Best Team Chemistry in the NBA

Just as with ions and covalent bonding, chemistry is integral to the success of an NBA team. As Walter White told his high school students in Breaking Bad: "Chemistry is the study of matter, but I prefer to see it as the study of change. ... It is growth, then decay, then transformation!" 

Chemistry is constantly shifting for every NBA team through personnel moves and changing strategies. Teams that had elite chemistry last year—such as the Indiana Pacers, Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder—have seen radically different results on the court this season. 

The NBA offers few constants, with franchises rising and falling on the tides of injuries, odious contracts and the inability to craft a credible rotation. But team chemistry is not simply a measurable quantity evidenced by win-loss records, assist-to-turnover ratios or plus/minus ratings. These can be indicative, but they don't tell the whole tale. 

Some very smart people are hard at work trying to quantify team chemistry. NBA.com's John Schuhmann made note of that effort at MIT's 2012 Sloan Sports Analytics Conference—the annual cavalcade of bright sports minds co-founded by Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey.

That year's conference included papers titled "Positive and Negative Synergies in Basketball" and "Big 2’s and Big 3’s: Analyzing How a Team’s Best Players Complement Each Other."

As yet, no statistic exists to encapsulate team chemistry, so such a consideration must rely on secondary evidence, from roster continuity and broad statistical analysis to the good old "eye test" and even a review of social media to see what certain teammates get up to together when they're off the court.

Based on those criteria, these five NBA teams currently boast the best chemistry in the league, but one black-and-silver pillar rises above all others. 

Atlanta Hawks

Mike Stobe/Getty Images

The Atlanta Hawks have quietly built themselves into the Eastern Conference version of the San Antonio Spurs. This strategy, analogous to forming a tribute band to the best act in music, has worked quite well over the last three seasons. 

Hawks general manager Danny Ferry assumed the role in June 2012 and quickly set about trading Joe Johnson and his massive contract to the Brooklyn Nets in July that year. Ferry then watched Josh Smith walk to the Detroit Pistons in free agency the following summer, and suddenly a team was born. 

The strategic trend was already underway during the 2012-13 campaign, as the Hawks jumped to second in the league in assists per game, up from eighth the season before, according to ESPN. The team continued this shift with the hiring of head coach Mike Budenholzer to replace Larry Drew for the 2013-14 season. 

This amounted to an admission that the team was trying to become a paler version of the superb Spurs, as Budenholzer had been a lead assistant there under coach Gregg Popovich.

And verily, Budenholzer reinforced the mantra of ball movement to create quality shots on offense. Why pass up a good shot? To get a great shot. This style of play makes Atlanta both tough to play against and entertaining to watch, even if the team rarely manages a spot on national TV. Even famous hip-hop artists enjoy the Hawks' style: 

"

Best part of Hawks game so far was when TI joined the broadcast and praised the Hawks' ball movement.

— Lang Whitaker (@langwhitaker) November 2, 2014"

The Hawks finished second in assists behind the Spurs again in 2013-14, just as in the previous year, and they sit fourth in the league early in the 2014-15 slate. They also lead the league in assist ratio (assists per 100 possessions) and rank second in assist percentage (percent of field goals with an assist) through 20 games, per NBA.com.

As with any team that sustains good chemistry, the Hawks have veterans to lead like Al Horford, Paul Millsap and Kyle Korver but also rising young stars like point guard Jeff Teague. In a watered-down East, the Spurs-esque Hawks could become a top-four team in the very near future. 

Memphis Grizzlies

USA TODAY Sports

The Memphis Grizzlies stand as NBA outliers. They don't have any proper superstars and made the bold move of firing head coach Lionel Hollins after a 56-win season and a conference finals loss in 2013. However, despite a first-round playoff loss in the first year under coach Dave Joerger, it's hard to argue with the results. 

Through 21 games in the 2014-15 campaign, the Grizz have started 17-4 in the season's first quarter. Their team motto of "grit and grind" speaks to the relentless focus on the defensive end, where they punish opponents with a stable of excellent defenders. 

Marc Gasol won Defensive Player of the Year in 2013 and also happens to be one of the league's finest passers at center. Power forward Zach Randolph seemed to be a retread when he arrived but has blossomed into a potent double-double threat on a championship-caliber team.

Point guard Mike Conley stands among the best two-way players at his position. And perhaps the most significant embodiment of the team's commitment to defense is none other than the "Grindfather" himself, Tony Allen, arguably the finest on-ball defender in the NBA.

Those core four have helped forge a winning identity on the team, and the Grizzlies have started the season playing the best basketball in franchise history.

The team had a vision for how basketball should be played and remain committed to it. Some folks around the NBA were agog when the Grizz traded volume scorer Rudy Gay to the Toronto Raptors in January 2013. But instead of struggling to score points, subtracting Gay from the rotation actually made Memphis even better, and they compiled a 27-10 record to close the regular season.

Moreover, despite their hot start, the team remains mindful of the challenges ahead, and are not satisfied with success early in the season. They want to get even better, as Conley told Basketball Insiders' Alex Kennedy: "It says a lot about our focus early on this season. That’s all we wanted to do, was to come out focused the first couple months of the season and set a good standard for ourselves. Now we just have to hold ourselves accountable and try to get better."

If these Grizzlies get any better, the rest of the NBA is in huge trouble. 

Toronto Raptors

USA TODAY Sports

The Toronto Raptors have been on a steady rise since 2011-12 when head coach Dwane Casey arrived. He inherited a 22-60 team but has since steadily increased its winning percentage over three full seasons: .348, .415 and .585.

Though the Raps failed to get their first playoff series win since 2001 at the end of last season, falling in seven games to the Brooklyn Nets, general manager Masai Ujiri made very few changes to the team and decided to rely on his existing core for another playoff run. 

As Ujiri stated before the 2014-15 season at the team's media day, via the National Post's Eric Koreen: “We feel continuity is big for us. Consistency is really big for winning teams. That formula has proven to work. We hope that it works for us. These guys, they like each other. We have a chemistry. They compete. They go out there and play for each other. We’re not a selfish team.”

Indeed, the Raptors have strength at each position and depth throughout the roster. Kyle Lowry has infiltrated the list of top NBA point guards, and recently injured shooting guard DeMar DeRozan might be the league's most unheralded scorer. Plus, 22-year-old Lithuanian center Jonas Valanciunas looks primed to become a top-notch big man. 

One of the few additions this season, reserve guard Lou Williams, has been simply sublime, posting the finest season of his career so far in terms of player efficiency rating, according to Basketball-Reference.com. 

As with the Memphis Grizzlies before them, the Raptors also benefited from shipping Rudy Gay out of town, netting two useful backups in Greivis Vasquez and Patrick Patterson to better balance the team.

Holly MacKenzie of Raptors.com broke down the relationship between players feeling camaraderie in the locker room and surrendering themselves to the interests of the team on the court: 

"

It’s filling a locker room with players who are primarily concerned with winning rather than individual success that few are able to do. What stands out about this group of players is how much they genuinely like each other’s company.

After Bruno Caboclo’s NBA debut, the locker room was filled with teammates chanting his name and teasing him about the media waiting to speak with him. Williams took a photo of Caboclo’s media scrum so the rookie could send it to his mother.

"

While the injury to DeRozan will test the team's mettle, their next-man-up mentality will make use of the roster's depth by leaning on Williams, Vasquez and Terrence Ross, who exploded for a 51-point game last season in part due to an injury suffered by DeRozan early in the second quarter of that game.

Injuries aside, the Raptors have diligently built an Eastern Conference powerhouse north of the border. 

Golden State Warriors

Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

The Golden State Warriors have been firing on all cylinders to start the 2014-15 season, reeling off victory after victory without a hiccup despite rookie head coach Steve Kerr now holding the clipboard. 

Reserve forward Marreese Speights has deigned to share a few of the team's chummy road-trip interactions as they steamroll over opponents. Somewhat oddly, Speights' numerous Instagram posts show the entire team on their charter plane grooving out and singing along to "Coco" by O.T. Genasis.

On a different, less successful roster, such behavior would seem deeply troubling. Bloggers would rush to denounce both the song and the team: "They're unfocused!" or "They're glorifying the use of illegal narcotics!"

But winning is a powerful deodorant, and the Warriors' team spirit evidenced on the plane appears similarly on the court. As Ben Golliver of Sports Illustrated phrased it: "From the outside, the Warriors’ giggling karaoke sessions appear to embody a degree of genuine chemistry and camaraderie rarely seen, or shared, in the modern NBA."

According to Speights' Twitter account, it seems the team told them not to sing that song together anymore, probably because it sets a bad example for kids and so forth. But the camaraderie is the significant aspect.

The Dubs are both fun-loving and fun to watch, and the numbers back up their domineering play.

Through 20 games, nearly one-fourth of the season, they hold a league-best 18-2 record and a 14-game win streak. They lead the league in assists per game, despite a Splash Brothers backcourt of Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson that could plausibly take a shot every time down the floor. They help form a two-way squad which ranks first in defensive efficiency and fifth in offensive efficiency, per NBA.com.

Everything is going right for Golden State, with Andrew Bogut still healthy and young players like Draymond Green and Harrison Barnes making strides in the absence of David Lee (hamstring). Not even Andre Iguodala's disappearance can harm them.

Furthermore, the team combines this elite play with solidarity. During the 2014 playoffs, as a scandal enveloped the Los Angeles Clippers in relation to the Donald Sterling affair, the Warriors found themselves matched with the Clips in a first-round playoff series.

The team had decided to stage a protest during Game 5 that would have entailed all 15 players walking off the court immediately after tipoff, per Marcus Thompson of the Bay Area News Group. However, the protest never took place, as commissioner Adam Silver banned Sterling for life and issued a large fine just hours before Game 5's tip. 

Considered as a whole, both on the court and off, the Warriors embody the team mentality and have the talent up and down the roster to beat anyone, even in a cutthroat Western Conference. 

San Antonio Spurs

USA TODAY Sports

The defending champions have become more than a basketball team. They're like a force of nature. They control the tides and decide seismic activity.

Behind a formidable foreign-born "Big Three" of Tim Duncan (U.S. Virgin Islands), Tony Parker (French, born in Belgium) and Manu Ginobili (Argentina), this team makes the playoffs every year and stands among the top title contenders.  

Led by gruff head coach Gregg Popovich, who brims with wisdom and barbed wit, the Spurs have been the standard-bearers of the league for some time even as other players and teams bask in the spotlight. 

A progressive organization dedicated to success—they've led the charge in international scouting and hired the first full-time female assistant coach, Becky Hammon—the Spurs employ a ruthlessly efficient scheme centered on trusting teammates and producing quality shots through rapid ball movement.

Rarely is a team's best player more soft-spoken and reserved than the head coach, but such is the case with Duncan and Popovich. A recent Foot Locker commercial made light of Duncan's longstanding stoicism and generally placid demeanor. Coach Pop is more likely to sling arrows at journalists or sound off on his own players. 

Following the Spurs' tight 95-93 loss to the Brooklyn Nets on Dec. 3, Popovich was asked if he kept Tony Parker on the bench down the stretch because of injury. Per Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News, Popovich replied: "Not a bit. He just played horribly at both ends."

Other coaches can't say things like that about future Hall of Fame players. But Popovich carries the clout built over nearly two decades of success as a head coach, including three Coach of the Year nods and five NBA championships, so he pulls no punches. He has led the Spurs to 50 wins in 15 consecutive seasons, broken only by the lockout-shortened 50-game season in 1998-99, when he won his first title in San Antonio. 

The Spurs play a selfless, team-first brand of basketball. They rarely if ever talk out of school to the media, and their free agents routinely accept deals below their market values in the name of remaining on the NBA's most consistently successful franchise, aiding the squad's longstanding continuity. 

They identify players they like and then hang on to them (Patty Mills, Tiago Splitter, Matt Bonner, et al). And the scouting department had the wisdom to swing a 2011 draft-day trade for forward Kawhi Leonard, now an NBA Finals MVP at just 23 and heading for perennial All-Star status. 

The Spurs' chemistry is unassailable. With every move the team makes, people around basketball can only shrug and think to themselves: "Well, that must've been the right move. They're the Spurs!" And that's been the correct response for the last 15 years.