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The Chicago Blackhawks turned superstars into a dynasty, and a dynasty into an impossible standard. By the time the “Baby Blackhawks” lost to Detroit in the 2009 Western Conference Finals, Forbes Magazine already hailed the franchise as “the greatest sports-business turnaround ever.” Three Cups in five years, led by two young superstars and a dynamic
Okay, so this Collapse has a punchline, which is that the Milwaukee Bucks won it all in 2021. But that outcome only makes the era preceding it more compelling. The prior very-good Bucks team took the league by storm in 2001. They almost made it to the Finals … and then fell very hard very
The 2012 Detroit Tigers were a big, expensive powerhouse with the best hitter in baseball and a dynamite pitching rotation. They made the World Series, but failed to win it … and then failed to advance out of the ALCS the next year … and then got swept in the ALDS the next year. As
The Philadelphia Phillies won the 2008 World Series, and pushed hard to win another. The 2011 season looked even better than ’08, but it ended in abrupt and painful fashion, leaving GM Ruben Amaro Jr. in a pickle. Amaro saw his way out of that pickle … by just continuing to build on a fractured
It’s easy to forget how close the Jacksonville Jaguars came to reaching the Super Bowl for the first time ever. Their 2017 season was an impressive, unexpected ride as the defense turned in an incredible performance and the offense rushed through everyone in their way. But even when so much falls in place for a
This is a different kind of Collapse. The Pacers didn’t fall from best record in the NBA to the league’s basement. They did fall, though, and while their decline wasn’t so deep, it was particularly weird. A lot of people remember Paul George’s broken leg, and that played a big part in a great team’s
Al Davis had a fairly simple mantra: just win baby. The Oakland Raiders did a lot of that from 2000-2002, culminating in a trip to the Super Bowl to face their former coach and architect of that early 2000s squad. As we all know, for Oakland, it didn’t go well…like at all. But having won