGs, none won the title. Point guards have fared much worse than the other positions in the opportunities they’ve had to be paired with another All-NBA guy:
| Position | Titles | Seasons with another All-NBA |
| SG | 12 | 22 |
| SF | 6 | 11 |
| C | 5 | 27 |
| PF | 3 | 26 |
| PG | 0 | 31 |
The All-NBA pairs that won titles were: Jordan/Pippen (5), Shaq/Kobe (3), Kobe/Gasol (2), Olajuwon/Drexler, Wade/Shaq, & Garnett/Pierce.
Shooting guards have been them most successful, especially if named Jordan or Bryant (10 of the 13 titles between them). With this small sample (for each SF, PF, and C, all of the titles are held by a pair of guys), it’s hard to draw any conclusions except that PGs don’t seem to work as one of the two guys. Once the Nash era is finally (and sadly) over, the Suns’ front office might want to keep that in mind.
Then again, set aside Jordan and Kobe’s titles and you have this chart, so maybe we still don’t know much about building champions:
| Position | Titles | Seasons with another All-NBA |
| SG | 2 | 9 |
| SF | 1 | 6 |
| C | 2 | 21 |
| PF | 1 | 24 |
| PG | 0 | 31 |
As a bonus, here are the guys who made All-NBA at least 5 times and First Team at least 3 times.
They are undoubtedly the best players of these last two decades (in order of First Team appearances):
PF: Karl Malone, Tim Duncan, Charles Barkley, Kevin Garnett, Dirk Nowitzki, SF: Lebron James, Scottie Pippen, C: Shaq, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, PG: Jason Kidd, Steve Nash, Allen Iverson, SG: Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan
Next up, how elections work.
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