With five legit All-Stars (Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green, DeMarcus Cousins, Klay Thompson) on their roster, the Golden State Warriors are an NBA superteam in the truest sense of the term.
But, is there a team that’s a close second? In a word, no.
However, there are teams that are at least sniffing at Golden State’s heels in terms of raw star power which is why ESPN came up with a scoring system to help quantify what exactly makes up a superteam.
Using the system, relevant teams in the NBA were given a raw score based on if players on its roster made the All-NBA or All-Star team and where they ranked in real plus-minus (RPM) – a stat that adjusts for the quality of both teammates and opponents.
Using that system, the Warriors walked away with a league-leading score of 44. No surprise there.
Behind them, with a score of 28, were the Houston Rockets. After adding Carmelo Anthony to unquestioned superstars Chris Paul and James Harden, Houston now was has the second-most star power in the league even if they don’t have the most talent.
Following the Rockets are the Raptors (19), Nuggets (16), and Thunder (15). This is interesting because it really demonstrates that having star power doesn’t always correlate to having success on the court.
Case in point: the Celtics, who are favored to win the Eastern Conference and take on Golden State in the NBA Finals, only have five star points.
If they do actually make it to the finals versus the Warriors, we’ll get a chance to see how much that really matters.
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