Which NBA Team Has the Best Record?

The NBA regular season is winding down and the playoff picture is starting to take shape.
Which NBA team has the best record?

The teams

There are a lot of great teams in the NBA, but only one can have the best record. As of right now, that team is the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks have a record of 70-12, which is the best in the NBA.

The Bucks are followed closely by the Los Angeles Lakers, who have a record of 67-14. The Lakers have been on a tear lately, winning 19 of their last 20 games.

The Raptors, Sixers, and Clippers round out the top five teams in terms of record. All three of those teams have records of 58-23.

It should be noted that records can and will change as the season goes on. Teams that are struggling now could turn things around and make a run at the playoffs. Likewise, teams that are currently playing well could stumble down the stretch and miss out on the postseason altogether.

The records

The records of the National Basketball Association (NBA) teams are divided into two parts, the regular season and the playoffs. The regular season is when each team plays 82 games, 41 at home and 41 away. The playoffs are a single-elimination tournament held after the regular season where eight teams from each conference compete for the conference title and a spot in the NBA Finals.

In order to make it to the playoffs, a team must have one of the best records in their conference. The three division winners in each conference automatically qualify for the playoffs, as well as the five teams with the next best records regardless of division. This leaves ten spots open for teams to fight for in the playoffs.

The NBA Finals is a best-of-seven series between the winners of the Eastern and Western conferences. The team with the better record gets home-court advantage, meaning they would get to host four of the potential seven games.

Over the past few years, there has been a bit of an imbalance between the conferences. The Western Conference has had much more playoff success than the Eastern Conference, winning 17 of 21 NBA championships since 2000. This is due in large part to having more strong teams overall, as evidenced by having 31 of 50 seasons where a team from the West had at least 60 wins while that only happened 19 times in the East.

Looking at just this past decade, there have been nine seasons where an Eastern Conference team has had at least 60 wins while that number is only five for teams in the West. In fact, last season was the first time since 2013-14 that multiple Western Conference teams (Houston Rockets and Golden State Warriors) had 60+ win seasons while no team in the East did so.

The best record

The NBA team with the best record as of March 8th, 2020 is the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks have a 53-12 record and are a ways ahead of the second-place Toronto Raptors, who have a 48-17 record.