Warriors return to - and remain on - the top of pro basketball

Golden State increased its historical lead in the traveling standings across pro basketball in 2018-19, winning the season's honors for the second time and qualifying for the new Elite Division in 2019-20.

Golden State returned to the winner's circle in the traveling pro basketball championship across all of the United States and Canada in 2018-19, capturing more games of title than any other team after taking two years off from winning the title.

The Warriors added up to 14 games of championship for the year, bringing their all-time total up to 54. The Warriors won 40 games of title in 2015-16, the first year this championship ran, and didn't win it again until Oct. 24, 2018, when it went on the road and defeated Washington, 144-122.

After beating the Wizards, Golden State added six defenses to the championship. The Warriors tacked on another seven-game championship in January, ending the season with 14 games of title. Second place was San Antonio, which finished with 10 games. Portland, with three games of title to end the season, totaled nine for the year.

The traveling championship secured for the Warriors a spot in the 2019-20 Elite Division after they failed to qualify in the pyramid. The Warriors held a healthy lead with the traveler when the Spurs took hold of it in late February, but the Spurs ripped out eight defenses, bringing themselves within five games of the Warriors when those teams met on March 18 in San Antonio.

The Spurs prevailed in that one, 111-105, pushing a critical head-to-head pyramid tiebreaker with Golden State in their favor. Now, the Spurs held the far inside track for fourth place in the First Division, which earns a spot in the Elite Division. And if the Spurs kept winning, they could have jeopardized Golden State's path to the Elite Division through the traveling championship, as well. But the Spurs lost their next game to Miami. Another threat to the Warriors came when San Antonio won the title from Atlanta on April 2. But the Spurs lost in their next outing at Denver.

With 54 games of title all-time through four years, Golden State has more than the next two teams, Miami (24) and Toronto (22), combined. The Clippers are fourth with 20, followed by San Antonio with 18.

With Elite Division coming, pro basketball pyramid heats up

The oncoming Elite Division jacked up the stakes around the pro basketball ordinals in 2018-19, but even without it, the Toronto Raptors and Oklahoma City Thunder produced a percentage-points finish for the First Division championship.

The establishment of an Elite League for 2019-20, something along the lines of the main continental soccer championships, made the ordinal pyramid in professional basketball quite more thick in 2018-19, especially in the top division.

The elite league will be stocked in the same way that the similar leagues are stocked in North American baseball and hockey. The top four teams in the First Division from the previous year will be entered, as will the top three teams from the Second Division, the top two teams from the Third Division and the top team from the Fourth Division. Traveling champions also will qualify, if they haven't qualified in the pyramid.

In 2018-19, that led to a meaningful race for fourth place in the First Division. The race at the top finished tight, but really wasn't so much at the end.

Toronto and Oklahoma City were the best teams, tied in the games column. Toronto prevailed on percentage points, finishing 11-5 (.688) to 14-8 (.636) for the Thunder. The Raptors clinched it with a 123-114 overtime win at Oklahoma City on March 20, putting their record at 11-4 and OKC at 12-8. That guaranteed that Toronto would finish with the best percentage and no worse for tied on top in the games column. Turned out that OKC went to Toronto and won two days later, then finished with a win against Houston.

Down the standings a way, we had a logjam. As of March 15, Houston held third place at 10-10, followed by San Antonio and Golden State at 8-9 and the Clippers at 9-11. Two of those teams would go to the Elite League.

At 9-11, Utah still had a chance, but the Jazz was the seventh-place team and had the additional concern to avoid relegation. And they only had one First Division game left, anyway, against the Clippers on the final day of the season.

Down the backstretch, Houston went 3-0 to finish comfortably in third place. The Spurs and Warriors both were 3-1 in the last three weeks of the season. However, the Golden State loss and one of the San Antonio wins proved decisive, as the Spurs beat Golden State, 111-105, in San Antonio on March 18. The Clippers couldn't keep up, going 2-2 down the stretch.

When the smoke cleared, the Spurs and Warriors were tied for fourth place at 11-10 in the First Division. But the tiebreaker went to the Spurs for going 2-1 head-to-head against Golden State, crucially because of their March 18 victory.

The Clippers didn't make it into the Elite Division, but they survived for another year in the First Division with a 143-137 win against Utah on the final day of the season. Utah spent only one year in the First Division before being relegated back to the Second Division for 2019-20. Cleveland, a middle-of-the-pack First Division team even when it had LeBron James, fell to 2-14 and is headed to the Second Division in 2019-20.

The Second Division produced a tight race for promotion. Denver won it at 14-5, followed by Portland at 13-6. Boston finished one-half game behind promotional status, but will enter the Elite Division in 2019-20, as will Denver and Portland. At the bottom, Washington and Chicago are going down to the Third Division, but Atlanta, Dallas and New Orleans barely survived.

There was no contest in the Third Division. Philadelphia and Milwaukee clearly were the best two teams, so they will be promoted in 2019-20 to the Second Division and the Elite Division. At the bottom of this group, New York was notably terrible at 2-22. Detroit will join the Knicks in the Fourth Division in 2019-20.

Minnesota won the Fourth Division in 2018-19, allowing the Timberwolves to climb out of this bottom rung for the first time since we began tracking the pyramid in 2015-16. Moving up with the Timberwolves to the Third Division are the Brooklyn Nets.

Warriors sneak in for 2017-18 top tier title

The Golden State Warriors received the help they needed to win the pro basketball First Division in 2017-18, their second such championship in three years of the competition.

Less than two weeks remained of the NBA season on April 1, 2018, and four games in those final days would tell the tale in the First Division.

On that morning, the Houston Rockets led the top division at 14-4, followed by the Oklahoma City Thunder at 13-5 and the Golden State Warriors at 14-6.

The defending champs, the San Antonio Spurs were only 10-10 as April 1 dawned, but they were to have a huge impact on this race. They had just knocked the Thunder off Houston's heels with a 103-99 homecourt win on March 29. Later on April 1, the Rockets played in San Antonio, and the Spurs gave them the same treatment, a 100-83 beating that cut Houston's lead over the Thunder back down to one-half game.

By knocking down the Thunder and Rockets, the Spurs did quite a favor to the Warriors, who suddenly went to Oklahoma City on April 3 with a chance to take the division lead. They were 14-6, barely behind the Rockets (14-5) and the Thunder (13-5).

On a night when Kevin Durant shot pitifully for the Warriors, only nine-for-25 (including two-for-nine from three-point range), he still scored 34 because he was 14-for-14 at the free-throw line. The Warriors won, 111-107, and now led the division at 15-6.

One game remained: April 7, Oklahoma City at Houston. A win for the Rockets on their own court would end their First Division season with the championship. Otherwise, the Warriors would sneak in for their second top-tier title in three years of this exercise.

For most of its 10 years in Oklahoma City, the Thunder has worked at around 50 regular season victories and a round or two of playoffs. But the Thunder happened to have a down year in 2014-15 and missed the playoffs. Thus, Oklahoma City began this competition of ordinal divisions in the Third Division when these alignments were begun with the 2015-16 season.

But the Thunder rumbled quickly to the top tier. Blitzing through the Third Division with a championship 16-3 showing, it advanced to the Second Division for 2016-17. Once there, the Oklahomans fought off challenges from the Dallas Mavericks and Washington Wizards, finishing second to the Clippers and advancing this year to the top level.

So, they made it almost to the wire in 2017-18. Falling ever so short, the Thunder relished its role as spoiler on April 7 and hung a 108-102 victory over the Rockets, finishing in a second-place tie with its vanquished hosts at 14-6.

The bottom of the First Division was uncharacteristically weak. The Atlanta Hawks, all the way down to 2-15, finished last. The Hawks gave the Spurs their toughest challenge in 2016-17, finishing 1 1/2 games out of first place. Then they lost Paul Millsap and Tim Hardaway to free agency and traded Dwight Howard. Look out below.

Right with them, though are the Chicago Bulls, who finished 3-14 and will join the Hawks next season in the Second Division.

One promotional spot was up for grabs as of April 1 in the Second Division. The Utah Jazz already were comfortably in the clubhouse at 12-5, clinching the championship and the first promotion. The New Orleans Pelicans were uncomfortably in the clubhouse in third place at 10-8 and needed help.

In between, the Toronto Raptors were 11-8 with games coming up against the Boston Celtics and the Indiana Pacers. The Raptors only needed to win one for promotion, and they won both, leaving New Orleans to wait another year.

At the bottom of this group, the Pacers and Milwaukee Bucks were clearly the demotees. The standings make it appear that the Celtics and and Dallas Mavericks flirted with disaster, but it only looks like that because the Celtics lost their last two games and the Mavs lost their last three.

The Denver Nuggets and the Portland Trail Blazers stormed through the Third Division in 2017-18, earning promotion to the Second Division the next season. The Nuggets won the championship with an 88-82 homecourt win against Portland on April 3, holding the Blazers to 13 points in the fourth quarter.

At the bottom, the Orlando Magic and Memphis Grizzlies worked their way down. Orlando beat the New York Knickerbockers in April, but that just closed the gap.

The Philadelphia 76ers easily won the Fourth Division championship with an 11-3 record that was three games better than anyone else in this bottom group.

The Detroit Pistons squeezed to just enough better than even to beat the Lakers and Minnesota Timberwolves for the second promotion.

The Lakers were in the driver's seat through March 25, second place at 7-5 with their next game coming against the only team seriously chasing them, the 6-5 Pistons. On March 26, the Lakers went to Detroit to play that game, and lost, 112-106.

The Pistons, now in promotion position, increased their cushion with a 108-96 win at Brooklyn on April 1. But the Pistons, on their own court, were no match for the Sixers on April 4, losing 115-108.

Now, the Pistons were 8-6 and the Lakers were 7-6. Only one game remained, with the Lakers scheduled at home against the Timberwolves on April 6. A Lakers win would make them 8-6, tied with the Pistons. But the Lakers held the tie-breaker, despite their loss in Detroit. They split their two games, with the Lakers beating Detroit, 113-93, at Staples Center on Halloween. Thus, the Lakers won the next tiebreaker, going plus-14 in head-to-head point differential.

It mattered not one bit, as the Wolves stomped the Lakers, 113-93, blow torching through a second half that went 62-38 in their favor. So, the Lakers, a cellar-dwelling team for all three years of this arrangement, will try again to move up in 2018-19. It was widely speculated that free agent LeBron James was being recruited for the effort.

On their way to Finals, Warriors win West traveler

The Golden State Warriors enter the NBA Finals with 25 wins in their last 26 games. Ten of those wins carried them to the western traveling championship in professional basketball.

With Draymond Green's muscle, the Golden State Warriors streaked to the western pro basketball traveling championship (Keith Allison/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license).

For much of the year, the Golden State Warriors disappeared from relevance in the western traveling championship of professional basketball.

It turned out to be a temporary condition.

After trouncing through the West last season, the Warriors were lukewarm in their first couple of runs at it in 2016-17. They lost in their first try, a 110-89 road loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on Dec. 10. It would be two months later, on Feb. 10, when they took their second try, again at Memphis, and this time they claimed the western title with a 122-107 win. Then, they failed to defend it.

As late as mid-March, the Grizzlies were looking like Team of the Year in the West. They were 9-3 with two championships and seven defenses in nine chances. No one else was close.

At the start of games on March 20, the Oklahoma City Thunder wore the crown, coating it with two defenses. But the Warriors visited that night, and that's when it all began to change.

Retrospectively, the whole NBA season was changing at around that time. The Warriors began March in the middle of a grueling road trip – eight games in eight different cities in 13 days. By the end of it, they were tattered, and Head Coach Steve Kerr rather famously tanked the final game on that swing, a 110-87 road loss to the San Antonio Spurs, by resting many of his best players. It was Golden State's third straight loss.

But the Warriors returned home, regrouped and won three straight in their own gym before going to Oklahoma City for a crack at the traveling championship. The Warriors then beat the Thunder soundly, 111-95, for their second western title of the year. And the Warriors kept winning.

No one could stop them. The Warriors won 10 straight for the title, 13 overall. Only three of those wins were single-digit margins. By the time someone finally beat the Warriors, they had it in the bag. That finally happened on April 10, when the Utah Jazz beat them, 105-99, on their own floor.

Only two days remained in the regular season. The Warriors were 11-3 with two titles and nine defenses in 11 tries. One huge surge at the end of the season put them over the top.

Utah went on to beat the San Antonio Spurs on the final day of the season to retain this championship entering 2017-18.

But the Warriors are the team to remember. In fact, they're the only team in the West still going after sweeping through the conference playoffs by knocking out the Portland Trail Blazers, the Jazz and the Spurs in four games each.

Now, the Warriors are going to the NBA Finals for another run at the Cleveland Cavaliers. They have won 25 of their last 26 games. The traveling championship of the West could be the least of their achievements by the time this is all done.

Spurs win top tier, Clippers going up

The San Antonio Spurs won the First Division across pro basketball, while last year's champs, the Golden State Warriors, fell to third. The Clippers, who were relegated last year, have fought their way back to the top level by winning the Second Division.

Kawhi Leonard (2) was instrumental in taking the San Antonio Spurs to the First Division championship (Jose Garcia/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license).

By the end of March, the San Antonio Spurs were in the clubhouse with a 13-4 record in the First Division, good enough to clinch the championship and their second consecutive division title.

In 2015-16, the Spurs blitzed through the Second Division with an 18-1 mark to earn promotion. In 2016-17, the Spurs were just about as lightly challenged in the top tier, despite the presence of the Golden State Warriors, who won it a year earlier with the same 18-1 record. This season, the Warriors finished third in the First Division at 11-6, two games from the top.

The Boston Celtics, who were promoted to the First Division with the Spurs this year, are going back to the Second Division after finishing at the bottom of the First Division. They will be joined by the Toronto Raptors.

The Clippers, who were relegated to the Second Division this year, are headed back to the top division in 2017-18 after taking the Second Division championship. Going to the stretch, the Clippers held a 1/2-game lead on the Washington Wizards for the Second Division title. But the Clippers won their last two games, while the Wizards lost their final two, falling out of consideration for promotion. The Oklahoma City Thunder took the second promotion to the top tier with a 12-10 record.

The Portland Trail Blazers, who began as a First Division team in 2015-16, are being demoted for the second straight year. The Blazers finished at the bottom of the Second Division this season and will go down to the Third Division next season. Also being demoted are the Memphis Grizzlies.

A tight race in the Third Division ended with the New Orleans Pelicans and the Indiana Pacers being co-champions, barely beating out the New York Knickerbockers. 

The race to avoid relegation to the Fourth Division was equally tight. The three teams fighting for survival were the Detroit Pistons, the Orlando Magic and the Brooklyn Nets. In the end, Brooklyn finished last in the Third Division. Detroit and Orlando finished tied for the next worst record. However, the Magic won the tiebreaker with a 3-1 head-to-head record against Detroit, which will be a Fourth Division team next season.

The Denver Nuggets, who had been demoted to the Fourth Division this season, fought their way back to the Third Division by barely winning the bottom rung ahead of the Sacramento Kings. The Minnesota Timberwolves had good shot at promotion, but they lost their final two bottom level games against the Kings and the Lakers, opening the second promotion for the Kings.

Spurs join Warriors as dominant First Division champs

The San Antonio Spurs, promoted this season to the First Division, have stormed through the top level with a 13-3 record, already clinching the championship. Meanwhile, the Clippers aren't far from promotion – or a fight for promotion.

Chris Paul and Clippers are leading the way at the moment in the Second Division. But that could change quickly (Verse Photography/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license).

Drama has been in short supply during the first two seasons of pro basketball's First Division. 

Each season has produced a dominant champion, with the San Antonio Spurs and their 13-3 performance this season following the Golden State Warriors and their 18-1 output last year. The Spurs already have clinched the title this year, holding a three-game lead on the Atlanta Hawks (10-6).

The relegation side, likewise, has little left to be decided. The Boston Celtics (7-13) and Toronto Raptors (6-13) are all but ticketed for the Second Division next season. The Houston Rockets (7-10) are the next team on that cut list, but they are not imperiled with two weeks left in the season.

Last season, the Rockets barely escaped relegation because the Clippers had too many injuries for that to happen. The Clippers slipped to the Second Division this year, along with the Portland Trail Blazers.

The Spurs were promoted to the First Division this season, along with the Celtics. But those two teams had radically different fortunes this season against the top tier.

Following last season's romp, the Warriors have settled into the third place this season, holding a 9-6 record.

As of now, the Clippers have the best total record in the Second Division, and they should be headed back to the First Division next season. But those waters remain murky.

The Clippers are 12-9 in the Second Division, tied with 8-6 Washington with a .571 winning percentage, though the Clippers hold a one-half game lead. However, the Wizards are at Staples Center Wednesday night for an important showdown with the Clippers. 

The Clippers would gain clarity with a win, which would clinch the Second Division championship and promotion back to the top level. But if the Wizards win, then they move into the top spot outright, and the Clippers would suddenly be fighting for promotion. 

The next team down is the 10-9 Dallas Mavericks. Following Wednesday night's game, the Clippers have one more game in the Second Division, coming on April 5 at home against Dallas. Along with that game, the Mavericks have two more Second Division games, both on the road against the faltering Memphis Grizzlies on Friday night and April 12. Washington closes out its Second Division season Friday night against the Utah Jazz in Salt Lake City.

The Oklahoma City Thunder (11-10) is right there with the Mavericks, and the Milwaukee Bucks (7-7) aren't far behind. The Thunder will play the Bucks at home on April 4, then finish out their Second Division schedule on April 5 at Memphis. The Bucks' game with Oklahoma City is their only remaining game in the Second Division.

Memphis and Portland are the two bottom teams in the Second Division, and both appear headed downstairs next year. Unless, somehow, the Jazz crumbles even worse.

Down in the Third Division, the New Orleans Pelicans are on a light schedule, being the only western team at that level. The Pelicans are in the clubhouse at 9-5. Their .643 winning percentage is the best in the third tier, though the Pelicans are a game behind the Indiana Pacers (15-9) in the games column. In the event that one team finishes first in percentage and another finishes first in the games behind column, those are the two teams being promoted. 

The New York Knicks (13-9) also remain in strong position for promotion. They have only two more games for making their case, both this week against the Miami Heat.

The standings on the bottom of the Third Division are tight. The Detroit Pistons (9-14), the Orlando Magic (8-13) and the Brooklyn Nets (7-13) all are fighting against relegation, which is the plight for the two teams finishing at the bottom of this level.

The Denver Nuggets, demoted to the Fourth Division this season, apparently will climb right back out. The Nuggets (11-6) hold a comfortable lead for the Fourth Division title. The Sacramento Kings (9-6) and Minnesota Timberwolves (8-6) are battling for the second promotional spot out of the basement.

Golden State best in first year of west traveling title

No one could touch the Golden State Warriors in the first year of the western traveling championship of professional basketball. The Warriors won 22 games in 2015-15, more than twice as many as any other team.

We placed the first Ear of Corn for the NBA Western Conference into the hands of the Golden State Warriors. By the time the Warriors finally lost in the west half of the league, they already had 19 wins.

So, it's an uphill climb for the rest of the Western Conference to catch the Warriors, who totaled 22 wins to outdistance the San Antonio Spurs (nine wins) and the Oklahoma City Thunder (eight wins) in the first turn with this prize.

Nine of the 15 teams in the west won the prize on this first go-around. The Dallas Mavericks, with three championships, won more than any other team. However, the Mavs were only 2-5 in title defenses.

The only Western Conference team that never took a crack at the prize in its first year was the Sacramento Kings.

Warriors dominate pro basketball top tier in 2015-16

The Golden State Warriors were impressive enough in 2015-16 for securing the best regular season record of all time. But when we look at them against our First Division that season, they appear even better.

The 2015-16 Golden State Warriors regular season is in the books as the best ever for an NBA team. The Warriors finished 73-9, despite sputtering down the stretch with two home losses in April, finishing ahead of the 72-10 mark set by the Chicago Bulls in 1995-96.

Another way of viewing the Warriors is their performance against the cream of the NBA. Our scheme for promotion and relegation of pro basketball teams happens to originate with the 2015-16 season, putting the Warriors in the First Division.

We had to start somewhere, but it was easy. To decide which teams to place in which division entering 2015-2016, we simply consulted the NBA standings from the previous year. Top top four playoff seeded teams from each conference were placed in the First Division, the second four went into the Second Division, the next four went into the Third Division and the remaining three teams from each conference were placed in the dreaded Fourth Division.

Playing it out in 2015-2016, here is how it came in for the First Division.

Considering only their games against these teams, the top four seeded teams from each conference a year earlier, the Warriors were a dominant 18-1. They always showed up when the game actually stood to be a test of basketball. Probably about half of their losses during the regular season came in raw tests of endurance that the NBA and NHL impose upon their teams.

Relative to other team sports, travel in the NBA and NHL is dizzying. Even with all the soothing perks they receive, we simply cannot expect peak athletic performance night after night from athletes who get on and off of planes and into and out of airports as much as these NBA and NHL players.

Big league baseball teams play twice as many games, 162, but they'll spend three or four days in a road city, so 81 road games is only 27 destinations. But the winter leagues play them one at a time, so they are in and out. A baseball team might not fly 40 times in a season, but a winter team will fly 60 times. A winter team will often get on and off of planes three days in a row. Even a traveling baseball team will spend those three days in one town.

When the Warriors lost, it sometimes smacked of raw burnout. Like the first time they lost, after opening the season with 24 straight wins. It was December 12, 2015, in Milwaukee, the last game of a seven-game road trip that lasted 13 days. The Warriors were in the second game of a road back-to-back, coming off a double-overtime win the night before in Boston.

The Bucks won easily, 108-95. The Warriors had no legs, making nine of 36 shots from outside the lane and only six of 27 from the three-point zone. The Bucks were a middling team hungry for a marquee win at home and the Warriors couldn't put up a fight.

But when the Warriors went up against a real contender like the Clippers, the Cleveland Cavaliers or the Atlanta Hawks, the Warriors were bright-eyed and bushy tailed. An 18-1 slate against this group of First Division teams is impressive, because it was pretty representative of the league's best. Seven of the eight teams here went to the NBA playoffs, five survived to the quarterfinals, three to the semifinals and two to the finals.

To the extent that our groupings are wrong, promotion and relegation is a pretty satisfying way to fix them. For example, it's absurd that the San Antonio Spurs wouldn't appear in any grouping of the league's best eight teams. Turns out, the Spurs had a down regular season, for their high standards, seeding only fifth in the Western Conference for the 2015 playoffs. So, the Spurs began 2015-16 season in our Second Division.

You knew that couldn't last, and it didn't. The Spurs crushed the Second Division with a championship 18-1 record, easily securing their promotion to the First Division in 2016-17. Joining the Spurs in promotion are the Boston Celtics (12-8), a distant second-place team that barely beat out the Dallas Mavericks (11-9) and the Washington Wizzards (10-9).

For the Spurs and Celtics going up, there must be two teams coming down to the Second Division from the First Division. The two teams relegated were the Clippers and the Portland Trail Blazers. The Clippers, with their injuries, couldn't swing with the heavyweights and finished only 7-13 against against the First Division. The Trail Blazers were a vulnerable First Division entrant, the best team in a weak division, and their 6-14 performance against this top tier proved that they do not belong.

On the bottom of the Second Division we find the Brooklyn Nets, who were, predictably, in over their heads at 2-16 in this tier. The Nets will go to the Third Division in 2016-17. Also going down are the 7-13 New Orleans Pelicans. The Milwaukee Bucks appeared doomed to relegation for much of the season, losing nine of their first 12 Second Division games. However, the Bucks rallied with five wins in their last six games and finished 8-11, safely ahead of the Pelicans.

The Third Division produced another easy winner in the Oklahoma City Thunder, which finished well ahead of the Utah Jazz and the Miami Heat. At 16-3, the Thunder is well qualified for Second Division promotion. The Jazz and Heat both finished 12-8, and they split their two games head-to-head. The Jazz gets the prize, though, for points difference in those games. The Heat won, 92-91 on Dec. 9 in Miami, and the Jazz won much bigger, 98-83, on Jan. 9 in Utah.

Phoenix finished 3-16, way in over its head, and is now headed to the Fourth Division, along with the Denver Nuggets.

Now we come to the Fourth Division, the dregs of the league. We have teams here like the Lakers (4-10) and the Philadelphia 76ers (3-10) who can't even hold up against this competition. Both should be relegated out of the Fourth Division, but there's no place lower for them to go.

Perhaps there isn't much to be shown for Phil Jackson's executive leadership of the New York Knickerbockers, so far, but we can say the climbed out of the Fourth Division. The Knicks tied for the division title with the Orlando Magic at 9-4. Both are promoted to the Third Division in 2016-2017.