Dallas Mavericks

For rewriting the playbook. Winning the NBA championship last season, the Mav’s first, was the culmination for the team that experiments more than any other. Since tech entrepreneur Mark Cuban bought the franchise more than a decade ago, he’s done everything from upgrading the players to a palatial locker room with luxury amenities that would attract high-priced free agents to grading the referees. Dallas became a perennial contender. Attendance soared. A couple of years ago, the Mavs were also the first team to hire a quantitative analyst to sit alongside its coaches during games, and last year it paid off with a winning strategy against the high-powered Miami Heat.