Elo Ratings Say Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls Teams Are The Best Ever

Thanks to a certain Michael Jordan, it’s easy enough to consider virtually any of the Chicago Bulls’ six championship teams among the greatest in NBA history. But there’s actually data that proves they are.

According to a new Elo rating study conducted by FiveThirtyEight, five of the top eight teams ever – NBA or ABA – are Bulls title teams.

The 1996 and 1997 Bulls take the top two spots, followed by the 1986 Celtics, 2015 Warriors, 2009 Lakers, and the 1992, 1998 and 1991 Bulls.

If you’re wondering what exactly the Elo rating system is and why it’s used to measure things like this: Elo was invented by physics professor Arpad Elo, developed to rate chess players but it has since been used to score other head-to-head competition sports like baseball, football, and basketball using wins, losses, strength of schedule, margin of victory, even home court (or field) advantage.

Elo can measure a team’s effectiveness from basic statistics and translates the team’s overall performance – not just shiny numbers like scoring – into a four-digit tally that can be used to trump highlights and anecdotal evidence to justify how good or bad a team actually was. In other words, Jordan fans may finally be able to shut up advocates of Kobe and LeBron in the whole “best ever” argument.

Read the full story and numbers breakdown here.