Through social listening, the most-liked NBA team is not the Golden State Warriors. Neither is it the Los Angeles Lakers. The top team has its spot perhaps because of its market’s rabid fan base and a legacy left before the squad.

The Chicago Bulls took the crown as the most-liked NBA team online (and the Charlotte Hornets are the least-liked), according to scores over a 12-month period. The Bulls had a 20.8% likeability score.

Linkfluence, a social listening company that crawls for data on mentions across the internet, made the scores on behalf of Betway, an online gambling company.

Chicago is known to have dedicated fans, and perhaps the Bulls dynasty with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen still impacts NBA fans. (It’s worth saying Pippen’s name in the last sentence. Jordan is the best basketball player and perhaps the best athlete in modern sports history. However, when Pippen was the best player on the Bulls during the full season that Jordan was playing professional baseball, the team went 55-27, according to Basketball-Reference.com.)

What Are The Five Most-Liked NBA Teams?

The Warriors (19.1%), Orlando Magic (16.3%), New York Knicks (16.1%), and Milwaukee Bucks (15.6%) are in second through fifth place, after the Bulls.

The Warriors and Bucks won the past two NBA championships and the Warriors have been to the NBA Finals in six of the last eight seasons, winning four of them. However, fans being attracted to winners may not tell the whole story. The Magic won just 22 games last season to take last place in the Eastern Conference.

What Are The Five Least-Liked NBA teams?

The Washington Wizards (3.95%), Indiana Pacers (5.09%), Minnesota Timberwolves (5.26%), and Philadelphia 76ers (6.81%) are in 29th through 26th place. The Hornets scored 3.41% over the same time frame.

Should Indiana’s reputation as a basketball state be rethought?

Charlotte Hornets players enjoy a moment. (photo credit: Kent Smith/NBAE via Getty Images)

What about the rest?

The ranking of the other NBA teams is as follows:

6. Denver Nuggets (15.5%)

7. Los Angeles Lakers (14.9%)

8. Sacramento Kings (14.8%)

9. Phoenix Suns (14.6%)

10. Utah Jazz (13.8%)

11. San Antonio Spurs (13.3%)

12. Memphis Grizzlies (13.1%)

13. Oklahoma City Thunder (12.3%)

14. Dallas Mavericks (11.8%)

15. Boston Celtics (11.2%)

16. New Orleans Pelicans (10.4%)

17. Miami Heat (10.1%)

18. Houston Rockets (9.89%)

19. Los Angeles Clippers (9.4%)

20. Detroit Pistons (9.25%)

21. Brooklyn Nets (9.19%)

22. Toronto Raptors (8.63%)

23. Atlanta Hawks (8.3%)

24. Cleveland Cavaliers (8.01%)

25. Portland Trail Blazers (7.06%)

Linkfluence used artificial intelligence tools to scan through content in media outlets, on social media, and in forums — to do social listening.

Social listening can provide insight into public perception. (graphic credit: Nightwatch)

Utilizing expertise from people, artificial intelligence, and data science, Linkfluence organizes data intelligently in a way to recognize trends and patterns, according to the company. To assign likeability scores to NBA teams, Linkfluence sourced data for each desired keyword in real-time and categorized content as a positive, negative, or mixed reaction, a Betway spokesperson said.

The data is as of June 21, according to Betway.

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