Why Championship Teams Usually Don't Repeat

On Life, Noise, and Good Fortune

Championship teams usually don’t repeat. Of late, my beloved Boston Celtics have been struggling, and it’s anyone’s guess whether they will win the championship again this year. Why is it so hard to win two championships in a row?

The question is interesting in itself and also because it bears on success and failure in life more generally. It bears on the the success of CEOs. It bears on the outcomes of elections. It bears on the success or failure of actors and movies. It bears on the success of small companies and big ones.

Now back to sports: Some causal stories, pointing to factors internal to championship teams, are plausible. Maybe champions get complacent. Maybe they aren’t so hungry. Maybe other teams are gunning for them. Maybe champions get tired after a long, deep run into the playoffs.

It is not unreasonable to point to all of these factors. Maybe some of them are necessary or sufficient to explain some failures to repeat. But those who ask the question I am exploring tend to begin from an unstated assumption, which is that the failure of a team to repeat is a kind of deep puzzle or problem, something that demands a strong explanation. Intuition suggests that if a team wins a title in some year, it’s just better than any other teams in that year, which seems to suggest that it ought to win in the following year as well.

But it’s too simple, and it might not even be quite right, to say that the champion is just better than the also-rans. For any team, however talented, to win a championship, a very large number of things have to go right (and a very large number of things cannot go wrong). It isn’t exactly amazing if all those things don’t go right in the year after Year X even if they did go right in Year X. In terms of simple probabilities: It would be more amazing if all those things went right in the year after Year X as well as in Year X. This is especially clear in light of the fact some of the critical factors have nothing to do with the team itself.

Relevant considerations:

1. For a team to win a title, it’s important for key players not to suffer untimely or devastating injuries.

2. For a team to win a title, it’s helpful if its main rivals do suffer an untimely or devastating injury or two. (The Celtics benefited from that help last year.)

3. For a team to win a title, it’s important to get the right calls at key moments, or not to get the wrong calls.

4. For a team to win a title, it’s important for its main rivals not to get the right calls at key moments, or to get the wrong calls.

5. For a team to win a title, it’s important that key players are not facing a personal problem that impairs their performance.