Perennial Contender or One Chipper?

[JawsGT]

OP specifically said 50+ wins WITHOUT winning a championship.

If we could be a perennial contender with the chance to win a championship I'm sure everyone would choose that option.

It's basically would you rather be the Stockton-Malone Jazz or the Billups/Wallaces Pistons with less success bookending that one chip.

Doesn't matter. I think about it as if I don't know the future. So being a 50+ win team 10 years straight means you have a chance of contending each year, which is much more appealing to me than casually following a terrible team for 9 years with only a single season where I am truly engaged as a fan (and maybe I wouldn't care at all, cause sucking for 9 seasons would likely deter me from being a fan). If we were to look back on a twenty year stretch, and in the first 10 years we were at least in the hunt for a conference championship with 10 50+ win seasons, I would consider that a more successful run than a ten year stretch of sucking big time plus one championship. It would also infer that we basically bought our championship team, as opposed to developing it, and I don't really think that's anything to be proud of, because anyone with deep enough pockets can achieve that (good decisions pending of course). I'd rather the program style than the one and done.

[OptimalOptimist]

Dallas have been perennial contenders with a chip.

Perennial contenders without one:
Nash Suns
Durant OKC

Having the success of either of those teams would be awesome, but not winning it all would be bitter sweet. I just wanna have a good group of guys who are easy to cheer for and make us proud.

If we went in every year and beat writers actually gave us a real chance to win, that hope would keep me happy.

I would add to that that being a perennial 50 wins team in the Eastern conference gives you basically a 1 out of 3 chance at reaching the final.

[JawsGT]

What if the winning came in year 3 of 10, and then the team reverted to shit for the other 7?

Also, the Jays were a very good team from '83-'93. Just remember that only 2 teams from each league made the playoffs up til '93, so had they made playoffs in any of those years like teams can today, we may be looking at not 2, but maybe 3, maybe 4 maybe 5 maybe 6 maybe 7...just saying.

That's a good point. If the team developed, say, through years 1-4, won a championship in year 5 and hit it's ceiling, followed by another 4-5 years of rebuilding, en route to another championship than that would be just about ideal. Multiple championships would be perfect of course. But 9 years of lottery with maybe a low seed playoff berth here and there and one championship would not be preferable to me as 10 years of contention.

[Nilanka]

I'm going to assume we have to answer the question without knowing the outcome of each season?

At the end of the day, basketball is a form of entertainment. I'd rather be entertained for 9 straight seasons, than just 1. There is nothing entertaining about watching Ben Uzoh tripple doubles.