Phil Jackson's Famous 40-20 Rule Strikes Again When It Comes To Predicting Who Will Win The NBA Title

Jesse D. Garrabrant. Getty Images.

Every NBA season, we all look for signs as to who might win the NBA championship that year. You look at record, net rating, offensive ranking, defensive ranking, wins against good teams, record after the All Star break, clutch time performance, betting history etc. 

Really, there is only one thing that truly matters when it comes to this exercise, and it's something that Phil Jackson knew and made famous.

The 40/20 rule.

It's pretty simple. If you want to win the NBA title, you must win your 40th game before your 20th loss. Now achieving this feat doesn't guarantee a title, but NBA history has shown that you most likely are not winning the title unless you do it. There have been teams that pulled it off and still fell short, but on February 25th we got our final list for the 2022-23 season

The idea isn't all that groundbreaking. The best teams in the league usually win their 40th before losing their 20th, and those really good teams tend to win the title. The point is, with all the stats and metrics and odds flying around, NBA history tells us that this is really the only thing you need to pay attention to.

Now that the Nuggets (a 40/20 team) finished the job and won their title, every champ over the last 42 seasons has hit the mark outside of just 4 teams: 2021 Bucks, 2006 Heat, 2004 Pistons, and 1995 Rockets. 

I put the N/A on the 2019-20 season because of the weird shut down and Bubble restart as well as fuck the Lakers forever, but if you wanted to count them you could, considering they were 49-14 before the stoppage, so they technically hit it too on the way to their title. 

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I'm starting to think that Phil Jackson fella might have been on to something here. There's a reason he was on record that you are not a true contender unless you hit this mark, and it's hard to argue against his point. While it certainly doesn't guarantee a title given the fact that both the 2023 Celtics and 2023 Bucks did not win the title this year and the same is true for the 2021 and 2022 Suns, it's a box that you absolutely have to check if you want to be serious about winning the whole thing. I'd certainly rather see my favorite team hit that mark and take my chances than not win 40 before losing 20 and knowing right from the jump that you're not going to win the title. I get that this may seem cherry picked, but I mean look at how many years are in the two tweets above. That sample size seems pretty legit to me, but then again I most definitely did not do well in my statistics class in college. 

NBA history tells us a few things when it comes to winning a title. You very clearly need at a minimum, a top 5 player. It starts there. If that can be top 3, even better. The Nuggets checked that box. Unfortunately, just having the MVP isn't enough, considering the NBA's MVP has not won the title since Steph did it in 2015-16. What's also unique about that 2015-16 Warriors team? Oh yeah, they hit the 40-20 rule. The truth is, you need both. You need to find a way to have both a top 3-5 guy AND hit the 40-20 rule if you want to be the last team standing. That's not me talking, that's NBA history talking. You can hit 40-20, but if you don't have that top 5 player, history says you aren't winning. You can have the best player, but if you didn't hit 40-20, history says you aren't winning. There's maybe one or two exceptions to this rule like there is with everything in life, but the proof is in the pudding.

So as we turn the page to 2023-24 and go through that season, you can mostly ignore everything outside of the 40-20 rule. Let the talking heads do their thing and throw out hot takes to generate buzz, let people overreact to one bad stretch (remember the Nuggets 9-10 close to the season?), at the end of the day, it's all bullshit.

What looks to truly matter is winning your 40th before losing your 20th. The Nuggets did it and now they're the champs. Good luck to everyone next season who hopes to accomplish the same.