Jon Barry, on NBA Shootaround, when asked who had more pressure on them in the Pistons-Celtics series, Flip Saunders or Doc Rivers:
“The Pistons have been to six straight Eastern Conference finals, but only have one title. They’re quickly becoming the Atlanta Braves of the NBA.”
So, one championship and nearly two decades of division titles and playoff appearances can now be used for a negative comparison? I understand where Barry’s going with this but do you know how many teams in all of professional sports would kill to have the track record that the Braves have for the last 20 years?
8 responses so far ↓
1 ethanator1088 // May 21, 2008 at 11:35 am
I am not standing up for Mr. Barry. That was not a good analogy.
On the other hand, there are some “OK” comparisons, and only getting 1 Championship ring in 14 years of winning your division is pretty sad. I should know. I am a huge Braves fan.
The last year of their run, they had trouble selling out the playoff games. In Hotlanta? Ouch! Apathy is a pity. I know that Donald Sterling would love to have the Clippers in the finals every year, and make a ton of money, but the fans do not care how much money the org. is making.
The Pistons need to lose 4 more years before it is a good analogy.
Apathy has not set in yet for the Pistons, but it will. Sheed is a ticking time bomb of negative locker room mojo.
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2 Harvey Bars // May 21, 2008 at 12:35 pm
That’s a Braves fan taking his team’s success for granted. Try being a Mariners, Pirates, Royals or Brewers fan and see if ‘only’ one championship and 14 division titles seems in any way sad.
By the way, Sheed’s turned the corner and is the clear leader of that team. Don’t harbor ill will towards him because of the of the one game he spent in Atlanta. He had 20 pts, 6 rebs and 5 blocks in a Hawks uniform.
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3 ethanator1088 // May 21, 2008 at 2:12 pm
I loved the Braves run, but I do not think any fan of theirs or player is happy to say that they just got one ring. That is just one more ring than the Mariners, Pirates, Royals or Brewers.
Everyone says the Braves were the team of the 90’s. The Blue Jays and Yankees both had more 90’s championships.
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4 Harvey Bars // May 21, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Yeah and as sports blasphemous as this sounds, championships aren’t everything. Yeah it’s only more ring than those teams, but baseball fans view the Braves as an elite franchise. No one views the M’s or Pirates in that fashion. Plus if you want to start throwing probability in there and what not, every year someone HAS to win a championship. Look at the Marlins, they’ve had two spectacular years and a lot of years where they were terrible. I may be incorrect here, but isn’t what the Braves did with the consecutive division titles unprecedented? Winning 14 consecutive division titles to me is infinitely harder than winning one championship.
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5 ethanator1088 // May 21, 2008 at 3:26 pm
The Yankees winning 4 of 5 is better than the Braves winning 1 out of 14.
That hurts me to say.
I know that you think I am an elitist spoiled brat of a Braves fan, but that is how we roll. We are not happy with the division titles.
The fact that the Braves won 14 straight division titles is a statistical anomaly that means absolutely nothing to the company that engraves world championship rings.
Great debate though. I might do a post on it.
Should I be satisfied, as a Braves fan, with 1 ring and a bunch of great memories through 14 years? Am I happy? Yes. Satisfied? No.
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6 Harvey Bars // May 21, 2008 at 3:32 pm
The debate isn’t between the Braves and Yanks. It’s whether or not the Braves are an elite team despite only winning one title. Or at least that’s where I was going. I don’t know anymore, I’m also in the middle of Canadien Football League argument as well. I may start declaring the Edmonton Eskimos the greatest team in North America on this thread by accident.
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7 ethanator1088 // May 21, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Here is a way to bring our points together.
I would put the Braves below the Yankees in the 90’s. I think most people would.
That means to me that the Braves accomplishment was great, but not one of the best runs ever. It was just a nice run.
To tie our points to the actual post, I think the Pistons would like to trade places with the Spurs. The team that is actually getting rings lately.
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8 Harvey Bars // May 21, 2008 at 8:39 pm
What the Rockies did last September/October and what the Houston Rockets did this season was a nice run. Winning your division every season for a decade and half is dominant.
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