NBA
Which conference has won the NBA championship the most times?
The NBA Finals will get underway this Wednesday, July 7, when the Milwaukee Bucks battle the Phoenix Suns for the chance to become champions.
As the NBA Finals take place this July 7, the teams who will meet at this particular end of the season will become winners of the competition for the first time since the ABA and the NBA merged in 1976.
The LA Lakers hold 17 NBA Finals Championship titles tying for first place with the Boston Celtics. The West Conference has a total of 34 NBA finals won from 9 different franchises, while the East has 38 championships with 10 different franchises.
Interestingly both franchises represent one Conference each, the Lakers the West and the Celtics the East.
The LA Lakers are the franchise with the most Western Conference Finals with 23, and they have won 19 of those. The last time they won an NBA final and Western Conference title was in 2020 at the Orlando "Bubble.
The Boston Celtics are the franchise with the most Eastern Conference Finals with 20, winning 9. The last time they won an Eastern Conference final and was in 2010, but they failed to win the championship that year.
The NBA has had 75 seasons, and out of those, 34 have gone to two teams, the LA Lakers and the Boston Celtics. Combined, they make up 49.5% of all the league titles. With the win in 2020, the Lakers now have 17 NBA titles, the same number as the Celtics.
The history behind the conferences
As the NBA grew in size and more teams joined the league, the number of games played per year became a concern for the governing body. The travel load and the fear of injuries for the star players made the league managers decided to split the conferences into two back in 1970, the Western Conference and the Eastern Conference.