← NBA seasons

1965-66 NBA season

9 teams · 29 weeks · through 1966-05-01 · Elo from the project workbook

Boston Celtics won the title. The season's highest rating belonged to Philadelphia 76ers, at 1610.

Jump to any season1946-472026-27

The race

Elo rating by week. Higher is stronger; 1500 is average.

How this is measured

Elo moves after every game by how surprising the result was and by how big the margin was, damped so a blowout by a heavy favourite counts for less than the same blowout by an underdog. One pool per season, so the ratings are comparable across the whole league but not across eras.

Week 0 is the preseason seed, carried over from the previous season and adjusted by hand for the roster as it stands. It is an input to the season, not a result of it.

full season
76ersCelticsLakersRoyals9 of 9 shown · tap or drag any point for that week · tap a line to lock it

Tap or drag on the chart: the nearest team's rating that week.

The table

Where every team stood, scrubbed to the week above.

How this is measured

Three records, because they are three different things. Regular season is the 82-game year and is what the seeding comes from. Playoffs is the postseason run, blank for a team that did not make it, which is not the same as 0-0. Total is the two added together. The Elo column keeps moving through the postseason, so a team can climb after its regular season has finished.

1
Philadelphia 76ersConf. Finals
55-25 +1-4 · Eastern · seed 1
1610
+91 yr
2
54-26 +11-6 · Eastern · seed 2
1609
-49 yr
3
45-35 +7-7 · Western · seed 1
1558
+14 yr
4
45-35 +2-3 · Eastern · seed 3
1516
-12 yr
5
St. Louis HawksConf. Finals
36-44 +6-4 · Western · seed 3
1511
-27 yr
6
35-45 · Western
1462
+84 yr
7
38-42 +0-3 · Western · seed 2
1460
-16 yr
8
30-50 · Eastern
1432
+1 yr
9
22-58 · Western
1344
-65 yr

The postseason

Every series, round by round, with the seeds that met.

How this is measured

Rounds run left to right in the order they were played. The field, the number of rounds and the series length have all changed repeatedly, so the shape here is whatever that season actually had rather than a modern bracket imposed on it. From 2020 the play-in sits below the bracket: those games decided who entered, so a team beaten there did not have a playoff run.

Eastern

Conference Semifinals

Western

NBA Finals

Celtics won the 1966 title.

The honours

Who won what, and who was picked.

How this is measured

Every other section on this page is a club. These are the people: the individual awards, the All-NBA teams and the All-Star selections, all as the workbook records them. A player’s All-Star entry carries which appearance it was for them, so a seventh selection reads differently from a first.

Awards

All-NBA

1st Team All NBA
2nd Team All NBA

All-Star game

Cincinnati Gardens, Cincinnati · MVP Adrian Smith

Adrian SmithMVPRoyals · #1
Bill RussellCeltics · #9
Chet Walker76ers · #2
Hal Greer76ers · #6
Jerry LucasRoyals · #3
John HavlicekCeltics · #1
Oscar RobertsonRoyals · #6
Sam JonesCeltics · #4
Show all 20 selections
Willis ReedKnicks · #2
Wilt Chamberlain76ers · #7
Bailey HowellBullets · #5
Dave DeBusscherePistons · #1
Eddie MilesPistons · #1
Guy RodgersWarriors · #3
Jerry WestLakers · #6
Nate ThurmondWarriors · #2
Rick BarryWarriors · #1
Rudy LaRussoLakers · #3
Zelmo BeatyHawks · #1

The best games

The 20 highest-rated games of the season, best first.

How this is measured

Game Score is a composite rating of how good a game was to watch, built from how close it finished, how much the result went against the odds, how far the ratings moved, what was at stake and how highly rated both sides were. It is roughly zero-centred, so an average game sits near zero and anything past two is rare. It is the same metric the all-time and by-decade boards use, so a game keeps the same score wherever it appears.

1
24 Apr 66 · NBA Finals
121-117
2.13
2
28 Apr 66 · NBA Finals
95-93
2.03
3
17 Apr 66 · NBA Finals
133-129OT
1.98
4
26 Apr 66 · NBA Finals
123-115
1.89
5
13 Apr 66 · Conf. Finals
131-127
1.75
6
22 Apr 66 · NBA Finals
122-117
1.69
7
12 Apr 66 · Conf. Finals
120-112
1.66
8
10 Apr 66 · Conf. Finals
114-108OT
1.55
9
15 Apr 66 · Conf. Finals
130-121
1.52
10
7 Apr 66 · Conf. Finals
111-105
1.37
Show all 20 games
11
23 Mar 66 · Semifinals
107-103
1.25
12
27 Mar 66 · Semifinals
113-107
1.15
13
10 Apr 66 · Conf. Finals
112-100
1.15
14
6 Apr 66 · Conf. Finals
120-113
1.09
15
135-132OT
1.06
16
26 Mar 66 · Semifinals
132-125
1.05
17
1 Apr 66 · Semifinals
112-103
1.03
18
113-110
1.03
19
20 Apr 66 · NBA Finals
120-106
1.03
20
24 Mar 66 · Semifinals
113-111
0.96

Sources

Weekly Elo ratings and records are maintained in the project's NBA workbook and refreshed when it is updated. Season results and honours come from the same workbook. Basketball-Reference, 1965-66.