5 Best NBA Teams from the 2010s

This decade has ushered in a rise of superteams. LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh announced their decision to join forces on the 4th of July, 2010, and changed the NBA's landscape. It is up for debate whether the league changed for better or worse, but this move certainly paved the way for players in the league to be more willing to go to teams other than the ones that drafted them when they became free agents - Kevin Durant's move in 2016 would never have been possible if this All-Star, All-NBA trio hadn't decided to team up to win championships.

Although the Heat were made to eat humble pie and LeBron's 'Not two, not three....' statement has been the butt of countless jokes on the Internet ever since their loss in 2011, they did manage to put a phenomenal team together and deservedly won championships in the years after that.

Let's take a look at where that team ranks among the best of this decade:

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#5 Dallas Mavericks, 2010-11

Starting lineup - Jason Kidd, DeShawn Stevenson, Shawn Marion, Dirk Nowitzki, Tyson Chandler

Bench - Jason Terry, JJ Barea, Ian Mahinmi, Brian Cardinal, Peja Stojakovic, Brendan Haywood, Corey Brewer,

It was a playoff run fueled mainly by the greatest European player of all time in Dirk, but all the players in the Mavs' starting lineup had a really crucial role in ensuring their first and only NBA championship victory thus far. Everyone on that lineup was a player capable of affecting the game on both ends of the floor, and they also had microwave scorers in the form of Jason Terry, JJ Barea, Corey Brewer and Peja Stojakovic who could push them ahead of opposing teams' benches.

Their run started with a 4-2 series victory over the sixth-seeded Blazers team - one that had the likes of LaMarcus Aldridge, Andre Miller and Brandon Roy. They then announced themselves as Western Conference favourites with a resounding sweep of the 2-time defending champions, the Los Angeles Lakers.

The run continued with a 4-1 victory over the young and emerging Oklahoma City Thunder in the Conference Finals, and this set them up for a 2006 Finals rematch with Miami. Unlike that occasion, however, the Heat came into this series as heavy favourites, with the likes of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in their lineup.

The Heat succeeded in taking a 2-1 lead in the series, but despite being down by 17 points in Game 2 and 15 points in Game 4, the Mavericks showed doggedness and a will to win that bested the superior talents from South Beach. Dirk played Game 4 with a flu that had taken his body temperature up to 102 degrees, but he held on gamely to guide the Mavs to a W.

Games 5 & 6 were remarkable, as the likes of JJ Barea and Jason Terry put LeBron James, the 2-time MVP, out of the spotlight and nailed series-clinching shots. The title won by the Mavericks in 2011 is more valuable than any of the titles won by superteams ever since in the eyes of Charles Barkley, and I can kinda see his point on this topic. This Mavs team would not be beaten by anyone because of their sheer drive to win it all beyond all the odds.

#4 San Antonio Spurs, 2013-14

Miami Heat v San Antonio Spurs - Game Five

Starting lineup: Tony Parker, Danny Green, Kawhi Leonard, Tim Duncan, Boris Diaw/Tiago Splitter

Bench players: Manu Ginobili, Boris Diaw/Tiago Splitter, Patty Mills, Marco Belinelli, Matt Bonner, Aron Baynes, Cory Joseph, Jeff Ayres

What made the Spurs' triumph in the Finals from this year the biggest Finals win ever by average margin of victory was the sheer level of teamwork, ball movement and commitment to getting others involved that everyone on the team displayed.

Starting from the Conference Semifinals, after they'd been given a rude wakeup call by the Mavericks in the first round that went to 7 games, the Spurs played a brand of basketball that can only be described as beautiful.

They dispatched the Grizzlies in a sweep before the Thunder briefly gave them a patch of trouble. They eventually succeeded in polishing off Kevin Durant and his supporting cast in 6 games.

As the 2-time defending champions loomed, the city of San Antonio was besieged by a spirit of revenge for the losses they suffered in 2013. It was a payback made in full and with interest, as the Heat looked like a Euroleague team pitted against real NBA opposition in the Finals at many points.

The reason this team is placed so low is because it was short on two-way players - only 4 players could legitimately be called above average on both sides of the ball.

#3 Golden State Warriors, 2017-18

2018 NBA Finals - Game Four

Starting lineup (without injuries): Andre Iguodala, Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green

Bench players - Shaun Livingston, JaVale McGee, Kevon Looney, Nick Young, Jordan Bell, Quinn Cook, David West, Damian Jones

The 2017-18 season posed a number of problems to the Warriors. Despite getting off to a great start to the year, they floundered a bit in February and fell behind in the race for #1 seed to the Rockets, before losing all 4 of their All Stars to some form of injury for at least a week.

Come playoff time, however, they were as locked in as ever, as they demonstrated in the first 3 games of their first round series against the Spurs. They lost Game 4, but came back to the Oracle Arena to win Game 5 and end the series. They also beat the Pelicans in Game 1 before Steph staged a comeback from the MCL injury that had kept him out for 7 weeks by that point, and they went 2-0 up before dropping a game at the Smoothie King Center.

Yet, they rebounded with a big win in Game 4 and controlled the entirety of Game 5 to progress with another 4-1 series victory to the Conference Finals. The Rockets posed the greatest threat to the Durant-infused Warriors since 2016, and they held a 3-2 lead over the Oakland franchise at one point. But the loss of Chris Paul to a hamstring injury proved to be too much for the Rockets to fathom, and they lost Games 6 & 7 due to insufficient help from their bench.

The Cavs had a chance to win Games 1 & 3 in the Finals, but a JR Smith blunder and a dominant performance from Kevin Durant ensured the Warriors' only series sweep of their 2018 playoff run, precipitating LeBron James' exit from the Cavaliers.

#2 Miami Heat, 2012-13

San Antonio Spurs v Miami Heat - Game 7

Starting lineup (without injuries) - Mario Chalmers, Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Mike Miller/Udonis Haslem

Bench - Ray Allen, Shane Battier, Miller/Haslem, Chis Andersen, Norris Cole, James Jones, Rashard Lewis, Joel Anthony

Now, if we were talking purely about dominance of the team in the postseason, the Heat would undoubtedly rank lower. But since we're talking purely about the amount of talent the teams in question had, the Heat's lineup of dangerous shooters puts them above the Warriors and the Spurs mentioned in previous slides.

Shane Battier was an elite defender who could guard 4 positions on the floor without being exploited. Ray Allen was the textbook definition of a 3-and-D player at the end of his career. Mike Miller and James Jones were real scoring threats (although Jones barely saw any action during the playoffs), while Udonis Haslem was a pretty good rim protector and rebounder even in those years. Norris Cole was a good role player who was utilized pretty well by coach Erik Spoelstra in those years, though he was never starter material.

The Heat swept the Bucks in the first round with an average margin of victory of 14.75 points. The Derrick Rose-less Bulls posed them a slightly tougher challenge, though they went down in 5 games themselves by an average of 13.2 points per game.

The Indiana Pacers, however, had other ideas. Powered by Most Improved Player and first-time All Star Paul George alongside a supporting cast of Roy Hibbert, David West and Danny Granger, the Pacers ran the Heat really close in an entertaining Conference Finals series that the Heat ultimately won in a Game 7 blowout.

The Finals that year rank among our top 10 Finals series of all time, as the Spurs actually outscored the Heat by 5 points over 7 games, but Ray Allen's all-time great clutch shot at the end of regulation time in Game 6 coupled with LeBron's dominant Game 7 performance ensured that they got the back-to-back championships that was, at that point, an expectation rather than a possibility for them.

#1 Golden State Warriors, 2016-17

2017 NBA Finals - Game Five

Playoff starting lineup (without injuries) - Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green, Zaza Pachulia

Bench - Andre Iguodala, Shaun Livingston, Ian Clark, Patrick McCaw, JaVale McGee, David West, Matt Barnes, James McAdoo, Kevon Looney

Other than the Boston Celtics from 2008-11, no other team has had the luxury of 4 All Stars on the same squad, and even the Celtics' All Stars included a young Rajon Rondo and 3 aging stars on the wrong side of 30 with their best days behind them.

The Warriors ran riot on the Western Conference, completing series sweeps against the Portland TrailBlazers in the first round and Utah Jazz in the Conference Semifinals before meeting the Spurs in the Conference Finals.

Kawhi's Spurs led the Warriors by a good 20+ point margin till the 3rd quarter of Game 1, when Zaza Pachulia took up Kawhi's landing space and forced him off the floor and out of the playoffs with an ankle injury. The Warriors made no mistake from there on, putting the game and the series to bed with another sweep to become the first team in the best-of-7-in-the-first-round era to emerge from the Conference playoffs with an unbeaten record.

Facing the Cavaliers in the Finals, they racked up huge wins in Games 1 and 2, before staging a 4th quarter comeback late in Game 3 to win 15 consecutive playoff games. They would've finished the job in Game 4 but for a Finals record performance from the Cavs, who shot 45 and made 24 of their 3-pointers to win 137-116 at the Quicken Loans Arena.

The Warriors, however, finished the job off at the Oracle Arena with a 129-120 win to win the series 4-1 and finish the playoffs with the best playoff winning percentage of all time at 94.1%. Kevin Durant was named Finals MVP after averaging over 35 points per game on 55/47/93 shooting splits over the 5-game series.