The Boston Celtics have won 18 NBA championships, one more than the Los Angeles Lakers, and between them these two franchises hold 35 of the 80 titles ever awarded. That is nearly 44% of the league’s entire history in the hands of two teams.
The 2026 Finals added a new name near the top when the New York Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs 4-1 for their third title, ending a wait that had stretched since 1973. Here is every franchise with two or more NBA championships.
Most NBA Championships at a Glance
| Rank | Team | Titles | First Title | Most Recent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Boston Celtics | 18 | 1957 | 2024 |
| 2 | Los Angeles Lakers | 17 | 1949 | 2020 |
| 3 | Golden State Warriors | 7 | 1947 | 2022 |
| 4 | Chicago Bulls | 6 | 1991 | 1998 |
| 5 | San Antonio Spurs | 5 | 1999 | 2014 |
| 6 | Philadelphia 76ers | 3 | 1955 | 1983 |
| 6 | New York Knicks | 3 | 1970 | 2026 |
| 6 | Detroit Pistons | 3 | 1989 | 2004 |
| 6 | Miami Heat | 3 | 2006 | 2013 |
| 10 | Oklahoma City Thunder | 2 | 1979 | 2025 |
| 10 | Houston Rockets | 2 | 1994 | 1995 |
| 10 | Milwaukee Bucks | 2 | 1971 | 2021 |
The Five Most Successful Franchises
1. Boston Celtics: 18 Titles
The Celtics won eight consecutive championships from 1959 to 1966, a streak no team in any major North American professional sport has matched. Bill Russell anchored all of them.
Boston added titles in 1974, 1976, 1981, 1984, and 1986 before a long drought, then won again in 2008 and 2024. That 2024 win broke a tie with the Lakers that had stood for years.
2. Los Angeles Lakers: 17 Titles
The Lakers won five championships in Minneapolis between 1949 and 1954 before relocating, then 12 more in Los Angeles. No other franchise has won titles in two different cities at this scale.
Their success clusters into distinct eras: the Minneapolis years with George Mikan, the Showtime teams of the 1980s, the Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant three-peat from 2000 to 2002, and the 2020 championship with LeBron James.
3. Golden State Warriors: 7 Titles
The Warriors won the very first championship in 1947, when the franchise played in Philadelphia and the league was still the Basketball Association of America. They took another in 1956 and a third in 1975 after moving to California.
Four of their seven came in the eight seasons from 2015 to 2022, built around Stephen Curry and a style of play that reshaped how the entire league values three-point shooting.
4. Chicago Bulls: 6 Titles
The Bulls won two separate three-peats, from 1991 to 1993 and again from 1996 to 1998, with Michael Jordan leading both. All six came within a single decade.
Chicago has never lost an NBA Finals series, going six for six. No other franchise with more than two titles has a perfect record in the Finals.
5. San Antonio Spurs: 5 Titles
The Spurs won five championships between 1999 and 2014, every one of them with Tim Duncan on the roster and Gregg Popovich as head coach. That continuity is unmatched in the modern league.
Their titles were spread across 16 seasons rather than concentrated in a short window, which reflects sustained competitiveness rather than a single dominant core. San Antonio returned to the Finals in 2026 and lost to the Knicks.
Four Teams Are Tied at Three Titles
The Philadelphia 76ers, New York Knicks, Detroit Pistons, and Miami Heat all hold three championships, the largest logjam anywhere on this list.
Philadelphia’s came in 1955, when the franchise was the Syracuse Nationals, then 1967 with Wilt Chamberlain and 1983 with Moses Malone and Julius Erving. Detroit won back-to-back in 1989 and 1990 with the Bad Boys teams, then again in 2004 with a roster containing no superstar of that era. Miami won in 2006 with Dwyane Wade, then twice more in 2012 and 2013 during LeBron James’s four seasons with the club.
Three Teams Are Tied at Two
The Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets, and Milwaukee Bucks each have two championships, and each pair is separated by a strikingly different span of time.
Houston won consecutively in 1994 and 1995 behind Hakeem Olajuwon. Milwaukee’s two came 50 years apart, in 1971 with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson, then 2021 with Giannis Antetokounmpo. Oklahoma City’s first title was won in 1979 as the Seattle SuperSonics, before the franchise relocated, and its second came in 2025.
Twelve Franchises Hold 89% of All Titles
These 12 teams account for 71 of the 80 championships awarded since 1947. That leaves just nine titles for every other franchise in league history combined.
The concentration is extreme even by the standards of professional sport. Nine franchises have won exactly one championship, and roughly a third of the current league has never won at all despite the NBA operating for eight decades. Compare that with our ranking of the most Super Bowl wins, where titles are spread far more evenly across the NFL.
The Knicks Ended a 53-Year Wait
New York’s 2026 championship came 53 years after its previous one in 1973, one of the longest gaps between titles in league history. The Knicks had reached the Finals twice in the intervening decades without winning.
The drought was conspicuous because of where it happened. New York is the league’s largest market and Madison Square Garden is among the most valuable properties in sport, a point our ranking of the most valuable sports teams underlines. Market size and franchise value clearly do not determine championships, or the Knicks would not have waited five decades.
Why the NBA Produces Dynasties
Basketball concentrates titles more than other team sports because rosters are small and one exceptional player affects a far greater share of the game. A single star is on the floor for most of a game and touches the ball on most possessions, which is not true of a quarterback and certainly not of a striker.
The playoff format compounds this. Every NBA Finals series is best of seven, and long series reward the better team while suppressing upsets. A single-elimination format would have produced far more first-time champions over 80 years. Add the fact that elite players tend to have decade-long primes, and championship windows stay open long enough to produce runs like Boston’s eight straight or Chicago’s two three-peats.
Half the Multiple Winners Have a 2020s Title
Six of these 12 franchises have won a championship in the 2020s: the Lakers in 2020, Bucks in 2021, Warriors in 2022, Celtics in 2024, Thunder in 2025, and Knicks in 2026. Counting Denver’s 2023 title, the last seven seasons have produced seven different champions, the most open stretch the league has seen in decades.
That is a marked change from the 2010s, when the Warriors and Heat between them took a large share of the decade’s titles. The salary cap tightened considerably under the collective bargaining agreement signed in 2023, and the resulting restrictions on high-spending teams have made it harder to keep an expensive core together for long. Whether that produces a lasting era of parity or simply a gap between dynasties is the open question in the league right now.
Nine Franchises Have Won Exactly Once
Outside the 12 teams above, exactly nine championships have gone to nine different franchises, each of them a single title. That group includes the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016, the Toronto Raptors in 2019, and the Denver Nuggets in 2023.
A one-off title usually follows the same pattern as a dynasty, just compressed: a generational player reaching his peak with a roster built around him, in a season when the usual contenders happen to be vulnerable. The difference is that the window closes after one attempt rather than staying open for a decade.
How We Counted NBA Championships
Titles are counted by franchise rather than by city or name, following NBA convention. A relocated or renamed team keeps its history, which is why the Lakers’ Minneapolis titles and the Thunder’s 1979 Seattle championship appear here.
Championships from the Basketball Association of America, which operated from 1947 before merging into the NBA, are included as the league recognizes them. Teams are ranked by total titles, with tied franchises sharing a rank, so the four teams on three championships all rank sixth and the next group ranks tenth. The cutoff is two titles, which captures every multiple-time champion.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which NBA team has the most championships?
The Boston Celtics, with 18. They passed the Los Angeles Lakers, who have 17, by winning the 2024 title.
Who won the 2026 NBA Finals?
The New York Knicks, beating the San Antonio Spurs 4-1 for their third championship and their first since 1973.
Have the Chicago Bulls ever lost a Finals?
No. Chicago is 6-0 in NBA Finals appearances, all six coming between 1991 and 1998 with Michael Jordan.
How many NBA teams have won a championship?
Twenty-one franchises have won at least one, with 12 winning two or more and nine winning exactly once. That leaves roughly a third of the current league still waiting for a first championship.
What is the longest gap between championships?
The New York Knicks waited 53 years between 1973 and 2026. Milwaukee’s 50-year gap between 1971 and 2021 is close behind.