ARE BULLS FINEST EVER?\Wilt's 76ers among other all-time contenders.

Byline: David Steele San Francisco Chronicle 

The standards for immortality are extremely high. That goes not only for the Chicago Bulls, but for a number of excellent NBA teams that are being excluded from nomination.

The world is telling all 11 of the Red Auerbach-Bill Russell-era Celtics teams to step aside. Same to the 1970-71 Bucks, with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson, and the 1982-83 Philadelphia 76ers, with Julius Erving and Moses Malone. The Minneapolis Lakers of the '50s, the "Bad Boy" Pistons and the reigning champion Rockets aren't even getting to the doorstep.

The standards faced by Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman are higher than Wilt Chamberlain's reach, harder than Lucious Jackson's biceps, more elusive than Billy Cunningham on the break, and tougher to penetrate than Wali Jones' defense. Which brings us to the team most often mentioned as the best ever: the 1966-67 Philadelphia 76ers, winners of 68 of 81 regular-season games and 11 of 14 playoff games.

Earning nearly as much consideration are the 1971-72 Lakers, the winningest team ever and owners of pro sports' longest win streak; the 1985-86 Celtics, at the peak of the Larry Bird-Kevin McHale-Robert Parish years; the 1986-87 Lakers, with Kareem still a threat and Magic Johnson, James Worthy, Byron Scott, A.C. Green and Michael Cooper in their primes; and the 1991-92 Bulls, who steamrollered through the regular season and eventually won the second of their three straight titles.

Those teams have been derided by purists who point at expansion: The Lakers of '71-72 played in a 17-team league; when the Celtics and Lakers were peaking in the mid-'80s, there were 23; the Bulls of '91-92 were part of a 27-team league; and this season, there are 29 teams. On the eve of its expansion explosion, the NBA had 10 teams in 1966-67.

That is too harsh a criticism, said Al Attles, who played against the 1966-67 Sixers as a San Francisco Warrior, and coached the Warriors against the '70s and '80s Lakers. "You play against everyone they put you up against, and that's all you can do," he said. "There are a lot of intangible things that people argue about, but (the court) is still 94-by-50, you still play 48 minutes. You've got to go out and play." If the Bulls do win 70 games and win a title, he said, "They deserve it. They'll be one of the best ever."

Yet even Attles likes the '66-67 Sixers, who finished their amazing run by beating the Warriors, four games to two, in the Finals. Regardless of era, for sheer dominance it's hard to match that team. It had almost a perfect blend of players, led by a superstar willing to submerge his talents for the good of the team. It had a coach, Alex Hannum, who already had won a title in St. Louis. It had incentive: As a Warrior in Philly and San Francisco, Chamberlain had gotten tired of losing to Boston every year. And it had great luck: Just when veteran guard Larry Costello tore his Achilles tendon midway through, Jones stepped in and the team didn't miss a beat.

In the postseason, the 76ers beat a Cincinnati team with Robertson and Jerry Lucas, 3-1, then toyed with a Celtics team that had won 60 games 4-1. "Our team was so good that we shouldn't have lost 13 games," Cunningham later said in Tall Tales, a 1992 oral history of the NBA by sportswriter Terry Pluto. "I respect those great teams tremendously, and maybe they are even overlooked a bit. But for one year, our team was the best ever to play this game."

"That team that Philadelphia had, that was probably my favorite team," said Willis Reed, who battled the old Celtics, the '71-72 Lakers and the Sixers as a player with the Knicks. "For that era of basketball they were so dominant. They could play the game at any level. If you wanted to run, they could run. If you wanted to outshoot them, you couldn't - they had Billy C, Hal Greer, Chet Walker. Billy C came off the bench for them, that's how deep they were.

"And they had Luke Jackson - 6-8, a good 280 pounds, one of the first true power forwards. And Wilt was so good, he decided he'd lead the league in assists that year, and he did." Actually, his 7.8 a game was third in the NBA, and he led the NBA the following season, the only center ever to do so. Still, for a man who had averaged nearly 40 points a game throughout his career to restrict himself to 24.1 as he did, was a stunning accomplishment, and the key to the Sixers' success.

Considering the rapid expansion, it wasn't a great shock that the Sixers' won-loss record was broken just five years later; the 1971-72 Lakers won 69, the mark the Bulls are chasing. What was a shock was how they did it - with their legendary 33-game winning streak. That run has been denigrated in recent years because of the supposed weakness of the expanded league. "No one was saying that back then," Attles recalled.

Maybe the most ironic thing about that streak is that it began the day after legendary Laker Elgin Baylor's creaky knees forced him to retire. The Lakers won those games by an average of 16.1 points. Only one went into overtime; 24 were by 10 points or more, and No. 33 was by 44 points. For the season, they outscored opponents by 12.3 points a game.

Chamberlain, acquired in the preseason specifically to get Baylor and Jerry West their rings, needed to average just 14.8 points, fourth on the team. Gail Goodrich picked up the scoring lost when Baylor retired, averaging 25.9 a game and eventually becoming the third key player from that team to reach Springfield. Jim McMillian, Happy Hairston, Flynn Robinson and LeRoy Ellis were key contributors at both ends.

Players of the current era quickly add the Lakers and Celtics of the '80s to the argument; they combined for 14 Finals trips and eight titles in the decade. As longtime Piston Isiah Thomas put it, "You've got Magic, Kareem and Worthy, you've got Bird, McHale and Parish."

The '85-86 Celtics didn't get to measure themselves against the Lakers; Houston had eliminated them. But regardless of the competition, you can't ignore 67 wins, a 40-1 record at home and a 15-3 blitz through the playoffs (tied for the best since the NBA adopted its current format in 1984).

The '86-87 Lakers had a stronger supporting cast than their predecessors: Green had moved Kurt Rambis to a reserve spot; Johnson, Worthy, Cooper and Scott had matured, and they had added Mychal Thompson to back up Abdul-Jabbar (giving them four former first overall picks, an almost unprecedented talent base). And they not only tested themselves against the defending champion Celtics, they beat them with relative ease, as Johnson's "junior skyhook" in Game 4 in Boston sparked a six-game win.

But, Thomas acknowledged, "I think you'd have to put Chicago up there with the Lakers and Celtics teams if they continue this run. They may not have the depth those teams had, but anytime you have Rodman, Pippen and Jordan, you've got three of the best that ever played."

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Photo Center Wilt Chamberlain played on all-time great teams in two cities. Daily News File Photo