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Saturday, August 21, 2010

Players and Teams Who Won the Quest for the Ring 1980-1994

Last year I discovered that nobody cares about how many rings pro basketball players have. Well, not exactly, but I discovered that no one cares enough to keep track and post the numbers on the Internet. I guess people don’t really respect NBA Champions the way they think they do. Even on monster statistical sites there is no page to go to listing NBA player champions year by year, or the number of rings won by player. Sure, you find short and usually incomplete lists of players who have won three or more rings drifting around, but forget about a complete list unless you get it here.

Quest for the Ring (QFTR) has provided the basketball world with the missing information and then some. Here for the second year we have the complete and correct listings for winners of the QFTR in multiple formats. Each year, scheduled for August, the following Reports are in this historical series:

1. Players and Teams Who Won the Quest for the Ring 1980-1994
2. Players and Teams Who Won the Quest for the Ring 1995-2010
3. Alphabetic Logs of all Players Who Have Won the Quest for the Ring 1980-2010
4. Players Ranked by Number of Championships and Rings Won Since 1980
5. Players Ranked by Minutes Played in Championship Years Since 1980
6. Most Recognized High Impact Players 1980-2010
7. Cities and Franchises That Won the Quest for the Ring 1950-2010

In 2010 these will be posted one each day beginning with #1 on August 21 and finishing with #7 on August 27.

After these look for the new and improved Real Coach Ratings and the second annual Report on player salaries, team payrolls, and team cap space.

Championships are by themselves crucial history, but they are also very important for the present, because players who have already won rings are, all other things equal, more valuable than players who have never won a ring. You might as well add about .050 to each such player's Real Player Rating. So a .700 becomes a.750, an .870 becomes a .920, and so forth.

PLAYERS AND TEAMS WHO WON THE QUEST FOR THE RING 1980-1994
Quest for the Ring presents the following complete list of NBA Champions by year and by team.

There are actually two listings or versions. The first one lists by year and by team all players who played for at least 300 minutes, which is only about 1/10 of the minutes played by the top stars. Anyone who played less than 300 minutes really didn't win a Championship if you know what I am saying, so they are not shown anywhere. The first list is called the inclusive version.

The second one is called the strict version and it lists all players who played for at least 1,200 minutes, which is a little bit less than a quarter per game. This many minutes is the dividing line between starters and very important off the bench players on the one hand and much less important players on the other hand. So this second listing is strictly limited to those players who were the most significant in winning the Quest.

There have been 31 Quest winners in the "modern era," the era since the 3-point shot went into effect in 1979-80. Three decades have come and gone since the NBA finally allowed 3 points to be counted for long range shots. (Where does the time go, George Karl?) We are posting the NBA Champions in two postings, the first one covering 15 years and the next one (posted tomorrow) covering the most recent 16 years.

In a few days, we will give you the total number of modern era rings won by players in a separate Report (#4 in the list above).

This Report shows you 1980-1994 Quest winners, and the other one to follow tomorrow shows you the 1995-2010 winners of the Quest. Remember, for both periods there are two listings: the complete list of all Champions who played at least 300 minutes, and a separate list showing only the starters and heavy minutes non-starters (1,200 minutes or more).

The format in each list is player/age/minutes played. The sorting order within each team is minutes played. Remember that as the Real Player Rating User Guide makes clear, in some cases players who have played fewer minutes may have been better players than those who played more.

========== WINNERS OF THE QUEST FOR THE RING INCLUSIVE VERSION==========
1980-1994 By Year and By Team
Inclusive Version: all players who played at least 300 minutes are included

1994 HOUSTON ROCKETS
Player Age Minutes
Hakeem Olajuwon 31 3,277
Otis Thorpe 31 2,909
Vernon Maxwell 28 2,571
Robert Horry 23 2,370
Kenny Smith 28 2,209
Mario Elie 30 1,606
Carl Herrera 27 1,292
Scott Brooks 28 1,225
Sam Cassell 24 1,122
Matt Bullard 26 725

1993 CHICAGO BULLS
Player Age Minutes
Scottie Pippen 27 3,123
Michael Jordan 29 3,067
Horace Grant 27 2,745
B.J. Armstrong 25 2,492
Scott Williams 24 1,369
Bill Cartwright 35 1,253
Stacey King 26 1,059
John Paxson 32 1,030
Rodney McCray 31 1,019
Will Perdue 27 998
Trent Tucker 33 909
Darrell Walker 31 367

1992 CHICAGO BULLS
Player Age Minutes
Scottie Pippen 26 3,164
Michael Jordan 28 3,102
Horace Grant 26 2,859
John Paxson 31 1,946
B.J. Armstrong 24 1,875
Bill Cartwright 34 1,471
Stacey King 25 1,268
Cliff Levingston 31 1,020
Will Perdue 26 1,007
Bob Hansen 31 769
Scott Williams 23 690
Craig Hodges 31 555

1991 CHICAGO BULLS
Player Age Minutes
Michael Jordan 27 3,034
Scottie Pippen 25 3,014
Horace Grant 25 2,641
Bill Cartwright 33 2,273
John Paxson 30 1,971
B.J. Armstrong 23 1,731
Stacey King 24 1,198
Cliff Levingston 30 1,013
Will Perdue 25 972
Craig Hodges 30 843
Dennis Hopson 25 728
Scott Williams 22 337

1990 DETROIT PISTONS
Player Age Minutes
Isiah Thomas 28 2,993
Bill Laimbeer 32 2,675
Joe Dumars 26 2,578
Dennis Rodman 28 2,377
James Edwards 34 2,283
Mark Aguirre 30 2,005
Vinnie Johnson 33 1,972
John Salley 25 1,914
Gerald Henderson 34 335

1989 DETROIT PISTONS
Player Age Minutes
Isiah Thomas 27 2,924
Bill Laimbeer 31 2,640
Joe Dumars 25 2,408
Dennis Rodman 27 2,208
Vinnie Johnson 32 2,073
Rick Mahorn 30 1,795
John Salley 24 1,458
Adrian Dantley 32 1,341
James Edwards 33 1,254
Mark Aguirre 29 1,068
Micheal Williams 22 358

1988 LOS ANGELES LAKERS
Player Age Minutes
Byron Scott 26 3,048
James Worthy 26 2,655
Magic Johnson 28 2,637
A.C. Green 24 2,636
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 40 2,308
Mychal Thompson 33 2,007
Michael Cooper 31 1,793
Kurt Rambis 29 845
Wes Matthews 28 706
Mike Smrek 25 421
Milt Wagner 24 380

1987 LOS ANGELES LAKERS
Player Age Minutes
Magic Johnson 27 2,904
James Worthy 25 2,819
Byron Scott 25 2,729
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 39 2,441
Michael Cooper 30 2,253
A.C. Green 23 2,240
Kurt Rambis 28 1,514
Billy Thompson 23 762
Mychal Thompson 32 680
Wes Matthews 27 532
Frank Brickowski 27 404

1986 BOSTON CELTICS
Player Age Minutes
Larry Bird 29 3,113
Dennis Johnson 31 2,732
Robert Parish 32 2,567
Danny Ainge 26 2,407
Kevin McHale 28 2,397
Jerry Sichting 29 1,596
Bill Walton 33 1,546
Scott Wedman 33 1,402
Rick Carlisle 26 760
Greg Kite 24 464
Sam Vincent 22 432
David Thirdkill 25 385

1985 LOS ANGELES LAKERS
Player Age Minutes
Magic Johnson 25 2,781
James Worthy 23 2,696
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 37 2,630
Byron Scott 23 2,305
Michael Cooper 28 2,189
Kurt Rambis 26 1,617
Larry Spriggs 25 1,292
Bob McAdoo 33 1,254
Mike McGee 25 1,170
Jamaal Wilkes 31 761
Mitch Kupchak 30 716

1984 BOSTON CELTICS
Player Age Minutes
Larry Bird 27 3,028
Robert Parish 30 2,867
Dennis Johnson 29 2,665
Kevin McHale 26 2,577
Cedric Maxwell 28 2,502
Gerald Henderson 28 2,088
Quinn Buckner 29 1,249
Danny Ainge 24 1,154
Scott Wedman 31 916
M.L. Carr 33 585

1983 PHILADELPHIA 76'ERS
Player Age Minutes
Moses Malone 27 2,922
Andrew Toney 25 2,474
Maurice Cheeks 26 2,465
Julius Erving 32 2,421
Clint Richardson 26 1,755
Bobby Jones 31 1,749
Marc Iavaroni 26 1,612
Franklin Edwards 23 1,266
Earl Cureton 25 987
Russ Schoene 22 702
Clemon Johnson 26 698
Reggie Johnson 25 549

1982 LOS ANGELES LAKERS
Player Age Minutes
Norm Nixon 26 3,024
Magic Johnson 22 2,991
Jamaal Wilkes 28 2,906
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 34 2,677
Michael Cooper 25 2,197
Mark Landsberger 26 1,134
Kurt Rambis 23 1,131
Jim Brewer 30 966
Mitch Kupchak 27 821
Bob McAdoo 30 746
Eddie Jordan 27 608
Mike McGee 22 352

1981 BOSTON CELTICS
Player Age Minutes
Larry Bird 24 3,239
Tiny Archibald 32 2,820
Cedric Maxwell 25 2,730
Chris Ford 32 2,723
Robert Parish 27 2,298
Kevin McHale 23 1,645
Gerald Henderson 25 1,608
Rick Robey 25 1,569
M.L. Carr 30 655

1980 LOS ANGELES LAKERS
Player Age Minutes
Norm Nixon 24 3,226
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 32 3,143
Jamaal Wilkes 26 3,111
Magic Johnson 20 2,795
Jim Chones 30 2,394
Michael Cooper 23 1,973
Spencer Haywood 30 1,544
Don Ford 27 580
Mark Landsberger 24 374

======== WINNERS OF THE QUEST FOR THE RING STRICT VERSION ========
1980-1994 By Year and By Team
Strict Version: All players who played at least 1,200 minutes are included

1994 HOUSTON ROCKETS
Player Age Minutes
Hakeem Olajuwon 31 3,277
Otis Thorpe 31 2,909
Vernon Maxwell 28 2,571
Robert Horry 23 2,370
Kenny Smith 28 2,209
Mario Elie 30 1,606
Carl Herrera 27 1,292
Scott Brooks 28 1,225

1993 CHICAGO BULLS
Player Age Minutes
Scottie Pippen 27 3,123
Michael Jordan 29 3,067
Horace Grant 27 2,745
B.J. Armstrong 25 2,492
Scott Williams 24 1,369
Bill Cartwright 35 1,253

1992 CHICAGO BULLS
Player Age Minutes
Scottie Pippen 26 3,164
Michael Jordan 28 3,102
Horace Grant 26 2,859
John Paxson 31 1,946
B.J. Armstrong 24 1,875
Bill Cartwright 34 1,471
Stacey King 25 1,268

1991 CHICAGO BULLS
Player Age Minutes
Michael Jordan 27 3,034
Scottie Pippen 25 3,014
Horace Grant 25 2,641
Bill Cartwright 33 2,273
John Paxson 30 1,971
B.J. Armstrong 23 1,731

1990 DETROIT PISTONS
Player Age Minutes
Isiah Thomas 28 2,993
Bill Laimbeer 32 2,675
Joe Dumars 26 2,578
Dennis Rodman 28 2,377
James Edwards 34 2,283
Mark Aguirre 30 2,005
Vinnie Johnson 33 1,972
John Salley 25 1,914

1989 DETROIT PISTONS
Player Age Minutes
Isiah Thomas 27 2,924
Bill Laimbeer 31 2,640
Joe Dumars 25 2,408
Dennis Rodman 27 2,208
Vinnie Johnson 32 2,073
Rick Mahorn 30 1,795
John Salley 24 1,458
Adrian Dantley 32 1,341
James Edwards 33 1,254

1988 LOS ANGELES LAKERS
Player Age Minutes
Byron Scott 26 3,048
James Worthy 26 2,655
Magic Johnson 28 2,637
A.C. Green 24 2,636
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 40 2,308
Mychal Thompson 33 2,007
Michael Cooper 31 1,793

1987 LOS ANGELES LAKERS
Player Age Minutes
Magic Johnson 27 2,904
James Worthy 25 2,819
Byron Scott 25 2,729
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 39 2,441
Michael Cooper 30 2,253
A.C. Green 23 2,240
Kurt Rambis 28 1,514

1986 BOSTON CELTICS
Player Age Minutes
Larry Bird 29 3,113
Dennis Johnson 31 2,732
Robert Parish 32 2,567
Danny Ainge 26 2,407
Kevin McHale 28 2,397
Jerry Sichting 29 1,596
Bill Walton 33 1,546
Scott Wedman 33 1,402

1985 LOS ANGELES LAKERS
Player Age Minutes
Magic Johnson 25 2,781
James Worthy 23 2,696
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 37 2,630
Byron Scott 23 2,305
Michael Cooper 28 2,189
Kurt Rambis 26 1,617
Larry Spriggs 25 1,292
Bob McAdoo 33 1,254

1984 BOSTON CELTICS
Player Age Minutes
Larry Bird 27 3,028
Robert Parish 30 2,867
Dennis Johnson 29 2,665
Kevin McHale 26 2,577
Cedric Maxwell 28 2,502
Gerald Henderson 28 2,088
Quinn Buckner 29 1,249

1983 PHILADELPHIA 76'ERS
Player Age Minutes
Moses Malone 27 2,922
Andrew Toney 25 2,474
Maurice Cheeks 26 2,465
Julius Erving 32 2,421
Clint Richardson 26 1,755
Bobby Jones 31 1,749
Marc Iavaroni 26 1,612
Franklin Edwards 23 1,266

1982 LOS ANGELES LAKERS
Player Age Minutes
Norm Nixon 26 3,024
Magic Johnson 22 2,991
Jamaal Wilkes 28 2,906
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 34 2,677
Michael Cooper 25 2,197

1981 BOSTON CELTICS
Player Age Minutes
Larry Bird 24 3,239
Tiny Archibald 32 2,820
Cedric Maxwell 25 2,730
Chris Ford 32 2,723
Robert Parish 27 2,298
Kevin McHale 23 1,645
Gerald Henderson 25 1,608
Rick Robey 25 1,569

1980 LOS ANGELES LAKERS
Player Age Minutes
Norm Nixon 24 3,226
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 32 3,143
Jamaal Wilkes 26 3,111
Magic Johnson 20 2,795
Jim Chones 30 2,394
Michael Cooper 23 1,973
Spencer Haywood 30 1,544
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BASKETBALL SITES THAT ARE OPEN FOR CONTENT FROM ANYONE
Note: Beware of "layered" sites. None of the following are layered sites, which are sites that allow contributions from the public only in hard to find, low traffic areas, while the main areas are off limits for public input and are only for a chosen few. All of the following have at least some notable traffic, and all of them allow relatively equal and open participation. The order is from most recommended to least recommended, based on about half a dozen factors.

Bleacher Report Open Posting Site
Inside Hoops NBA Forum
Real GM NBA and Team Forums
Pro Sports Daily NBA Forum
Basketball Forum NBA Forum
Sporting News NBA Forum
Hoops Hype NBA Forum
Armchair GM Open Posting Site
SportsTwo NBA Forum
NBA Dimensions NBA Forum
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KFFL NBA Forum

Note: there are other forums, but they are all very low traffic and activity compared to the ones above.

MESSAGE BOARDS AT HUGE COROPORATIONS
The Fox NBA board is very low traffic, and the MSNBC NBA board doesn't exist anymore. The CBS Sports NBA Message Board is a layered site; you can NOT post topics nor expect to be considered seriously there until you have spent a few years posting there. We do not recommend CBS Sports. So the only real, fully open NBA forum hosted by a big corporation is the ESPN message board. Be forewarned though that the ESPN board is dominated by very young fans who make very short comments. On the other hand, it is a high traffic site, so we won't stop you from posting a Quest link at ESPN if you want to.

ESPN NBA Message Board

>>>I WANT TO STICK WITH THE WAY OTHER SITES PRESENT POSTS
Due to the number of, uniqueness of, and importance of the many other home page features we have, only one Report loads at a time, currently the one just above. To see the next Report (which would be the one that came out just before the one above) on this home page, click "Older Posts" that is at the very bottom of the Report showing above, just above the section header "Your Ball: Take Your Best Shot".

>>ALTERNATIVE HOME PAGES
There are three home pages, all of which have all of the Reports but which have completely different features appearing on the sidebar and below the one Report that is shown at a time. These pages have been designed so that they fully load in about 10 seconds (no more super long load times we used to be known for.)

HOME PAGE A: ALL REPORTS, READERS CONTAINING REPORTS 1-100, AND UNIQUE FEATURES
HOME PAGE B: ALL REPORTS, READERS CONTAINING REPORTS 1-100, AND UNIQUE FEATURES
HOME PAGE C: ALL REPORTS, READERS CONTAINING REPORTS 1-100, AND UNIQUE FEATURES

>>REPORT READERS: Complete freedom to rapidly choose and read what you need or want to read. The latest 40 Reports are found near the top of all three of the primary home pages (linked to just above) while Reports #41-#100 are found in three separate readers placed at various points down the page on all three primary home pages.

>>EXPRESS VERSION: Every Single Report but no Features: a Fast Loading Page: Click Here

>>FAST BREAK VERSION: The Latest 100 Reports via Report Readers Only; no Features, a Fast Loading Page: Click Here

>>QUEST ARCHIVE HOME PAGES--REPORT ARCHIVES AND A SMALL NUMBER OF CLASSIC FEATURES THAT WON'T FIT ON OTHER HOME PAGES
QUEST 4: REPORTS 101-200
QUEST 5: REPORTS 201-300
QUEST 6: REPORTS 301-400
QUEST 7: REPORTS 401-500
QUEST 8: REPORTS 501-600
QUEST 9: REPORTS 601-700
QUEST 10: REPORTS 701-800

>>FEATURES ONLY HOME PAGES: NO REPORTS, JUST FEATURES THAT WE CAN'T FIT ANYWHERE ELSE
QUEST OVERTIME
QUEST CLASSIC

>>COMPLETE TITLE INDEX: : A Complete Report Title Index, with Express Version Links to all Reports

>>LATEST 25 Reports: Direct links to the latest 25 Reports (with no truncated titles as you find with the poorly designed Google archive). This is located near the very bottom of this page.

>>GOOGLE ARCHIVE you will find this, with Reports shown by week not very far below.

>>I'M NEW AND I DON'T KNOW WHERE I WANT TO GO: Welcome to the Real Zone. Simply browse the page and see for yourself what is here. You will not be disappointed.

>>OR YOU CAN DO A CUSTOM GOOGLE SEARCH OF THE 13 BOOKS AND COUNTING CONTAINED ON THIS SITE>>>>>

SEARCH THE QUEST FOR THE RING--THE EQUIVALENT OF MORE THAN 13 BOOKS ABOUT BASKETBALL

Custom Search
SEARCH THE 13 BOOKS / 1.3 MILLION WORDS

NBA LATEST 2010 PLAYOFFS VIDEOS

NOTES ABOUT VIDEOS: Some videos below appear only due to "spam tagging" and should be ignored; hover your mouse on the thumbs at the right to select videos.
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LATEST LOS ANGELES LAKERS VIDEOS

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THE LATEST CLEVELAND CAVALIERS VIDEOS

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THE QUEST FOR THE RING EMAIL ADDRESS

SITE E-MAIL
The site email address is the webmaster email address: nuggets1nuggets. This is a gmail address, so you add @gmail.com after the nuggets1nuggets. Use this email address to contact Nuggets 1 for any reason. If you are smart enough to know how basketball games are won, and you want to get promoted, nicely formatted space for you to publish your winning in basketball writing, by all means write to the above address. Alternatively, you can also comment or instantly publish your writing, by visiting and posting here.

QUEST REPORTS #41 TO #60, GOING BACK IN TIME

QUALIFICATIONS OF THE PRIMARY WRITER

The basketball expert and maniac who writes most of this site doesn't know how to stop until he has said and proved it all. So we are simply in a League of our own, and much of this unique content is for truly serious basketball people. The Quest for the Ring primary writer has two college degrees, one in Economics and one in Accounting. Both were with high honors and straight A grades. He played basketball in high school mostly because he was so tall at an early age but, unfortunately, he didn't have squat for athletic skills. Is that why he respects players more than other writers do? Probably so. In any event, he has been very closely following pro basketball for more than a dozen years. He has been extremely closely following the NBA in general and the Denver Nuggets in particular for over 4 years now. He has been learning the Detroit Pistons in great detail since the Iverson trade. He learns fast.

QUEST LOADING TIMES, RELOADING, AND BROWSER USAGE

LOADING OUR LOADED PAGE: The Nuggets 1 Main Page is chock loaded and needs time to load from sometimes sluggish or clunky Google servers. You may not be able to scroll properly while the page is loading. Links, including unfortunately the jump link to the latest content, may not work until the page is done or almost done loading. Please be patient and let it load. Your own computer system contains many variables that also determine how long it takes for Quest for the Ring to fully load. For example, how many programs and other sites are already up and running on your computer, and whether you have recently cleaned your temporary internet history and related caches will help determine how long it takes for the page to long.

Despite great variations, we will make estimates of how long the Quest home page will need to fully load. The following time are for those with reasonably healthy and not overburdened systems. With a fast broadband connection, generally a cable connection in the USA, the page will load in full in about 30-60 seconds. It will take 50-120 seconds to load with slower broadband connections, generally dsl in the USA. In Europe and Japan, my understanding is that dsl connections are frequently much faster than they are in the USA, so it would be less time for dsl in Europe and Japan. With a dial-up connection, the Quest home page might take 1-2.5 minutes to load, so just go on to something else and come back in about 2 minutes would be my advice if you are loading the page with a slow dial-up connection.

However you are assessing Quest, it is well worth the wait, so please try to be patient and let it load. Remember, most good things require at least a little bit of patience.

RELOADING WILL BE NECESSARY SOMETIMES
Every once in a while, parts of the page will not load. You will notice some things missing. If this happens, normally, if you click refresh and reload the page, you will get a complete loading and it will be a quicker loading than the original loading was. Having said that, you will find if you are a very heavy internet user that at any given time, if you have more than one browser available to you, that different browsers may load a loaded page such as this differently, with perhaps only one browser loading the page in full and other browsers failing to load one or more elements.

BROWSERS
All major users of the internet eventually realize that they must have at least 2 browsers, because browsers gradually become less reliable as time goes by, and because even if a browser is freshly downloaded, it may not properly load certain internet pages, whereas another browser will. If you notice open spaces on Quest (or any other website) even after reloading the page, you may need to try a different browser in order to more fully view that page. At this time, the Quest finds that any of the following browsers are able to fully, or at least almost fully, load Quest for the Ring pages: We recommend all of the following equally:

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QUEST REPORTS #61 TO #80, GOING BACK IN TIME

CHAUNCEY BILLUPS JUNE 2004

CHAUNCEY BILLUPS JUNE 2004

QUEST REPORTS #81 TO #100, GOING BACK IN TIME