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Using 'Championships Won' to Gauge a Team or Player's Ability

post #1 of 40
5/6/09 at 5:41pm
Thread Starter 
Is this a valid measure?

I know this comes up in all sports almost every year, but currently with the NBA play-offs in full bloom I'm hearing the fighting increase between the Kobe fans and the LeBron fans.

You might notice I'm from Ohio, but I'm not trying to make this about Cleveland teams or LeBron in particular, but this seems to highlight the discussion well.

It seems that a player can't reach that final tier of greatness until they win a championship. While I understand why this occurs (namely the entire season is set up with the goal being a championship, and there are certainly psychological reasons why we remember championship teams more easily), is it a valid measure of an athlete or a team?

Besides the obvious criticisms (how can you judge a great player on a bad team versus a great player on a great team where the latter SHOULD be winning more often), I wanted to take at a look at the raw probabilities (in an admittedly somewhat amateurish way for expediency).

So, to generalize this even more and restate the point, the team that has the best record in a league (I'll stick with the NBA for this exercise) isn't given much credit. If they don't win the championship, what's the point?

I'm going to make some assumptions and take a few shortcuts here, but I'll note them as I come to them.

In the last 10 years of the NBA, the #1 team in the regular season has had an average win percentage in the mid-.700s.

Assuming this is a valid indicator of their odds of winning ANY given game, let's transfer that into the play-offs with a few adjustments. Seeing as your competition is better than the league average in the play-offs, it seems like your probability of winning would likely drop. My rough estimates (which you can take issue with) would be that in the early rounds it would be in the lower-mid .700s and in the later rounds it would be in the .500s to lower .600s. On average, I'll just guesstimate .667 (2 in 3 chance). I'll hold this number steady for ease of calculations (which isn't a horrible assumption as it will approximately even out in the end).

So, given that average, what are the odds that the best team in the NBA wins the championship?

They would be expected to have a roughly 45% chance of winning. More than half the time, a team that is NOT the best team would win (based on my above oversimplifications).

Statistically speaking, the best way to measure something is to take LOTS of samples (i.e., the regular season). Taking a handful of samples (the play-offs) is more likely to result in errors.

I realize there are other factors influenced by the regular season having less emphasis (i.e., the ;possibility of teams not playing as hard in the regular season), but most teams seem to play hard the whole way through fighting for home court advantage and pride. And, once you hit the play-offs, you would expect all (or most) teams to play harder, so it should even out to some extent. So, even if a team is coasting a little, would it change their odds that much when they hit the play-offs?

I just find it interesting that in the above scenario, even if you had the theoretically "best team" in the league for 2 straight years, there is still a 30% chance that you would not win a championship.


Now, stepping out from under my statistician hat, as a fan, I understand that by placing so much emphasis on the play-offs, you encourage the athletes to play harder and create a more exciting game for the fans. Does that translate into a better measure of who the best team is, though?


Also, I just checked to see how many of the teams with the best regular season record won the NBA finals in the last decade, and it happened 4 out of 10 times (not that this proves anything, but it fits nicely into my analysis). If those 10 teams with the best record WERE the best team that year (i.e., the had the greatest chance of winning any given game against any given opponent at any given time), only 4 or 5 of them would be expected to survive all the way through the play-offs (which is what happened).

So, what does that say about the team that "wins it all"? Just due to chance, around half the time, the best team isn't going to win the championship.

Technically, it is harder (or less likely for the team) to make it to the finals and lose twice than it is to win a championship once (according to my numbers). We don't reward teams (or players) for that, though.

Thoughts?
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post #2 of 40
5/6/09 at 6:03pm
It depends on the sport, to take the easy way out. It bothers me when we try to quantify a football player using this criteria. Dan Marino wasn't less awesome because he didn't win a championship. Same thing with a baseball player. There are just too many variables involved that can keep the best of the best from having a chance at dragging a team out of mediocrity. There's too many players on each team for one player (regardless of how great they are historically) to single-handedly win a championship.

In basketball I don't have the same concerns. The greatest of the great players should have their team in the playoffs every year, and contending. Is Charles Barkley's legacy less because he couldn't get the Suns that championship? Yep. Is Karl Malone's less because he and Stockton could never get over the hump? Yep. There are still variables (Barkley had the misfortune of playing in the finals against the greatest player of all time) but the greatest of the great should get a ring.

Statistically just making it to the finals is amazing. In basketball though it doesn't matter until you've won it all. We've all seen a lot of amazing talented players who we just don't think of on the same level as the all time greats. A lot of those players could point at their regular season stats and make a case that they were just as good as the greats we remember. At the end of the day though, there's a difference between performing regularly and putting your team on your back on the biggest stage. It separates greatness.
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post #3 of 40
5/6/09 at 6:16pm
You have people who make the argument that the Jim Kelly Buffalo teams were great simply by reaching the Super Bowl four years in a row, even though they never won the game. I'm inclined to agree there -- they lost on a heartbreak of a kick by Norwood against the Giants (and sort of outplayed the G-Men, too) in their first appearance, and ran headlong into the all-time Cowboys team in their last two. Only that loss to the Redskins in their second appearance is a head-scratcher, but you're still looking at a team that went 49-15 over four seasons with a Defensive Player of the Year (Bruce Smith in '90), an MVP (Thurman Thomas in '91) and a Coach of the Year (Marv Levy in '93). No rings, but still a great team.
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post #4 of 40
5/7/09 at 11:26am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by A-Pathetic View Post
It depends on the sport, to take the easy way out. It bothers me when we try to quantify a football player using this criteria. Dan Marino wasn't less awesome because he didn't win a championship. Same thing with a baseball player. There are just too many variables involved that can keep the best of the best from having a chance at dragging a team out of mediocrity. There's too many players on each team for one player (regardless of how great they are historically) to single-handedly win a championship.

In basketball I don't have the same concerns.
I definitely agree that it varies by sport when talking about individual players versus teams. Also, play-off system matters. In a one-and-done system like the NFL, the Bills' accomplishment is even more interesting and impressive.

Quote:
Originally Posted by A-Pathetic edited by ME with some CAP LOCK and bolding
The greatest of the great players should have their team in the playoffs every year, and contending. Is Charles Barkley's legacy less because he couldn't get the Suns that championship? Yep. Is Karl Malone's less because he and Stockton could never get over the hump? Yep. There are still variables (Barkley had the misfortune of playing in the finals against the greatest player of all time) but the greatest of the great SHOULD get a ring.

Statistically just making it to the finals is amazing. In basketball though it doesn't matter until you've won it all. We've all seen a lot of amazing talented players who we just don't THINK of on the same level as the all time greats. A lot of those players could point at their regular season stats and make a case that they were just as good as the greats we remember. At the end of the day though, there's a difference between performing regularly and putting your team on your back on the biggest stage. It separates greatness.
Yes, I agree that is how we FEEL as fans. My hope was to show that the statistics may show otherwise, though Maybe the difference between one guy winning a championship and another not isn't that the first is consistently able to put his team on his back on the biggest stage and the other isn't... maybe they are both are equally able, but the odds of either of them individually winning a championship are small enough, that the better of the two may not ever win one. Yet we judge him for that and only that.

Now, I'm being excessively general again here. Of course if we have 2 players with dozens and dozens of play-off games each, we can do a more realistic breakdown of their individual performances to see if one player may not be able to handle the high pressure situations against tough opponents.

My main point was that in theory, IF two players were equal, there is a good chance that at least one won't win a championship just due to basic probabilities, and we'll judge him as significantly worse for it.
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post #5 of 40
5/7/09 at 3:51pm
Championships aren’t a good measure for evaluating players, their lack, though, does have enormous value when establishing the “greatness” of a players career at certain positions. Greatness isn’t about ability, but dominance over your piers. And in leagues like the NBA or the NFL, there are positions where, due to the opportunity to disproportionately effect the outcome of a game, a great player is expected to win it all at least once.

Before Michael Jordan (and it may very well be that he is the exception that proves the rule), centers were that position in the NBA, and in the NFL, obviously we’re talking about the quarterback position. Now, sure, great centers and quarterbacks can exist without winning championships, but how dominant could they possibly have been without ever once winning it all?

The question being asked here, I believe, is how well does winning a championship correlate to greatness. If it doesn’t, their value as a measuring stick is flawed, but if it does? Wouldn’t it then make sense to expect a great center or quarterback to win a championship?

Looking back at great* NBA centers and NFL quarterbacks over the past twenty-five years, how many of them haven’t won it all?

Championships Won Over the Past 25 Years
NBA Centers
Moses Malone: 1
Hakeem Olajuwon: 2
Shaquille O'Neal: 4
Tim Duncan: 4
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 6

NFL Quarterbacks
Dan Marino: 0
Brett Favre: 1
Peyton Manning: 1
John Elway: 2
Tom Brady: 3
Joe Montana: 4

The thing I see here? There isn’t a “50–50 chance” that a great player wont win a championship, because a great player is great for something close to 10-15 years, and, statistically speaking, that appears to be enough time to break through for all but one out of eleven players over the past quarter century.

* When I say great, I mean is this player bigger than the era he participated in, a player we compare to the greats throughout the history of the sport.
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post #6 of 40
5/7/09 at 4:19pm
Every single one of those players save Marino played on great all-around teams though. Jordan was Jordan for the Bulls for three or four seasons before he finally had all the pieces around him to knock off the Pistons and make a run, so one guy doesn't win it all by himself. All those QBs had either a solid defense or a solid running game, or both, something Marino rarely had.
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post #7 of 40
5/7/09 at 4:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson View Post
Every single one of those players save Marino played on great all-around teams though. Jordan was Jordan for the Bulls for three or four seasons before he finally had all the pieces around him to knock off the Pistons and make a run, so one guy doesn't win it all by himself. All those QBs had either a solid defense or a solid running game, or both, something Marino rarely had.
You'd have a hard time convincing me just how great the pieces around Jordan were. Ultimately it was Jordan and a bunch of role players (Pippen included) and Michael was able to pull those role players up to a level that they never came close to reaching again after leaving the Bulls.

There were certainly teams in football and basketball that were just so talented that you can argue that the superstar on that team didn't have to work as hard, but there are also teams that I would bet are remembered as much better than we should remember them just because of that one superstar who led them to championships.
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post #8 of 40
5/7/09 at 5:12pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by MoNkaholic View Post
The thing I see here? There isn’t a “50–50 chance” that a great player wont win a championship, because a great player is great for something close to 10-15 years, and, statistically speaking, that appears to be enough time to break through for all but one out of eleven players over the past quarter century.

* When I say great, I mean is this player bigger than the era he participated in, a player we compare to the greats throughout the history of the sport.
A few things. First, thanks for the detailed post.

Secondly, though, the "less than 50% chance" stat I threw out was for a single season. If we look at an entire career, the odds change, of course. I kept it short term because it seems rare that any one team is dominant for more than 2-3 years, and my probabilities were based on the team being the "top team" in the league each year (and not just having the best player). Also, my odds mean nothing for football which has a much different play-off system, so I won't comment on those odds directly.

Third, in keeping with my shorter term probabilities, let's consider this season in the NBA and the MVP debate. There is an ongoing Kobe vs. LeBron debate. Kobe fans will say they Kobe is better because he has more championships. Kobe may or may not be better, but if the Cavs lose to the Lakers in the finals, does that necessarily mean Kobe and/or the Lakers are better? Likewise, if the Cavs win, does that make LeBron and the Cavs better (or comparable)?

My main point was that IF we assume the Cavs and Lakers are equal and that Kobe and LeBron are equal, the outcome of that series (not to mention just getting to the finals) is going to be a toss-up, and factors besides who is "better" can help determine the outcome of a single series. The sample size is just so small.

Also, maybe Kobe is better than LeBron, but maybe the rest of the Cavs are better than the rest of the Lakers. If the Cavs win, you'll hear a lot about how LeBron was better than Kobe... but maybe he wasn't. When things are THAT close, should "championships won" really be the determining factor?

Also, my odds don't work if one team was MUCH better than the others. If there was a REALLY good team with a REALLY good player, they certainly have better odds. My odds are based more on assuming a competitive league and figuring out how likely it is that the best team in that competitive league wins the championship.

The problem I see here is that we have multiple superstars in the league (with LeBron and Kobe at the top) and multiple competitive teams (with the Cavs and Lakers at the top). The odds of the best team (assuming there was a best team, if two or more teams are equal, then the odds get worse) winning going into the play-offs was (theoretically) less than 50%.

Also, even if we extend it out and look at all of the truly "great" players for an entire century, you are right that statistically most of them will win championships if they have a decent team around them for a good proportion of that time, but they might not ALL win championships. Someone is bound to get unlucky and just not have things bounce in their favor. What if one of those few that get really unlucky happens to be the best player of all time? Will he not be remembered as the best player of all time because he didn't get 5 rings?

I think you are right that championships and ability are definitely correlated... but that just means that the team that wins is probably very good, not that the best team wins.

I also think you bring up some good points about individual players (i.e., is a good center more important than a good small forward and more able to control a game in general, and how does this affect the probabilities).

Seeing as I ran those simple stats on my lunch break, I don't know if I'll be tackling these more complex issues unless somebody starts paying me!
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post #9 of 40
5/7/09 at 5:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson View Post
Every single one of those players save Marino played on great all-around teams though. Jordan was Jordan for the Bulls for three or four seasons before he finally had all the pieces around him to knock off the Pistons and make a run, so one guy doesn't win it all by himself. All those QBs had either a solid defense or a solid running game, or both, something Marino rarely had.
I remember nightmare games where Marino would through for four, or even five touchdowns, but loose 48-49 because the defense couldn't get a single stop. Then, as soon as Marino retires we have four solid years of being a top five defensive team. Being from South Florida, and as big a Dolphin fan as they come, the most bittersweet part of it is Marino made it to the Super Bowl in his second season, and then over the next fifteen years he could never make it out of the AFC Championship Game. If the NFL had an honorary Lombardi trophy, Marino and Kelly would be the first to get them.
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post #10 of 40
5/7/09 at 5:58pm
I never hold championships against guards, maybe it’s an old bias, but, throughout the history of the NBA, championships are won by big men. So no, if someone’s picking Kobe over LeBron because of championships, I wouldn’t take that argument too seriously.

If they play each other in the finals, though? Ignoring that championship becomes a tougher proposition.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson View Post
Every single one of those players save Marino played on great all-around teams though. Jordan was Jordan for the Bulls for three or four seasons before he finally had all the pieces around him to knock off the Pistons and make a run, so one guy doesn't win it all by himself. All those QBs had either a solid defense or a solid running game, or both, something Marino rarely had.
I’m not sure I see how:
Quote:
there are positions where, due to the opportunity to disproportionately effect the outcome of a game, a great player is expected to win it all at least once.
is rebutted by:
Quote:
so one guy doesn't win it all by himself
I suppose one could counter and say that no one position is more valuable than another, asserting that a place kicker has just as much of an impact on a teams chances to win as the quarterback, but that’s not where you’re going here. It kind of just feels like you think I’m slighting Dan Marino in some way, even though I just called him an all-time great?
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post #11 of 40
5/8/09 at 1:41am
So the best team is 70% to win one game, and 70% to win at least one championship in a two-year period. Honestly, that sounds about right to me. If you wanted to determine that the best team won every game you could make them longer; to make the best team win every championship you could increase the number of games per match, or whatever. But we want variance, and therefore unpredictably, and therefore excitement. I'm surprised the percentage is as high as it is.

But while 70% is way better than most bets in life, it's not enough to make a terribly convincing argument about the greatness or failure of a team, and it definitely doesn't apply to most players. But you already know all this, of course, Mike. (Good OP, by the way.)
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post #12 of 40
5/8/09 at 10:36am
I hate when people use the championship rings as a gauge of a player's ability, hall of fame status, etc. Championship is truly a "team" effort. You just can't carry a team of bums to a ring, it doesn't happen. This is especially true for the NBA, when you had such dynasties in the Lakers, Celtics, and Bulls. I'm sorry, but no one had much of a chance against those dynasties. Are you telling me any of the amazing players from the late 80s through mid 90s NBA (the peak of NBA greatness for me) are lesser because they couldn't get past MJ and the Bulls? No fucking way, their teams as a collective just weren't as good.
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post #13 of 40
5/8/09 at 11:20am
Quote:
Originally Posted by A-Pathetic View Post
You'd have a hard time convincing me just how great the pieces around Jordan were. Ultimately it was Jordan and a bunch of role players (Pippen included) and Michael was able to pull those role players up to a level that they never came close to reaching again after leaving the Bulls.
I disagree that it was a bunch of role players. You could say that about guys he played with in Washington, but those Bulls were insane. Why, because you had games with Bill Fucking Wennington scoring more than 10 points. Everyone on that bench contributed. EVERYONE. Having that depth (and it was insane depth) was what caused them to win all of those championships.

If you look at the Cowboys in the 90's, they were unstoppable with Aikman, Smith, Irvin and most importantly Jay Novacek. You might question my addition of Jay, but he was that crucial additional scoring option that allowed Irvin and Smith to get as many points as they did. Just like those Bulls, when you have an entire bench that can bring you a win, it allows the superstars to do their scoring best because no one can stop THE TEAM.

So yeah, you can use championships won to gauge a teams ability, but in the humble opinion of someone who spent a decade coaching, you can't pin that on any individual player. A team can certainly lose without a key player, but that player alone cannot win a championship.
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post #14 of 40
5/8/09 at 11:26am
Everyone that says the Bulls were a bunch of role players and tosses in Pippen with a role player tag is a dunce. The year Jordan left Pippen was the anchor of a team that damn near made it to the Finals. Pippen would have eventually won a championship in Chicago with that squad even if Jordan never played there.

From NBA.com -

Quote:
However, the 1993-94 Bulls proved there was life without Michael Jordan. Although Chicago didn't win its fourth straight championship, it posted a 55-27 record (for second place behind the Atlanta Hawks in the Central Division) and advanced to the Eastern Conference Semifinals. But for the first time in four consecutive playoff matchups, the New York Knicks eliminated the Bulls, though it took them seven games to do it.

Scottie Pippen had a tremendous season in all facets of the game. The leading vote-getter for both the All-NBA First Team and the NBA All-Defensive First Team, he ranked eighth in the league in scoring (22.0 ppg), 23rd in rebounding (8.7 rpg), 19th in assists (5.6 apg), and second in steals (2.93 per game). Pippen also won MVP honors at the 1994 NBA All-Star Game, in which he was joined for the first time by teammates Horace Grant and B. J. Armstrong.
So they lost to the eventual Eastern Champs in 7 games, and Pippen put up incredible numbers. Some kind of role player.
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post #15 of 40
5/8/09 at 11:49am
Quote:
Originally Posted by MoNkaholic View Post
I suppose one could counter and say that no one position is more valuable than another, asserting that a place kicker has just as much of an impact on a teams chances to win as the quarterback, but that’s not where you’re going here. It kind of just feels like you think I’m slighting Dan Marino in some way, even though I just called him an all-time great?
No, just the opposite -- Marino is an all-time great whose lack of championships was pretty much beyond his control.

I think football is tougher because it has an element that none of the other sports really has -- weather. Jordan's game wasn't affected by wind or snow or rain, but you can't say Marino's passing game wasn't affected if the ground was wet or if the wind was blowing at 30 mph.
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post #16 of 40
5/8/09 at 12:23pm
If you use championships to judge greatness, Robert Horry must have been one of the best ever. But let's be honest, Horry hit some key, big shots but was ultimately the very definition of a role player after his two years with Houston.
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post #17 of 40
5/8/09 at 12:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by B_MetalSucks View Post
If you use championships to judge greatness, Robert Horry must have been one of the best ever. But let's be honest, Horry hit some key, big shots but was ultimately the very definition of a role player after his two years with Houston.
You shut your whore mouth.

As far as my calling Pippen a role player, I stand by it. Great, he had a good season after Jordan left. Lots of players have had a good season. He fell off the freaking face of the earth when he left the Bulls, and he spent the biggest portion of his playing career being set up by the greatest player in the game while not having to deal with any special defenses set up to stop his strengths.

Every single one of those players was significantly worse when they left the Bulls. They all got fat contracts because Jordan made them as good as he possibly could. Does nobody remember when Horace Grant was thought to be one of the best power forwards in the league? Then he went to Orlando and became the invisible man. Cliff Levingston? Anyone? Craig Hodges? The only player off the top of my head that you can say didn't take a step back after leaving the Bulls is actually Steve Kerr. The Bulls were a pedestrian team pulled to greatness.
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post #18 of 40
5/8/09 at 1:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by A-Pathetic View Post
You shut your whore mouth.
Don't get me wrong, I loved and still love "Big Shot" Bob, but greatness, thy name is not Robert Horry.
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post #19 of 40
5/8/09 at 1:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by A-Pathetic View Post
Does nobody remember when Horace Grant was thought to be one of the best power forwards in the league? Then he went to Orlando and became the invisible man.
Except for the fact that his first two years there the Magic went further in the playoffs than they'd ever gone before he got there. He's widely regarded as a key component to the two dominant seasons the Magic had in '95 and '96.
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post #20 of 40
5/8/09 at 1:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by B_MetalSucks View Post
If you use championships to judge greatness, Robert Horry must have been one of the best ever. But let's be honest, Horry hit some key, big shots but was ultimately the very definition of a role player after his two years with Houston.
I think their lack, at certain positions, in certain sports, is telling. I mean, Patrick Ewing is a Hall of Fame center, but nobody would compare him favorably to Tim Duncan.

Had Peyton Manning threw five interceptions in the 2006 AFC Championship game, would we have looked at him any differently? And, more importantly, should we have? Is the fact that he beat the Patriots, and won the Super Bowl that year completely irrelevant? Because that’s the argument being made here, and while I can grant that championships are a limited tool in evaluating players, completely disregarding them seems just as absurd as your run of the mill COUNT T3H RINGS!~!! argument.
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post #21 of 40
5/8/09 at 1:43pm
I don't think the championship argument is applicable to team players, but I do think they are to teams and franchises.

As far as I'm concerned the greatest owners in any American (don't know much about soccer and such) team sport, it's gotta be the ones who have won multiple championships with different teams. i.e. The Steelers' Rooney Family.

Individual sports, championships matter more, but I don't think it's the final argument. Jack Nicklaus has more majors, but I would say Tiger Woods is the greatest golfer in history.
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post #22 of 40
5/8/09 at 2:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MoNkaholic View Post
I think their lack, at certain positions, in certain sports, is telling. I mean, Patrick Ewing is a Hall of Fame center, but nobody would compare him favorably to Tim Duncan.

Had Peyton Manning threw five interceptions in the 2006 AFC Championship game, would we have looked at him any differently? And, more importantly, should we have? Is the fact that he beat the Patriots, and won the Super Bowl that year completely irrelevant? Because that’s the argument being made here, and while I can grant that championships are a limited tool in evaluating players, completely disregarding them seems just as absurd as your run of the mill COUNT T3H RINGS!~!! argument.
I see your point and would to an extent agree with it. There are cases where the championships do push that really good player toward great and really good toward just plain good.

For every Ewing there's a Mario Elie is all I'm saying. I would just say that championships can help you decide but do not have to.
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post #23 of 40
5/8/09 at 2:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson View Post
Except for the fact that his first two years there the Magic went further in the playoffs than they'd ever gone before he got there. He's widely regarded as a key component to the two dominant seasons the Magic had in '95 and '96.
He averaged like 12 and 9. Let's not go crazy about what a key component he was, please.

Edit: Wasn't Shaq on those teams? And Penny Hardaway still had working knees? Yes, let's try to sell the playoff success as belonging to HoGrant.
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post #24 of 40
5/8/09 at 2:38pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by A-Pathetic View Post
Does nobody remember when Horace Grant was thought to be one of the best power forwards in the league? Then he went to Orlando and became the invisible man.
Really. Man, I really want to get worked up, because basketball is absolutely my passion, but I won't even bother.

And Pippen's career line of 18ppg, 8rpg, 5apg, and 2 steals a game is NOT pedestrian. Not to mention he was an absolute fucking lock down defender. The real truth is Michael doesn't win without Scottie locking down offensive forces.
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post #25 of 40
5/8/09 at 2:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by A-Pathetic View Post
He averaged like 12 and 9. Let's not go crazy about what a key component he was, please.

Edit: Wasn't Shaq on those teams? And Penny Hardaway still had working knees? Yes, let's try to sell the playoff success as belonging to HoGrant.
The team the year before had Shaq and Penny and got bounced in the first round. Grant shows up and they make the finals one year and win 60 games the next. I'm not saying he's the sole reason, but his presence as another big body inside certainly helped free things up for Shaq, and he could also shoot the jumper. Plus, he brought experience from those Bulls championship teams.

I'm not selling the Magic's playoff success as belonging to Grant, but he was hardly "the invisible man" when he left Chicago.
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post #26 of 40
5/8/09 at 2:46pm
I like all these proclaimations of who wouldn't have won without blank. Since we're playing that game, John Elway doesn't ride off into the sunset a legend if it's not for Terrell Davis.
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post #27 of 40
5/8/09 at 2:53pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson View Post
The team the year before had Shaq and Penny and got bounced in the first round. Grant shows up and they make the finals one year and win 60 games the next. I'm not saying he's the sole reason, but his presence as another big body inside certainly helped free things up for Shaq, and he could also shoot the jumper. Plus, he brought experience from those Bulls championship teams.

I'm not selling the Magic's playoff success as belonging to Grant, but he was hardly "the invisible man" when he left Chicago.
Shaq and Penny were young. They matured and got experience. I'm afraid you're a little bit blinded by area bias on this one. People outside of Florida aren't waxing poetic about HoGrant on those teams. He was an okay piece.
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post #28 of 40
5/8/09 at 2:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BillyG View Post
And Pippen's career line of 18ppg, 8rpg, 5apg, and 2 steals a game is NOT pedestrian. Not to mention he was an absolute fucking lock down defender. The real truth is Michael doesn't win without Scottie locking down offensive forces.
Pippen's career lines are because of Michael. Pippen was the worst selection on the 50th anniversary team, and I think history bears that out pretty well. Pippen would have been a good player elsewhere. Pippen was a superstar specifically because of Michael.

I honestly had no idea that the Scottie Pippen fan club was so ravenous.
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post #29 of 40
5/9/09 at 1:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson View Post
You have people who make the argument that the Jim Kelly Buffalo teams... Only that loss to the Redskins in their second appearance is a head-scratcher
That '91 Washington team was absolutely PHENOMENAL. No shame in anyone losing to them.

Still, if you look at it, the Bills lost a heart-breaker and I think that affected them in the next two SBs (a Hall of Famer like Thurman Thomas LOSES HIS HELMET? Come on!); I think by then their confidence was so crushed that they couldn't get over the hump when they were in it in the second game vs the Cowboys.
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post #30 of 40
5/9/09 at 1:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson View Post
No, just the opposite -- Marino is an all-time great whose lack of championships was pretty much beyond his control.

I think football is tougher because it has an element that none of the other sports really has -- weather. Jordan's game wasn't affected by wind or snow or rain, but you can't say Marino's passing game wasn't affected if the ground was wet or if the wind was blowing at 30 mph.
I was thinking less about weather and more about the fact that in basketball and hockey, and less so in baseball, a great player can contribute on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball - witness guys like Jordan or Hakeem Olajuwan being able to drop 40 or 50 on the offensive end while shutting down the top offensive threat on the defensive side; Dan Marino could throw for 7 tds but he wasn't about to go out and start laying out WRs from the FS position.
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post #31 of 40
5/9/09 at 2:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rando View Post
I like all these proclaimations of who wouldn't have won without blank. Since we're playing that game, John Elway doesn't ride off into the sunset a legend if it's not for Terrell Davis.
This is very true especially in football. Barry Sanders was one of the greatest running backs in history but he didn't even come close to having the right pieces around him, and his win loss record reflected that.
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post #32 of 40
5/9/09 at 2:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sherm View Post
This is very true especially in football. Barry Sanders was one of the greatest running backs in history but he didn't even come close to having the right pieces around him, and his win loss record reflected that.
The record of Walter Payton's teams until he got something resembling a defense and passing game around him:

Bears 75-82: 53-62, two winning seasons, two double-digit playoff losses. And Walter Payton was as complete a RB as you'll find.
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post #33 of 40
5/9/09 at 2:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sherm View Post
This is very true especially in football. Barry Sanders was one of the greatest running backs in history but he didn't even come close to having the right pieces around him, and his win loss record reflected that.
...of course, this goes to the hypocricy of the whole deal - in football, only QBs are truly judged by championships. Everyone else gets judged by how they performed over a period of years.

Hence, Hog Hannah is rightly revered as perhaps the best OG ever. Dan Marino, despite being the NFL's most prolific passer (until that Fervuh guy came along), has to battle this "no rings" stigma. Never mind that he was at the very least as good as the best Super Bowl winning QBs as of his era (Montana, Young, Favre, Elway), and far better than most (Hostetler, Rypien, McMahon, Doug Williams, Troy Aikman).
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post #34 of 40
5/9/09 at 5:54pm
I’m not sure that’s hypocrisy at all, a quarterback has more responsibility over the outcome of a game than any other position on the field.
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post #35 of 40
5/9/09 at 6:00pm
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Originally Posted by MoNkaholic View Post
I’m not sure that’s hypocrisy at all, a quarterback has more responsibility over the outcome of a game than any other position on the field.
Still, that in and of itself is less than a hockey goalie or a baseball pitcher. Probably less than any NBA player, as far as that goes.
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post #36 of 40
5/9/09 at 7:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chavez View Post
Still, that in and of itself is less than a hockey goalie or a baseball pitcher. Probably less than any NBA player, as far as that goes.
A goalie isn’t a part of anywhere near every defensive stop, an NBA player isn’t involved in every play (offensive or defensive), especially when they’re not on the court due to substitutions or foul trouble, and a baseball pitcher has very limited control over the outcome of balls in play, let alone the fact that he’s only out there for 2/3 of any single game he’s pitching, which only ever occurs one out of every five games.

It’s very easy to nitpick, but in the end, until I see a heck of a lot more randomness in the success rate of great NBA centers and NFL quarterbacks, I’m going to have a hard time completely disregarding the value of championships.
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post #37 of 40
5/9/09 at 9:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MoNkaholic View Post
A goalie isn’t a part of anywhere near every defensive stop, an NBA player isn’t involved in every play (offensive or defensive), especially when they’re not on the court due to substitutions or foul trouble, and a baseball pitcher has very limited control over the outcome of balls in play, let alone the fact that he’s only out there for 2/3 of any single game he’s pitching, which only ever occurs one out of every five games.
An NFL QB is involved in less than half the plays of any given game - defense and special teams make up a large chunk - and is only a tangential factor on most running plays (assuming he isn't a Mike Vick sort of player). A QB really is only involved in maybe 1/4 of the given plays his team has in a season.

That's WAY less activity than a quality NBA starter or a goalie playing 60 minutes of 60-some games. Baseball pitchers, yeah, I'll grant that due to the starting one of every five games.
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post #38 of 40
5/9/09 at 9:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MoNkaholic View Post
It’s very easy to nitpick, but in the end, until I see a heck of a lot more randomness in the success rate of great NBA centers and NFL quarterbacks, I’m going to have a hard time completely disregarding the value of championships.
Well it would be silly to completely disregard championship's value but at the same time Trent Dilfer's Superbowl ring is completely forgettable when compared to Dan Marino or Jim Kelly's careers.
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post #39 of 40
5/13/09 at 4:33am
Apologies for bumping the thread.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chavez View Post
That '91 Washington team was absolutely PHENOMENAL. No shame in anyone losing to them.
Very true. Everything went right for the Skins that year.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chavez View Post
Still, if you look at it, the Bills lost a heart-breaker and I think that affected them in the next two SBs (a Hall of Famer like Thurman Thomas LOSES HIS HELMET? Come on!); I think by then their confidence was so crushed that they couldn't get over the hump when they were in it in the second game vs the Cowboys.
This is borne out by Jeff Pearlman's book about those Cowboy teams (great read, by the way). Basically, players admitted to Pearlman that the Bills were wound very tight for both Cowboy SBs. Once things snowballed out of control, their confidence was shot in both games.

I'll be honest, that part of the book kind of hurt to read. I'm very fond of those teams, and Bills fans regard them as a resilient bunch, not as a team that had a fragile psyche. Nostalgia can do funny things, I guess.

As it pertains to the conversation, I think it's an unfair barometer in most cases (Kelly or Marino, for example), but that's the first and easiest thing people bring up when comparing the greats.
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post #40 of 40
5/14/09 at 9:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Barg View Post
As it pertains to the conversation, I think it's an unfair barometer in most cases (Kelly or Marino, for example), but that's the first and easiest thing people bring up when comparing the greats.
See, and that's the problem. It's simple, and it ignores the fact that in every sport but basketball it's all but impossible for a single guy to carry a team to a title. And even in basketball, Wilt and Jordan (or Shaq) make it pretty apparent that no matter HOW dominant you are, you still need the right pieces in place.
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