Why do NBA players want championships?
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KobeDGreatesss
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 2016 11:24 am    Post subject: Why do NBA players want championships?

I know to get to an NBA level you have to be very competitive at a young age. The point I'm trying to make is, once you make it to the point to where you are making money, why should you strive to win a NBA championship. Why not just continue to play hard?
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 2016 11:36 am    Post subject:

Or, if they really did want championships more than anything else, why not take paycuts in order to build a superteam?
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 2016 11:58 am    Post subject: Re: Why do NBA players want championships?

KobeDGreatesss wrote:
I know to get to an NBA level you have to be very competitive at a young age. The point I'm trying to make is, once you make it to the point to where you are making money, why should you strive to win a NBA championship. Why not just continue to play hard?


I don't think most really give a (bleep) about a title. It's only a small percentage who feel extreme discomfort if they don't win the title.

Just like poker tournaments. Most players are happy just to make the money. Some are satisfied with just chopping. Heck some are just happy to be there no matter what. Only a few just want the bracelet.
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 2016 12:05 pm    Post subject: Re: Why do NBA players want championships?

Dladi Vidac wrote:
KobeDGreatesss wrote:
I know to get to an NBA level you have to be very competitive at a young age. The point I'm trying to make is, once you make it to the point to where you are making money, why should you strive to win a NBA championship. Why not just continue to play hard?


I don't think most really give a (bleep) about a title. It's only a small percentage who feel extreme discomfort if they don't win the title. t.


I disagree with you. Most of the guys who reach the NBA are hyper-competitive, type A personalities. They all want to win and succeed. That said, unless you are a superstar no one wants to hear about your desire to win a title. The lesser players aren't defined by whether they win titles, and they aren't going to give interviews about it.
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 2016 12:12 pm    Post subject:

It's the standard set by Magic, Bird, Jordan, Kobe and Duncan.

I'm not putting Lebron on that list since he had to win with two other Olympic teammates... Weak sauce.
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 2016 12:14 pm    Post subject: Re: Why do NBA players want championships?

KobeDGreatesss wrote:
I know to get to an NBA level you have to be very competitive at a young age. The point I'm trying to make is, once you make it to the point to where you are making money, why should you strive to win a NBA championship. Why not just continue to play hard?


Why is it either/or? Guys want the money and the title.

I mean, are you really asking why basketball players want to win games? I'm a fat middle aged guy. The only game I play is Trivia Crack on my iPad against a bunch of other middle aged people. I still want to win.
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 2016 12:19 pm    Post subject:

I think with so much information out there guys are starting to wise up and understand that winning is secondary to making as much money as they can. I'm sure there are still some who want to win above all else but its a declining group. Athletes are beginning to wise up and understand that money, power and fame will take them much further than winning.
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 2016 1:15 pm    Post subject: Re: Why do NBA players want championships?

KobeDGreatesss wrote:
I know to get to an NBA level you have to be very competitive at a young age. The point I'm trying to make is, once you make it to the point to where you are making money, why should you strive to win a NBA championship. Why not just continue to play hard?


Competition.
As humans there are some that want to do better than others. Going the extra mile. Sacrificing to win or do better than somebody else.
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 2016 3:35 pm    Post subject: Re: Why do NBA players want championships?

activeverb wrote:
Dladi Vidac wrote:
KobeDGreatesss wrote:
I know to get to an NBA level you have to be very competitive at a young age. The point I'm trying to make is, once you make it to the point to where you are making money, why should you strive to win a NBA championship. Why not just continue to play hard?


I don't think most really give a (bleep) about a title. It's only a small percentage who feel extreme discomfort if they don't win the title. t.


I disagree with you. Most of the guys who reach the NBA are hyper-competitive, type A personalities. They all want to win and succeed. That said, unless you are a superstar no one wants to hear about your desire to win a title. The lesser players aren't defined by whether they win titles, and they aren't going to give interviews about it.


That all makes sense, however I don't think it holds true. I still believe only a very small number of them have an intense burning desire to win the title.
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 2016 3:51 pm    Post subject:

JUST-MING wrote:
It's the standard set by Magic, Bird, Jordan, Kobe and Duncan.

I'm not putting Lebron on that list since he had to win with two other Olympic teammates... Weak sauce.


Did you watch the last 2 NBA Finals?
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 2016 4:17 pm    Post subject:

rmonkey wrote:
JUST-MING wrote:
It's the standard set by Magic, Bird, Jordan, Kobe and Duncan.

I'm not putting Lebron on that list since he had to win with two other Olympic teammates... Weak sauce.


Did you watch the last 2 NBA Finals?


LeBron is overrated.
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 2016 5:52 pm    Post subject:

JUST-MING wrote:
It's the standard set by Magic, Bird, Jordan, Kobe and Duncan.

I'm not putting Lebron on that list since he had to win with two other Olympic teammates... Weak sauce.


Snap.
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 2016 6:10 pm    Post subject:

Every player says they want to win a championship. Few actually care about doing so. I truly believe, with maybe a FEW exceptions, that the guys that have it in their hearts to win above all else find a way to do so.
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 2016 7:55 pm    Post subject:

JUST-MING wrote:
It's the standard set by Magic, Bird, Jordan, Kobe and Duncan.

I'm not putting Lebron on that list since he had to win with two other Olympic teammates... Weak sauce.

this is exactly it.

the way lebron got his rings has really cheapened the quality of championships, and reflects very badly on the legacies of those you stated above.

magic and bird, yes, had superteams. but it wasn't like lebron, like a baby running to all the stars, winning as much as he can, bolting as soon as it gets bad a little, ditching all his teammates, sucking the stats of all the guys on his team playing better than him, forcing the league to soften their stance on traveling because he just can't play by the rules, campaigning for the loser MVP award so that he can be compared to jerry west when he loses. etc. he's the worst.

you know what magic did when he lost? he cried. got mad. got better. came back with his own team and won again. same with bird. same with mj. same with kobe. same with lebron? no.

lebron has played with:
kyrie irving
kevin love
jr smith
wade
bosh
ray allen
shaq
ben wallace

and those are just the obvious stars. sub in for lebron any of the big names: kobe, mj, bird, magic and you will see how ridiculous this is. especially considering the WAY he formed these teams, and how well the players were playing at the time (ie this is not like malone and gp coming to la).
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 2016 9:21 pm    Post subject:

In answer to the question, NBA players want to win championships / rings because the oxygen at the top is intoxicating. Winning is intoxicating ...

With respect to supporting casts, this article provides an interesting presentation of the data: http://content.fanatics.com/six-degrees-nba/

But yeah, it remains mind-boggling that people here - of all places, here ... HERE! - have the audacity to bring up the relative strength of supporting casts in trying to elevate Kobe and downplay LeBron. Take a look at Kobe's two Finals MVPs, awarded during our last couple of championship runs ...

In 2009, we played one of the three worst NBA Finals teams in NBA history - the Orlando Magic (the Nets in 2002 and the Cavaliers in 2007 may be the other two teams in that awful trio, at least in the past 30 years). Anyway, Kobe's supporting cast included two Olympians in Pau Gasol (Espana) and Lamar Odom (U.S.A) + NBA All Star Andrew Bynum. Wow, considering the quality of that opponent (unless you have never spent time running point on the Dwight Howard lynch mob, pushing back with the SRS argument rings hollow to me), we probably should have won that ring in three games. They only had one relevant Olympian, and it was Dwight. He's everyone's favorite punching bag here, and we're reminded how ineffectual he is all the time, so that's really like -2 Olympians, I guess! No, we should have killed Orlando in three games, and the NBA should have waved the white flag to cancel the series before Game 4.

And then in 2010, we played a mostly geriatric Boston Celtics team. On their roster, four of their five best players were 32, 33, 34 and 35 years old, respectively. Also, their defensive anchor was playing through lingering injuries that compromised his game over two seasons, and their starting center missed most of Game 6 and all of Game 7 due to injury (both wins for us). Kobe's supporting cast in that series included two Olympians in Pau Gasol (Espana) and Lamar Odom (U.S.A) + NBA All Star Andrew Bynum + NBA All Star and DPOY Ron Artest. A better opponent than Orlando, to be certain, but considering the murderer's row on our roster, we shouldn't have faced two elimination games before eking out the win in Game 7.

Now ... for LeBron's three Finals MVPs, he played with a different caliber of supporting cast and he faced a different caliber of opponent. I mean, don't so many in our community constantly prattle on re: the Western Conference entrant in the NBA Finals being the better team by far?

First, LeBron helped lead his team past the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2012, a team brimming with four Olympians (who have also been NBA All Stars, not to mention NBA MVP [Durant] and All NBA First Team performers [Durant, Westbrook, Harden], etc.). He followed that up by helping his team beat the San Antonio Spurs in 2013, another team brimming with at least four Olympians (again, who have also been NBA All Stars, not to mention NBA MVP [Duncan], NBA MVP runner-up [Leonard], All NBA First Team performers (Duncan, Leonard], All NBA Second Team performers [Parker], DPOY [Leonard], etc.). And then in 2016, he helped lead his team past the Golden State Warriors, a team brimming with at least SEVEN Olympians (five of whom have also been NBA All Stars, not to mention NBA MVP [Curry], All NBA First Team performers [Curry], All NBA Second Team performers [Green, Thompson], all part of a defending championship team with the best R/S record in NBA history).

In 2012, LeBron had a declining Wade, an injury-hobbled Bosh, and a parliament of role players backing him. In 2013, he had an even more significantly-declining Wade, a bounce-back version of Bosh, 37-year-old Ray Allen, and more role players in his corner. And in 2016, he had Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, a few quality supporters in Thompson and J.R. Smith, and a journeyman's sampler to support his efforts.

I didn't bother to spend any time with the threepeat, as those are Shaq's Finals MVPs, he's a Top 10 All Time talent, and he played like four or five Olympians himself in all of those series anyway. Besides, fellow Olympian Mitch Richmond was here one of those years, too, and Kobe averaged like 16 points on 37% shooting in one of the other years, as well ... so, yeah, what's all of this talk about better supporting casts ... ?
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 2016 11:05 pm    Post subject: Re: Why do NBA players want championships?

KobeDGreatesss wrote:
I know to get to an NBA level you have to be very competitive at a young age. The point I'm trying to make is, once you make it to the point to where you are making money, why should you strive to win a NBA championship. Why not just continue to play hard?


NBA sales job executed to perfection! And I think it really started with Bird, Magic and the struggles of Isiah and Jordan. Kids growing up saw how much it meant to them, how Magic and Riley made champagne look so fun, how Isiah had to get over Bird, and how MJ had to get over the bad boys. Somewhere along the line, it just became lip service to say, "It's all about the championship." Some say it, some strive for greatness, know the history, appreciate the history and mean it. Some say it simply because it's the fashionable thing to say. The majority of players in the NBA will say it's important, but the majority wouldn't trade their loot for a ring. But we've seen the opposite, players putting their rings up for auction. Some have made enough money to then go and buy themselves a ring, such as leaving money on the table. But a youngster gunning for his first payday isn't going to leave a dime on the table, but he'll say he's about the ring.
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 2:34 am    Post subject:

CandyCanes wrote:
Or, if they really did want championships more than anything else, why not take paycuts in order to build a superteam?

For the same reason you or I don't take pride in beating down our 3 year old nephews at a game of 1v1?

What makes winning great is the challenge and beating other greats to do it. I wouldn't doubt LeBron's 2016 ring is much sweeter to him than his 2012 ring.

I believe this is also at the heart of why many people hate 'The Decision' or KD's move, even though the argument is never really articulated well and is strawmanned pretty quickly. There's obviously a balance to be struck --- no one is saying you should hamstring yourself by purposefully playing for the Sixers or Nets or something, either. But people in general want the best of the best to want to beat each other, not team up.
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 2:46 am    Post subject:

the association wrote:
In answer to the question, NBA players want to win championships / rings because the oxygen at the top is intoxicating. Winning is intoxicating ...

With respect to supporting casts, this article provides an interesting presentation of the data: http://content.fanatics.com/six-degrees-nba/

But yeah, it remains mind-boggling that people here - of all places, here ... HERE! - have the audacity to bring up the relative strength of supporting casts in trying to elevate Kobe and downplay LeBron. Take a look at Kobe's two Finals MVPs, awarded during our last couple of championship runs ...

In 2009, we played one of the three worst NBA Finals teams in NBA history - the Orlando Magic (the Nets in 2002 and the Cavaliers in 2007 may be the other two teams in that awful trio, at least in the past 30 years). Anyway, Kobe's supporting cast included two Olympians in Pau Gasol (Espana) and Lamar Odom (U.S.A) + NBA All Star Andrew Bynum. Wow, considering the quality of that opponent (unless you have never spent time running point on the Dwight Howard lynch mob, pushing back with the SRS argument rings hollow to me), we probably should have won that ring in three games. They only had one relevant Olympian, and it was Dwight. He's everyone's favorite punching bag here, and we're reminded how ineffectual he is all the time, so that's really like -2 Olympians, I guess! No, we should have killed Orlando in three games, and the NBA should have waved the white flag to cancel the series before Game 4.

This is bordering on Superboy levels of delusion here.

1) Not all Olympians equal. Pau != Odom in terms of being an Olympian (Odom didn't even win a Silver, and he had a smaller role). It's a blatant manipulation to frame it this way.

2) Who cares about Bynum? He wasn't an all-star until 3 years down the line. He posted a PER of 12 and BPM of -1.5.

3) Dwight can be a punching bag for his time in LA onward and still have been really (bleep) good in 2009. Especially defensively. Pau made mincemeat of him though so it's kind of a moot point. Dwight has been a shell of himself ever since 2013, though I agree people scapegoat him too much.

4) Orlando was actually a very good team, and it's hilarious your argument is "let's ignore SRS because I say so." Not how stats work. Best Finals team in the last 16 years? Absolutely not. Were they nearly as bad as you said they were? Nah, they beat a 66-win Cavs team with LeBron putting up 37-8-8 on ~49% shooting. They were a good team, and if you want to discredit the Lakers' (read: Kobe's) ring there, you'd have been better off noting that after a good shooting Eastern Conference run, they couldn't make 3s for the life of them, and that can be life or death in a 7-game series.

I'm not saying I disagree with the conclusion about Kobe vs. LeBron's supporting casts (nor am I saying I agree --- though I have an opinion, it's irrelevant here), but this entire post is just plainly ridiculous. This paragraph is but a small snippet.
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 6:35 am    Post subject:

tox wrote:
the association wrote:
In answer to the question, NBA players want to win championships / rings because the oxygen at the top is intoxicating. Winning is intoxicating ...

With respect to supporting casts, this article provides an interesting presentation of the data: http://content.fanatics.com/six-degrees-nba/

But yeah, it remains mind-boggling that people here - of all places, here ... HERE! - have the audacity to bring up the relative strength of supporting casts in trying to elevate Kobe and downplay LeBron. Take a look at Kobe's two Finals MVPs, awarded during our last couple of championship runs ...

In 2009, we played one of the three worst NBA Finals teams in NBA history - the Orlando Magic (the Nets in 2002 and the Cavaliers in 2007 may be the other two teams in that awful trio, at least in the past 30 years). Anyway, Kobe's supporting cast included two Olympians in Pau Gasol (Espana) and Lamar Odom (U.S.A) + NBA All Star Andrew Bynum. Wow, considering the quality of that opponent (unless you have never spent time running point on the Dwight Howard lynch mob, pushing back with the SRS argument rings hollow to me), we probably should have won that ring in three games. They only had one relevant Olympian, and it was Dwight. He's everyone's favorite punching bag here, and we're reminded how ineffectual he is all the time, so that's really like -2 Olympians, I guess! No, we should have killed Orlando in three games, and the NBA should have waved the white flag to cancel the series before Game 4.

This is bordering on Superboy levels of delusion here.

1) Not all Olympians equal. Pau != Odom in terms of being an Olympian (Odom didn't even win a Silver, and he had a smaller role). It's a blatant manipulation to frame it this way.

2) Who cares about Bynum? He wasn't an all-star until 3 years down the line. He posted a PER of 12 and BPM of -1.5.

3) Dwight can be a punching bag for his time in LA onward and still have been really (bleep) good in 2009. Especially defensively. Pau made mincemeat of him though so it's kind of a moot point. Dwight has been a shell of himself ever since 2013, though I agree people scapegoat him too much.

4) Orlando was actually a very good team, and it's hilarious your argument is "let's ignore SRS because I say so." Not how stats work. Best Finals team in the last 16 years? Absolutely not. Were they nearly as bad as you said they were? Nah, they beat a 66-win Cavs team with LeBron putting up 37-8-8 on ~49% shooting. They were a good team, and if you want to discredit the Lakers' (read: Kobe's) ring there, you'd have been better off noting that after a good shooting Eastern Conference run, they couldn't make 3s for the life of them, and that can be life or death in a 7-game series.

I'm not saying I disagree with the conclusion about Kobe vs. LeBron's supporting casts (nor am I saying I agree --- though I have an opinion, it's irrelevant here), but this entire post is just plainly ridiculous. This paragraph is but a small snippet.


You use the term delusion, Tox, and yet I provided fact after fact after fact in my post. I'm not going to revisit the facts, because they were largely in response to the weak effort here by some to make heads-or-tails of Olympic teammates. I think the facts speak very, very, very easily for themselves, regardless of your efforts to qualify with a sudden third-party opinion re: "not all Olympians are created equally".

But I'll spend another minute on the Magic. Who has been worse in the past 30 years? Name the teams, Tox. Hold yourself to account and name the teams that have been less worthy NBA Finals entrants. I'll wait.

No, the five best players on that Orlando team, which you acknowledge managed to put up no fight in the NBA Finals because their shots weren't falling, were Dwight Howard (a player against whom just about everyone in your KDL goes balls deep in trying to pin the entirety of the blame for his departure on his mental weakness and refusal to play the aged Tyson Chandler role that Kobe had in mind for him, as opposed to the actual reason he left), Hedo Turkoglu (who, at 29, was a shell of the bench player he was earlier in his career), Rashard Lewis (ditto), Jameer Nelson (returning from injury earlier in the postseason), and Mickael Pietrus.

They beat the Cavaliers because it was an actual team (of more than just one player's herculean efforts) vs. LeBron playing at a high level and that's it. That's literally it. The second best player was Mo Williams, and he completely disappeared in that series. That Cavaliers "team" was literally no better (and probably worse) than ANY of our teams in the 2005 - 2007 window, when we couldn't do anything but embarrass ourselves. Delonte (bleep) West was the third best player, FFS.

And finally, SRS doesn't mean what you say because you say it, either. I'm dismissing the inferences that should be drawn from that stat because I've seen conflicting team metrics and the Orlando Magic very clearly, very decisively don't warrant the kudos you want to afford them (for the sole, transparent purpose, I should add, of buttressing the quality of Kobe's 2009 ring and Finals MVP). But you're not only arguing to re-establish the inference that SRS is the be-all-end-all when it comes to "objectively" assessing a team's worthiness as an NBA Finals entrant, you're also providing ZERO correlation to support your insistence that SRS actually means that we should even use it as a barometer for the relative strengths of teams playing in the NBA Finals.

Orlando was a paper SRS champion. Boston was old and injured. Those are qualitative observations of mine, and I'm not unwilling to learn new information to temper those views, but championing SRS hasn't done it yet. Nor has moving the goal posts for others when I provide fact after fact after fact to demonstrate that the KDL often doesn't do its homework before its members start patting each other on the back with half-truths ... "plainly ridiculous", indeed.

EDIT: I went back and reviewed the 2009 series between Orlando and Cleveland. Mo Williams didn't really statistically disappear, as I suggested above, but his FG %age was approx. 10 %age points below his R/S average. That decline in the efficiency of LeBron's second option (and how (bleep)-up is that descriptor for Mo Williams on a team thinking it was going to compete for a ring?), coupled with the wing players on Orlando shooting lights-out from the perimeter, were the primary contributors to that series loss after a great R/S. But again, Cleveland's front office provided LeBron with Mo Williams and Delonte West as the #2 and #3 options on the team. Again, few are willing to give the guy any credit for seeing the writing on the wall, but it's little mystery to everyone else why he left ...


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PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 6:50 am    Post subject:

when you're in the creme de la creme group, everybody been a winner all their life, they all tasted that top of the mountain feeling... You need it
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 8:03 am    Post subject:

nobody likes to lose, especially naturally competitive athletes who dedicate so much to the sport they play so its only natural to want to win a championship. But there is varying degrees of how much care about it versus getting more money, or playing for a team where they get more minutes/shots.
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 8:06 am    Post subject:

audioaxes wrote:
nobody likes to lose, especially naturally competitive athletes who dedicate so much to the sport they play so its only natural to want to win a championship. But there is varying degrees of how much care about it versus getting more money, or playing for a team where they get more minutes/shots.


Bullseye ...
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 8:30 am    Post subject:

JUST-MING wrote:
It's the standard set by Magic, Bird, Jordan, Kobe and Duncan.

I'm not putting Lebron on that list since he had to win with two other Olympic teammates... Weak sauce.


Players were striving to win titles long before Magic ever played. And not including Lebron is your weak sauce, shows a real lack of maturity. The fact that the players you mentioned also relied on Olympic teammates to win seems to be something you purposely ignore. So pretty much nothing in your post is accurate.
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 9:25 am    Post subject:

Ah, The Lebron Rule in operation. If a general basketball thread continues long enough, it will eventually become a discussion of why Lebron is overrated.
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 9:26 am    Post subject:

the association wrote:

You use the term delusion, Tox, and yet I provided fact after fact after fact in my post. I'm not going to revisit the facts, because they were largely in response to the weak effort here by some to make heads-or-tails of Olympic teammates. I think the facts speak very, very, very easily for themselves, regardless of your efforts to qualify with a sudden third-party opinion re: "not all Olympians are created equally".


Facts? Ha. You disregard SRS casually (it's flawed so I don't hold it up as the bible, but it still is useful), and create narratives that suit your opinion. There is nothing that suggests Orlando is as bad as you say (nor the '09 Cavs, a one man team, sure, but one that won 66 games for a reason). There's a reason the 65-win Lakers that went 4-0 against the Celtics and Cavs went 0-2 against the 59-win Magic. The saddest part is you're so willing to be wrong just for the sake of what appears to be spiting "the KDL." Like Turkoglu being a shell of himself? 07-08 and 08-09 were his two of his best seasons, both in the regular season and in the postseason. Same is true for Rashard Lewis. This is per BPM, probably the best overall "easily accessible metric," but aside from PER no stat suggests that Lewis or Turkoglu were any worse than before.

So, teams that are comparable to the Magic in the last 15 years? 2001 Sixers, 2002 Nets, 2003 Nets, 2006 Heat (basically the 2009 Cavs in terms of being a one-man-team with Shaq's precipitous playoff decline), 2006 Mavs (lost to said team), 2007 Cavs, 2011 Heat (only in the Finals, due to LeBron's puzzling performance), 2015 Cavs (injuries). Some might be worse, some might be better, but they're all around the same caliber.

You can try to strawman my argument ("re-establish the inference that SRS is the be-all-end-all when it comes to "objectively" assessing a team's worthiness as an NBA Finals entrant") or ad hominem it ("for the sole, transparent purpose, I should add, of buttressing the quality of Kobe's 2009 ring and Finals MVP"), but this is a pretty straightforward evaluation. That was a very good Magic team. In the upper pantheon of Finals teams? Of course not, not by a long shot. If anything, I'd agree they were in the lower quartile. But they were certainly a worthy Finals team nonetheless; most teams there tend to be.

You're quick to attribute my post to my biases, but I have zero emotional investment in this stupidity of a conversation. The idea that Kobe had it harder than LeBron when he played with Shaq for the majority of the rings, or that LeBron had it harder than Kobe when he hand crafted his championship teams and played in the generally weak East? Barring the first 7 years of LeBron's career, both have had it very well. I'm calling your post out because it's stupid and you can do better than that, not out of some lurking bias. I couldn't give less of a (bleep) about the actual debate at hand, and while I'm unabashedly a Kobe fan, it has zero bearing on my judgment in this conversation.

You should step back re-evaluate who's biased when you're the one using Bynum as an all-star as evidence of, well, anything in the 2009 or 2010 championships (we all know he wasn't close to an all-star in those seasons due to injuries and the like). It's that transparent manipulation of a technically true statement that reveals your agenda. It's very weasel-y, like a politician. You'll be hard-pressed to find me manipulating any facts or spouting falsehoods, whether or not you disagree with my ultimate judgments or evaluations (which are subjective, of course).

NB: On the Olympian thing, that was a mistake on my part. You were responding to the language used in some other (dumb) post, so it was perfectly fair to simply leave it at Odom and Pau being Olympians.
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