1983–84 NBA season explained

The 1983–84 NBA season was the 38th season of the National Basketball Association. The season ended with the Boston Celtics winning the NBA Championship, beating the Los Angeles Lakers 4 games to 3 for the second time since 1969 in the NBA Finals.

Notable occurrences

Offseason

Team	1982–83 coach	1983–84 coach
Atlanta Hawks	Kevin Loughery	Mike Fratello
Boston Celtics	Bill Fitch	K.C. Jones
Chicago Bulls	Paul Westhead	Kevin Loughery
Detroit Pistons	Scotty Robertson	Chuck Daly
Golden State Warriors	Al Attles	Johnny Bach
Houston Rockets	Del Harris	Bill Fitch
New Jersey Nets	Bill Blair	Stan Albeck
San Antonio Spurs	Stan Albeck	Morris McHone
San Diego Clippers	Paul Silas	Jim Lynam
In-season
Team	Outgoing coach	Incoming coach
San Antonio Spurs	Morris McHone	Bob Bass

• The 1984 NBA All-Star Game was played at McNichols Sports Arena in Denver, Colorado, with the East defeating the West 154–145. Isiah Thomas of the Detroit Pistons wins the game's MVP award. Larry Nance of the Phoenix Suns won the first NBA Slam Dunk Championship.
• David Stern begins his tenure as the league's fourth commissioner, effective April 1.
• The NBA Playoffs were expanded from 6 teams per conference to 8, where it stands to this date (with a play-in tournament for the #7 and #8 seeds in each conference added in 2020). As a result, the 'first round bye' system was eliminated.
• Marked the first year the first round of the NBA Playoffs went from best-of-three to best-of-five playoff. The first round remained best-of-five until going to best-of-seven in 2003.
• Ralph Sampson became the first rookie to win the Rookie of the Month Award in every month of the season. He unanimously won the Rookie of the Year Award. David Robinson, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, Damian Lillard, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Victor Wembanyama would later achieve the same feat.
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar surpassed Wilt Chamberlain to become the all-time NBA career leader in points. He passed Chamberlain in a game against the Utah Jazz at Las Vegas' Thomas & Mack Center on April 5. Fittingly, it was his trademark sky-hook that put him in the record books.
• The Denver Nuggets and Detroit Pistons play in the highest scoring game in NBA history with the Pistons winning 186–184 in three overtimes.
• The Dallas Mavericks made its first postseason appearance, beating the Seattle SuperSonics 3–2 before bowing out to the Los Angeles Lakers 4–1 in the Conference Semifinals. Game 5 of the Seattle series was played at Moody Coliseum as Reunion Arena, the Mavericks' home, was unavailable.
• The Utah Jazz appeared in the postseason for the first time, defeating the Denver Nuggets 3–2 in the opening round and then losing to the Phoenix Suns 4–2 in the Western semis. This started a streak of 20 consecutive playoff appearances, fourth longest in the NBA behind the Portland Trail Blazers (21 between 1983 and 2003), the Philadelphia 76ers (23 between 1949 (as Syracuse Nationals) and 1971), and the San Antonio Spurs 22 between 1998 and 2019).^[1]
• The Clippers play their final season in San Diego, California.
• This would be the last season until 2013–14 that the Finals had the 2–2–1–1–1 format. The Finals would adopt the 2–3–2 format the following season.
• The New Jersey Nets won a playoff series for the first time in their NBA history, upsetting the defending champion Philadelphia 76ers in five games. The series marked the only time (to date) a road team won every game in a five-game playoff series.
• Final season of ESPN broadcasting NBA games until the 2002–03 season, which also marked the league's return to future corporate partner ABC. It also marked the final season of NBA broadcasts on the USA Network.
• Spalding replaced Wilson as manufacturer of the official NBA game ball, a relationship that continued until 2021.
• It was the final season for eventual Hall of Famers Tiny Archibald, Elvin Hayes and Bob Lanier. Another eventual Hall of Famer David Thompson unexpectedly retired due to his injury from an accident.
• All five teams in the Atlantic Division made the Playoffs, the first such occurrence for any division.

Teams

1983-84 National Basketball Association
Division	Team	City	Arena	Capacity
Atlantic	Boston Celtics	Boston, Massachusetts	Boston Garden	14,890
	New Jersey Nets	East Rutherford, New Jersey	Brendan Byrne Arena	20,049
	New York Knicks	New York, New York	Madison Square Garden	19,812
	Philadelphia 76ers	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania	The Spectrum	18,176
	Washington Bullets	Landover, Maryland	Capital Centre	18,756
Central	Atlanta Hawks	Atlanta, Georgia	Omni Coliseum	16,378
	Chicago Bulls	Chicago, Illinois	Chicago Stadium	18,676
	Cleveland Cavaliers	Richfield, Ohio	Richfield Coliseum	20,900
	Detroit Pistons	Pontiac, Michigan	Pontiac Silverdome	33,000
	Indiana Pacers	Indianapolis, Indiana	Market Square Arena	17,171
	Milwaukee Bucks	Milwaukee, Wisconsin	MECCA Arena	10,783
Midwest	Dallas Mavericks	Dallas, Texas	Reunion Arena	18,293
	Denver Nuggets	Denver, Colorado	McNichols Sports Arena	17,171
	Houston Rockets	Houston, Texas	The Summit	16,285
	Kansas City Kings	Kansas City, Missouri	Kemper Arena	16,700
	San Antonio Spurs	San Antonio, Texas	HemisFair Arena	16,057
	Utah Jazz	Salt Lake City, Utah	Salt Palace	12,686
Pacific	Golden State Warriors	Oakland, California	Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena	13,335
	Los Angeles Lakers	Inglewood, California	The Forum	17,505
	Phoenix Suns	Phoenix, Arizona	Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum	14,870
	Portland Trail Blazers	Portland, Oregon	Memorial Coliseum	12,888
	San Diego Clippers	San Diego, California	San Diego Sports Arena	14,500
	Seattle SuperSonics	Seattle, Washington	Kingdome	59,166

Map of teams

Final standings

By conference

Notes

• z – Clinched home court advantage for the entire playoffs
• c – Clinched home court advantage for the conference playoffs
• y – Clinched division title
• x – Clinched playoff spot

Playoffs

See main article: 1984 NBA playoffs. Teams in bold advanced to the next round. The numbers to the left of each team indicate the team's seeding in its conference, and the numbers to the right indicate the number of games the team won in that round. The division champions are marked by an asterisk. Home court advantage does not necessarily belong to the higher-seeded team, but instead the team with the better regular season record; teams enjoying the home advantage are shown in italics.

Statistics leaders

Category	Player	Team	Stat
Points per game			30.6
Rebounds per game			13.4
Assists per game			13.1
Steals per game		Utah Jazz	2.65
Blocks per game		Utah Jazz	4.28
FG%			.631
FT%			.888
3FG%		Utah Jazz	.361

NBA awards

Yearly awards

• Most Valuable Player: Larry Bird, Boston Celtics
• Rookie of the Year

Ralph Sampson, Houston Rockets

• Defensive Player of the Year

Sidney Moncrief, Milwaukee Bucks

• Sixth Man of the Year

Kevin McHale, Boston Celtics

• Coach of the Year

Frank Layden, Utah Jazz

• All-NBA First Team

• • F – Larry Bird, Boston Celtics
  • F – Bernard King, New York Knicks
  • C – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Los Angeles Lakers
  • G – Isiah Thomas, Detroit Pistons
  • G – Magic Johnson, Los Angeles Lakers

• All-NBA Second Team:
  • F – Adrian Dantley, Utah Jazz
  • F – Julius Erving, Philadelphia 76ers
  • C – Moses Malone, Philadelphia 76ers
  • G – Sidney Moncrief, Milwaukee Bucks
  • G – Jim Paxson, Portland Trail Blazers

• All-NBA Rookie Team

• • Steve Stipanovich, Indiana Pacers
  • Ralph Sampson, Houston Rockets
  • Darrell Walker, New York Knicks
  • Jeff Malone, Washington Bullets
  • Thurl Bailey, Utah Jazz
  • Byron Scott, Los Angeles Lakers

• NBA All-Defensive First Team

• • Bobby Jones, Philadelphia 76ers
  • Michael Cooper, Los Angeles Lakers
  • Tree Rollins, Atlanta Hawks
  • Maurice Cheeks, Philadelphia 76ers
  • Sidney Moncrief, Milwaukee Bucks

• NBA All-Defensive Second Team:
  • Larry Bird, Boston Celtics
  • Dan Roundfield, Atlanta Hawks
  • Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Los Angeles Lakers
  • Dennis Johnson, Boston Celtics
  • T. R. Dunn, Denver Nuggets

Player of the week

The following players were named NBA Player of the Week.

Week	Player
Oct. 28 – Nov. 6	Eddie Johnson (Kansas City Kings)
Nov. 7 – Nov. 13	Magic Johnson (Los Angeles Lakers)
Nov. 14 – Nov. 20	Kiki Vandeweghe (Denver Nuggets)
Nov. 21 – Nov. 27	Mark Aguirre (Dallas Mavericks)
Nov. 28 – Dec. 4	Rickey Green (Utah Jazz)
Dec. 5 – Dec. 11	Jeff Ruland (Washington Bullets)
Dec. 12 – Dec. 18	Adrian Dantley (Utah Jazz)
Dec. 19 – Dec. 26	Dan Roundfield (Atlanta Hawks)
Dec. 27 – Jan. 2	Isiah Thomas (Detroit Pistons)
Jan. 3 – Jan. 8	Purvis Short (Golden State Warriors)
Jan. 9 – Jan. 15	Kelly Tripucka (Detroit Pistons)
Jan. 16 – Jan. 22	Buck Williams (New Jersey Nets)
Jan. 31 – Feb. 5	Bernard King (New York Knicks)
Feb. 6 – Feb. 12	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Los Angeles Lakers)
Feb. 13 – Feb. 19	Larry Bird (Boston Celtics)
Feb. 20 – Feb. 26	Magic Johnson (Los Angeles Lakers)
Feb. 27 – Mar. 4	Mickey Johnson (Golden State Warriors)
Mar. 5 – Mar. 11	Larry Bird (Boston Celtics)
Mar. 12 – Mar. 18	Adrian Dantley (Utah Jazz)
Mar. 19 – Mar. 25	Moses Malone (Philadelphia 76ers)
Mar. 26 – Apr. 1	Isiah Thomas (Detroit Pistons)
Apr. 2 – Apr. 8	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Los Angeles Lakers)
Apr. 9 – Apr. 15	Dominique Wilkins (Atlanta Hawks)

Player of the month

The following players were named NBA Player of the Month.

Month	Player
November	Magic Johnson (Los Angeles Lakers)
December	Jeff Ruland (Washington Bullets)
January	Mark Aguirre (Dallas Mavericks)
February	Bernard King (New York Knicks)
March	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Los Angeles Lakers)

Rookie of the month

The following players were named NBA Rookie of the Month.

Month	Rookie
November	Ralph Sampson (Houston Rockets)
December	Ralph Sampson (Houston Rockets)
January	Ralph Sampson (Houston Rockets)
February	Ralph Sampson (Houston Rockets)
March	Ralph Sampson (Houston Rockets)

Coach of the month

The following coaches were named NBA Coach of the Month.

Month	Coach
November	Dick Motta (Dallas Mavericks)
December	Frank Layden (Utah Jazz)
January	K.C. Jones (Boston Celtics)
February	Chuck Daly (Detroit Pistons)
March	Jack Ramsay (Portland Trail Blazers)

See also

• List of NBA regular season records

Notes and References

1. Feldman, Dan (March 31, 2019). "Spurs match record by making playoffs 22nd straight year". NBC Sports. Retrieved April 4, 2019.