His weapons were different, but he used what he had (a variety of '80s-approved floaters, runners, mid-range jumpers and lay-ins) to put you and your team to sleep. Thomas was a gamer: a smiling, soft-spoken killer of men and basketball spirit. This is possibly the greatest Finals performance of all time, although NBA.com fails to do it justice. He scored 25 points in the third period of a must-win game, much of which was played on a badly sprained ankle (if I said '25 points on a sprained ankle in the third quarter of a playoff game, wouldn't you insist that we're talking about Stephen Curry?). Back in '88 against a favored Lakers squad, Thomas had his definitive performance. Isaiah 'Zeke' Thomas stood six-feet-nothin', but pound-for-pound, he may be the game's greatest competitor. So then why are Isaiah Thomas and Stephen Curry so special?

Keep going: Hakeem Olajuwon, Michael Jordan, Moses Malone, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson. LeBron James, Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki, Shaquille O'Neal - there's not a lot of room for normal-sized basketball savants. Below, we take a look at how incredibly similar these two Champions are.īasketball is a game of physical freaks, and your list of NBA Champions reflects that. That would be the 'Bad Boy' Detroit Pistons of 1987-1991. If we look back through NBA history, it's actually kind of surprising how fast we come to another team with a Warriors-ish profile. And even though they played without a traditional center at times to smartly exploit extreme match-up advantages (if your opponent has no depth, isn't running more kind of common sense?), their roster composition is rather time-tested. These Golden State Warriors are a weird bunch: they've been accused of flipping the NBA world on its head because of jump shooting (didn't some short guy already invent that back in the 1930s?), even though their hoops-DNA is remarkably familiar.

Detroit pistons bad boys roster