trophies had a slightly different base for each conference to help distinguish one from the other; the silver basketball on the Eastern Conference trophy sits on three pegs, while the Western Conference trophy has the basketball sitting on intercrossing circular rings. The Los Angeles Lakers have won the most conference titles with 19. They have also made 23 appearances in the Conference Finals, more than any other team. The Boston Celtics have won 10 Conference titles, the second most of any team. Twenty-two of the 30 active franchises have won at least one conference title. The Denver Nuggets, Minnesota Timberwolves, Atlanta Hawks, Sacramento Kings, Memphis Grizzlies and Los Angeles Clippers have each played in at least one Conference Finals (Denver has played in four, Atlanta and Sacramento in two), but they have each failed to win their respective conference title. Two other franchises, the Charlotte Hornets, and New Orleans Pelicans have never appeared in the Conference Finals. Conference trophies The NBA first started awarding conference championship trophies in 2001. In 2022, both were redesigned, with the Eastern and Western Conference trophies being renamed after Bob Cousy and Oscar Robertson, respectively, who were instrumental in developing and advancing the players' labor union, the National Basketball Players Association. The two redesigned trophies each feature a silver basketball with its respective conference finals logo on the underside. The silver basketball is quartered into four sections, representing the winning team first qualifying for the playoffs and then advancing through the three playoff rounds. In that same year, the NBA began awarding Conference Finals MVPs to the best performing player of each conference finals: the Larry Bird Eastern Conference Finals Most Valuable Player Award and the Magic Johnson Western Conference Finals Most Valuable Player Award, named for the two players credited for building the league up to greater popularity in the 1980s. The MVP trophies follow a design similar to that of the Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP trophy, only the ball on each trophy will be silver and would be smaller versions of the Conference Championship trophies in how they sit on the base. Key Conference Eastern Conference Finals Western Conference Finals {| class="wikitable sortable" ! Year !! Champion !! Coach !! class="unsortable|Result !! Runner-up !! Coach |- | 1971 || bgcolor=#FFFF99|Milwaukee Bucks† || || align=center|4–1 || Los Angeles Lakers || |- | 1972 || bgcolor=#FFFF99|Los Angeles Lakers† || || align=center|4–2 || Milwaukee Bucks