Ranking the NBA Championship Hats 2000-Present

Winning an NBA title is the pinnacle of a player's career, a memory that will last them a lifetime. Some players however, might have their pictures a little more front and center than others based on the hat they are given to wear for their post game celebration. We examine that championship hats from all the NBA Finals winners since 2000 and rank them from best to worst.

1. 2007 San Antonio Spurs



Simple, clean and understated, much like that 2007 Spurs team.

2. 2001 Los Angeles Lakers



Phil Jackson's best Lakers team also deserved the best championship hat.

3. 2005 San Antonio Spurs



After a brutal and physical 7 game series with the Detroit Pistons the Spurs were rewarded with the number 3 hat on our list.

4. 2009 Los Angeles Lakers



Kobe Bryant's first title post-Shaq can be remembered even more fondly when he looks at this one in his trophy case.

5. 2008 Boston Celtics



A little louder and little more flashy, much like that championship team centered around the Big 3 in Boston.

6. 2002 Los Angeles Lakers



Simple but nothing is eye-grabbing or stands out, that's why it falls in the middle of our list.

7. 2004 Detroit Pistons



It works for that blue collar Pistons team, but imagine if that Lakers team with Karl Malone and Gary Payton would've won, could you imagine a Lakers logo on this hat?

8. 2000 Los Angeles Lakers



Loses points because of an identity crisis. This was the 1999-2000 NBA season and this design trended more towards the 1990 side of things rather than Y2K.

9. 2003 San Antonio Spurs



After running off 3 straight titles the Lakers were dominating the NBA and a lot of teams were just giving up, obviously the designers of this hat did as well and the Spurs suffered.

10. 2010 Los Angeles Lakers



I'm pretty sure if you go back and check the tape, Kobe did all his interviews with his hat backwards.

11. 2006 Miami Heat



Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Terry erased a lot of the painful memories from the 2006 NBA Finals by defeating the Miami Heat this year, had they won however, they'd always have the painful memories of this championship hat.

12. 2011 Dallas Mavericks



Can't do anything for Dirk and Jet on this one, pretty sure people at Adidas were sure Lebron James and the Heat were going to win it so they designed the ugliest hat they could think of to make the King look as silly as possible, he did a good enough job of that himself though with his performance against the Mavs.

Lebron, a wise investment?

Take a look at the diagram below, it charts the fluctuations of Nike's stock from the start of the NBA Finals to it's closing today after the Miami Heat were eliminated by the Dallas Mavericks and Lebron's quotes about people having to go back to their personal problems circulated throughout the world.



A couple of observations and we are only speculating here because we are in no trying to position ourselves as experts: the dip after the Heat's win in Game 1, could that have been attributed to the feeling then that Miami was going to walk through the Mavericks to the title and was fueled by the anti-Lebron sentiment? Also, it is hard to ignore the dips after Lebron's disappearing act in games 4 and 5.

One question to ponder, how does Lebron's marketing team and the gurus at Nike work to repair the damage done? America loves a comeback story, we've seen numerous other athletes fall, whether personally or professionally only to come back and be admired for it, however, with Lebron it is different. He had the chance to own up for his shortcomings last night and instead used his platform to essentially spit in the face of middle America i.e. the consumers his advertisers count on. He looked as lost in the post game press conference as he did out on the floor, deferring to Dwyane Wade to answer the tough questions. The fact is, and it's a scary and puzzling one for Nike and other Lebron sponsors, their spokesman has a serious image problem.

Mark Cuban curses on Sportscenter

Censors miss Mark Cuban calling out the Miami Heat fans.

Mavericks aim to reverse the curse of DFW

Seriously, how lucky do you feel if you are a casual sports fan living in the greater Dallas-Fort Worth Area? In the span of less than a year you are playing host in some form to the three most prestigious championships in American team sports: The World Series, The Super Bowl and now the NBA Finals. Now Mark Cuban surely hope this go around turns out better for them than for the Texas Rangers (and in 2006), and residents have to be feeling pretty confident the area will not be hit by a freak ice storm like it was during Super Bowl week. The biggest questions on their collective minds besides wondering if Lebron will guard Dirk or if Jerry Jones is going to give a toast at Tony Romo’s wedding is why the Dallas Stars aren’t holding up their end of the deal?

Editor’s Note: The Stars can lay claim to being the last major team from the area to win their championship