3 NBA teams with most Finals MVP awards
The NBA Finals MVP award was instituted in 1969 just as the Bill Russell era of the association came to an end. Russell won eleven championships with the Boston Celtics between 1956 and 1969, with his last two titles coming as player-coach. Had the Finals MVP Award been given out during the Celtics’ dominant run in the 1960s, Russell would surely have received the honor on more than a handful of occasions.
But since the award came into being only as the 1970s dawned, other franchisees benefitted in a relative sense as the Celtics’ fortunes dipped. The LA Lakers, the most dominant team of the 1980s, have five Finals MVP awards to their credit in that decade alone. The Chicago Bulls went one better in the 1990s, with Michael Jordan picking up six Finals MVP trophies as the Bulls three-peated twice between 1991-93 and 1996-98.
With this historical backdrop, we take a look at the top three teams to win the most Finals MVP award ever since the Lakers’ Jerry West received the honor the first time in 1969.
#3 Chicago Bulls – 6-time winners (1991-93, 1996-98)
![Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson hoist the NBA Finals MVP and NBA Championship trophies respectively [Image: Jeff Haynes/AFP]](https://staticg.sportskeeda.com/editor/2021/09/cc79e-16319061034601-800.jpg)
The team that is tied with the Celtics for Finals MVP awards. But the story of Chicago’s six MVP awards can be summarized in two words: Michael Jordan. As the Bulls won their only six titles in NBA history, all six in the period between 1990 to 1998, only one player dominated for them in each and every Finals appearance the team made. Jordan. He has the most Finals MVP awards in NBA history, two more than the next best individual (LeBron James has four).
The most important question one may ask is which of MJ’s six Finals MVP awards for Chicago ranks best? There is no single objective answer to this question. From a statistical standpoint, his showing in the 1993 Finals versus the Phoenix Suns, where Jordan averaged 41.0 ppg, 8.5 rpg, 6.3 apg while shooting 51% from the field and 40% from the three-point line, has to be one of the most dominant showings in NBA Finals history by any player.
But from a difficulty standpoint, given that Jordan was 35, and Chicago was a team running on fumes in 1998, his last Finals MVP award against the Utah Jazz may get a hat-tip from a lot more fans. Jordan averaged 33.5 ppg even at that age, hitting one of the biggest clutch shots in NBA history to shut out the Jazz. A measure of what Jordan meant to the franchise can be gaged by the fact that Chicago hasn’t even been to an NBA Finals since 1998.