List of Philippine Basketball Association champions
The Philippine Basketball Association awards a championship trophy (or cup) to the winning team at the end of each conference (tournament).
To determine a champion for a conference, a double-round elimination (sometimes a classification) round is usually held. After the elimination (or classification) round, the playoffs would be held.
There had been a variety of ways the league conducted its playoffs, such as:
- Single-elimination tournament
- The twice-to-beat advantage (The higher-seeded team needs to win only once in order to advance, while the lower-seeded team needs to win twice consecutively. This is basically a modification of the best-of-three series.)
- Round-robin (or double-round robin)
- Best-of-three series
- Best-of-five series
- Best-of-seven series
- For a discussion of the different formats, see Playoff format.
The Finals is usually a best-of-seven series (although there had been notable exceptions). The winning team is said to be the champions of the conference. After each season, there would be no playoffs in order to determine a "season champion."
However, the teams which are both boldfaced and italicized, the Crispa Redmanizers (1976 and 1983), the San Miguel Beermen (1989), the Alaska Milkmen (1996) and the San Mig Super Coffee Mixers (2013–14), hold the distinction of winning all three conferences in one season and have the distinction of winning the "Grand Slam". Winning the Grand Slam is the equivalent of the "season championship," where the team is said to be the undisputed champion in the league.
There are two types of conferences: All-Filipino or import-laden. The All-Filipino conferences are tournaments where the teams are prohibited from hiring a foreigner as an additional player. An import-laden conference is a tournament where teams are allowed to hire a foreigner (the "import") as an additional player.
The league previously holds a "battle for third place" playoff to determine the third place team in a conference. This practice was abandoned beginning the 2010–11 season.
Champions by season
1975–1983: Prieto years
1984–1991: Yenko and R. Salud years
1992–2002: Marquez and Bernardino years
2003–2010: Eala and Barrios years
2010–2017: C. Salud and Narvasa years
2018–present: Marcial years
Champions by franchise
Championships won from conferences shaded in gray above, such as Mobiline's 1998 Centennial Cup and Añejo's 1988 PBA-IBA Championship titles are not included in the table below.
Italics denotes defunct franchise
- * Guest team
Championships by coach
Listed below are the coaches who won at least two PBA championships. Championships won from conferences shaded in gray above, such as Eric Altamirano's 1998 Centennial Cup and Rino Salazar's 1988 PBA-IBA Championship titles are not included in the table below. Both coaches otherwise would have won two titles each if those were included, instead of just one.
| ^ | Denotes coach who is still active |
| * | Elected to the PBA Hall of Fame |
| *^ | Active coach who has been elected to the PBA Hall of Fame |
References
2021 season: Conferences to be decided | |||||
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