NBA’S GREATEST IS A NOT-SO-GREAT DEBATE
Greats of yesterday would still be great today
I’m all for a good barroom sports debate — even when the bars are closed and there are no live team sports in the country.
But when it comes to certain issues, the tall point guard of my youth reappears and I instinctively choose to pass. Such is the case with the latest seemingly critical topic.
In addition to inciting a 1990s nostalgia craze (I just think of all those people lighting prayer candles for a Chumbawamba reunion), the Michael Jordan documentary “The Last Dance” has set ablaze a loud deliberation over the best player in NBA history.
I find this to be a colossal fool’s errand on so many levels, but, hey, I write about sports for a living, so that’s essentially my business model. In other words, “Guilty, your honor.”
The two inherent problems I find in all the “greatest ever” arguments are the lack of context and the apparent requirement for some to denigrate another player to elevate their choice. You want to take Michael over LeBron James? Then you’re seemingly duty-bound to conjure a shortcoming in LeBron’s game — even when the only true reason may be that you don’t like his personality.
(My affection for Cleveland caused me to wince at LeBron’s departures and the way he trumpeted his support of the Indians in the 2016 postseason when he is, in fact, a Yankees fan. But to follow that by saying he doesn’t have a claim as valid as others to the alltime greatest perch would make me an idiot — and by now you know I don’t need any help in this regard.)
And comparing individual players in a team sport lends itself to emotional four-car pileups on Turn 3.
For example, it’s my considered belief that there was not a day in Wilt Chamberlain’s life when he wasn’t a better basketball player than Bill Russell if all we’re talking about are specific skills — a hoop decathlon, if you will. But Russell understood the larger object of the game in a way that Wilt never fully accepted. It’s possible The Big Dipper’s talent got in the way and forced him to believe he could and should accomplish victory largely on his own.
All that’s for certain on the bottom line is that Bill Russell is the greatest winner in the history of team sports, and the reason that can be stated with conviction is that it’s a quantifiable function. There’s no opinion involved. Thank you, math.
But the win column can work against a player, as well. Context has dealt a harsh blow to the longer view rating of Pete Maravich. He isn’t mentioned in the “greatest” talk, but it’s important to keep alive his memory. Maravich’s NBA teams made the playoffs just four times, and he made it out of the first round just once — in 1980 when he had a minor role with the Celtics in his final season. A major knee injury in 1978 doomed his chance for a greater legacy.
But Pistol’s NBA highlights can be found with a couple of clicks, and even more impressive is that 50 years after he left LSU he remains the leading scorer in NCAA history. Maravich scored 3,667 points in his three seasons (freshmen weren’t eligible back then). And if you’re thinking a modern one-anddone collegian would break it if he stayed around, be advised that Pete averaged 44.2 points.
With no 3-point line.
Pistol played just one season with a 3-point rule. It was his last in the NBA, and he made 10 of his 15 attempts.
Sorry for the Maravich tangent, but the man was a bloody marvel.
Another dispute I have with debate on greatest ever is the matter of eras. Players from the earliest decades are discounted, because athletes have gotten better, and, damn, don’t those old guys look clunky in that grainy footage? But it’s important to realize that not only were those NBA stars the best basketball players of their time — and this was certainly true after the league shed its ignorance and embraced the inclusion of African-American players — they were also the best competitors. Born into a later time, they would have found a way to clear the bar, wherever it was set. Bob Cousy would have made himself great today.
But back to the argument on the table, not even era bias can explain why Oscar Robertson’s name isn’t far more prominent in the discussion.
When presented with the question, my response since the late 1980s has always been, “I can make an argument for Magic Johnson. I’m not saying I’ll be right, but I can make an argument.”
Yeah, I should probably just leave it alone, but I like to point out the myriad things Johnson did to create winning — and that more than
shooting and leaping should be taken into account for anyone’s pick. Back when we used to get to watch teams practice, there’d be times when Pat Riley would want to move on and Magic would say, “Hold up. Let’s run that one again.” When your best player has that kind of attitude, life for a coach is good.
And there was the time Magic won the 1985 NBA Finals… in the dressing room after a 34-point loss in Game 1 — the famed Memorial Day Massacre. The Lakers were a tight team, and a year earlier they’d lost an epic series to the Celtics despite having what people in the game acknowledged was the greater collection of talent. But the Celts won that one with superior will, a Gerald Henderson steal and a Kevin McHale clothesline.
Now in ’85 it seemed there would be a repeat, and the Laker players were quiet and defensive when the media entered the visiting team’s dressing room at the old Garden. (Two years later, a day after Johnson had hit the baby skyhook against the C’s in Game 4, a relieved Jack Nicholson told me the 3-1 series lead was critical because the Celtics make the Lakers “mental.”) So anyway, Magic comes into the room in ’85 and, with the media leaving his teammates and gathering around, he proceeds to take all the pressure off with his answers. Then L.A. wins four of the next five to slay the Celts for the first time in nine Finals tries.
But after all that, would I sit at this keyboard and tell you Magic Johnson is definitively better than Michael Jordan or LeBron James or Bill Russell or Kareem or Kobe or Larry or any number of others in the Roundball Pantheon? Hell, no.
Mainly because it doesn’t matter. The fact that we’ve gotten to watch all their dramatic feats — in person, live on TV or by restored video — is what does.