Thunder
(Illustration by Michael Domine/The Washington Post; Getty Images)
Seventy wins is professional basketball’s hallowed ground.
The Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers have combined to win 35 championships, yet neither organization has touched 70 wins in a season. Entire decades have passed without any team mounting a serious challenge. All told, 1,373 teams have played a full 82-game season since 1967, when the NBA adopted its current schedule length. During that time, only two teams — the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls and the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors — reached 70 wins. That’s a 0.15 percent success rate.