The WCC and the NBA Finals

When the Miami Heat won the 2012 NBA championship this past Thursday most of the talk was about LeBron James getting his first ring. For a fan of West Coast Conference basketball though the focus was on the supporting cast. Two former WCC stand outs helped the Heat win the franchise's second NBA title. Forward Ronny Turiaf (Gonzaga, 2001-2005) and head coach Erik Spoelstra (Portland, 1988-1992) are the latest in a long line of WCC alumni to win an NBA championship. While Adam Morrison is the holder of two rings of his own, unfortunately, he wasn't much a part of why the Lakers won those two titles in 2009 and 2010. So this marks the first time since Gonzaga's rise to national prominence and the rise of the rest of the conference behind the Zags that a WCC product (though Spoelstra was in the WCC nearly a decade before the Zags elite eight run, when the conference was much weaker than today) of this era has been a part of winning an NBA title.


The West Coast Conference is coming off what was possibly the best year in it's history, only the years San Francisco won the national championship back in the 1950's could possibly compare, and has been steadily improving for the past decade plus. Despite that, Morrison and now Turiaf are the only products of the conference during that time to win an NBA championship. In the previous paragraph I used the words "long line" to describe the club that Turiaf and Spoelstra have joined as WCC players with NBA rings. But if during the era of the conference's greatest success only two players have gone on to win a title, where did this long line come from? Well most of them came from San Francisco and won with the Boston Celtics. Of the WCC alumni's total of NBA rings, 27 came from San Francisco, of those 21 came while former Dons played for the Celtics. San Francisco was a key part in the development of the mid 20th century Boston Celtics dynasty.


The club that Spoelstra and Turiaf joined with their finals victory holds 40 (including their own) NBA championship rings. They join Gonzaga's Adam Morrison (2 rings), San Francisco's Bill Russell (11 rings), K.C. Jones (10 rings), Bill Cartwright (3 rings), Joe McNamee (1 ring), Phil Smith (1 ring) and Eric Fernsten (1 ring), Pepperdine's Dennis Johnson (3 rings), Santa Clara's Kurt Rambis (4 rings), and Brigham Young's Danny Ainge (2 rings), though BYU was not a WCC school during Ainge's time in Provo.


It's worth noting that two of the WCC's best players turned superstars NBA level, Steve Nash and John Stockton, are not on that list.


Congratulations to the Miami Heat, Eric Spoelstra, and Ronny Turiaf on winning the 2012 NBA championship. Now, I'm not too fond of their style of play, at the very least. But with those two WCC connections I wouldn't so much mind if LeBron James belief that the number of championships the Heat will win will be not one, not two, not three, and so on comes true. Even better though would be if another WCC alumni can get a ring, and there are a good number of them floating around the NBA.