Should lack of title taint player’s legacy?
Ted Williams never played for a World Series winner. Dan Marino never played on a winning Super Bowl team. Chris Paul will enter Year 19 in search of his first NBA championship.
Should Ted have apologized? Should Marino beg for forgiveness? Should Paul play with Golden State next season with a bag over his head? Is winning a title that important in assessing a player’s place in his sport’s history?
Ted played in one World Series. That was in 1946. He hit .200 with no extra-base hits in seven games against the Cardinals. But — and it’s a big “but” — he entered with an impaired elbow, having been hit by a pitch in an impromptu exhibition game prior to the Series. He never got another chance, as the Red Sox failed to capitalize on great chances to get back there in 1948 and ’49.
I think it’s safe to say that Williams’s reputation has survived not winning a championship ring, as well it should. While we’re on the subject, do we hold it against Carl Yastrzemski for not having a ring? I sure don’t.
The same goes for Marino. His lone appearance in the final game was Super Bowl XIX, a 38-16 loss to vintage Joe Montana and the 49ers. Marino still holds the record for wins as a quarterback (155) without getting a title.
Marino led the NFL in passing yards five times and in touchdown passes three times. He is the only man to have led the league in completions, yards, and touchdowns three years in succession (1984-86). He remains a standard of quarterback excellence. He retired after the 1999 season and the Dolphins are still in search of someone who can remotely approximate his greatness.
Paul has been positioned as the NBA’s Captain Ahab in search of the white whale known as an NBA championship ring. The Warriors will be his sixth team since his career began in 2005.
OK, say it doesn’t happen and Paul retires ringless. What will we then say about him?
Well, we could say that he has been a firstteam All-NBA performer four times, that he has been a first-team All-Defense player seven times, and that he has been a 12-time All-Star. We could say he has led the league in assists five times and in steals six times. We could say he was the first player in NBA history to register 20,000 points and 10,000 assists. We could say the Hornets (New Orleans), Clippers, Rockets, and Suns each established franchise victory hauls after he joined their teams.
We could also say that even at his advanced age (38) he remains a master of creating space for himself to get off a mid-range jumper, and that any aspiring young point guard should treat himself to a master class of Chris Paul tapes.
Oh, yeah, the other thing . . . he has been to just one Finals, with the 2020-21 Suns. Doesn’t make him a bad guy, or anything less than an exemplary player who hasn’t been fortunate enough to have been in the right circumstance to get himself a ring. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
Several years ago someone posed an interesting question. Looking back on your career, would you rather have been Charles Barkley or Robert Horry?
Now, that’s interesting. Of course, Barkley was a better player. Even Horry would acknowledge that. At least, I think so. Horry did have some bravado in him. But Barkley retired without a ring, whereas Horry needs one full hand and two fingers on the other to accommodate his spectacular collection of championship rings.
Horry’s tale is singular in NBA annals. The 6foot-10-inch forward was an auxiliary player for 16 seasons, averaging 7.0 points in the regular season and 7.9 in the playoffs. But he earned two rings with the Rockets, three with the Lakers, and two with the Spurs, the most of anyone who was neither A: Bill Russell nor B: basking in his shadow.
And it’s not as if Horry was along conveniently for the ride while the Olajuwons, Shaqs, and Duncans did the heavy lifting. He made so many clutch threes in important games that he earned the nickname “Big Shot Bob.” He retired with much to be proud of.
As for Barkley, while he never had the satisfaction of saying he played for a championship team, he does have the satisfaction of knowing that he left us all with irreplaceable memories of a one-of-a-kind player. There has never been anything quite like him.
Barkley was the greatest 6-foot-5inch rebounder ever. Period. End of discussion. No one created more excitement by grabbing a rebound and heading downcourt, culminating with a thundering dunk. He was basketball’s greatest show.
It should also be noted that he was the best player on the celebrated 1992 Dream Team in the actual games played. He came to play every night and he terrified the international opposition.
Barkley is a certified inner sanctum Hall of Famer. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be Barkley.
It takes a lot for a team to win a championship. Does Michael Jordan win without Scottie Pippen? Does Larry Bird win without Kevin McHale? Or Robert Parish, for that matter?
Even Russell needed Bob Cousy and the succession of players who put the ball in the basketball after he gave it to them.
The growing saga in baseball is that of Mike Trout, whose one faint sniff of a championship has been a three-game Division Series sweep by the Royals in 2014. He’s now in Year 13 of a career that boasts a combination of offense and defense that has some pundits not limiting their praise for him as being the best player of his time, but the best player of all time. (I’m just reporting here). Thus far, the prevailing sentiment is that of sympathy for the guy. I hope it never gets to the point where he’ll be chastised for not having a ring.
Don’t worry, Mike. If it doesn’t happen, some of us will still love you. Your “legacy” is safe with me.