oh ffs, stop using baseball or football or whatever else you want, as if someone was even bringing that up. Winning championships is a consequence of a ton of things, you know that, everyone knows that.

No. If we're talking about wings Lebron would if we're talking about bigs a lot of guys would. I'd go as far to say there are as many as five active young guys [so not even counting Duncan or Garnett, who are definitely closer to Jordan than Kobe when it comes to being a positive basketball player over the course of their careers] that I'd consider closer when all is said and done. Hate to break this to you, but Kobe is like a super-glorified version of Clyde Drexler.

e/c a large majority of NBA "fans" and the media.......

here, most people understand this.....i doubt most people really get this.

Championships are probably underrated around here in basketball.

So because Lebron was drafted by Cleveland and chose to stay with them past his rookie contract it's impossible for him to be the best basketball player ever?

Got it.


And now he's hated because he left! lol

Yeah, in retrospect, Robert Horry is probably the closest overall value wise to Jordan.

Because that's exactly what I was saying.

there's no way rings can be underrated, they are literally worth 0 in player evaluation. They are side effects of being elite and helping your team be elite.

You're be really dense.

I'm talking about wining championships over an entire career. He's not the best player ever right now even regardless of championships. That's what makes your argument so bad. Even without Jordan's winning, he's still better.

no, you're just being a hypocrite. You can't say rings are really important and then be like "you know what I mean" about guys like Horry and Fisher.

Yes. In basketball it's a consequence of far fewer things than any other major team sport though and one player is unbelievably important.

Serious question time: how many players currently in the NBA win at least 5 titles with the supporting casts that Kobe has had [yeah lots of variance goes into winning a title but I'm just trying to ask in a vacuum here]? Is it likely to be 0 because of how much variance goes into winning a title? Are Lebron/Wade/CP3 nearly immortal locks to win at least 3 [the 3 with Shaq ldo]?

Stupid question and no real answer I know, but it's fun to speculate and I'm bored.

So agree with this.

I'm not saying rings are really important. Rings are pretty meaningless for player evaluation for like 98% of the NBA player population. I'm saying that there is likely no way the player is the best player in the history of the NBA if he went an entire career without winning some. You're reading my argument as RANGZ and that's not what I have been saying at all.

agreed. Although "unbelievably important" is a stretch, I'm a spurs fan and even I know that Duncan isn't as >>>>>>> KG as their careers might imply. It's not THAT important.

It's basically impossible for an all time great to retire a normal length NBA career without a ring.

Bitchface's only point above is that is certainly not true for the other sports.

I agree that it would very unlikely for the goat to not win a ring in his career, if that's all you're saying than we are in agreement.

Chuck and Karl say sup.

Malone
Barkley

Would their careers be that much better let's say if they were part of the Bulls dynasty or if Barkley joined Hakeem in his prime rather than past it?

There are chances that Howard, Cp3 and Durant never win a title and still be some of the GOATs.

Do agree with Bitchface and FH here tho. If we're talking about the actual GOAT - he's gonna have some RANGZ. "all-time greats", not necessarily.

Well if we're just swapping out Kobe for said player, it'd probably be more about finding players who do similar things than about finding players as good or better than Kobe.

Replace him with O.J. Mayo and they obviously don't win as much, but still probably could since he's just a much worse version of Kobe so the of the team could operate the same. Replace him with Raja Bell and they probably win even less since you need someone to make up that usage.

Replace him with a Joe Johnson or Danny Granger and those Shaq teams definitely still can be expected to win as much imo. That Shaq peak is still probably the best peak ever.

plenty of all time great's have finished their careers with 1 ring, many switched teams close to the end so they could get it

This is not a normal casualfan rangz argument.

No one is saying they are super important.

But if Lebron is really the GOAT he'll surely win a ring at some point.

Ya, by all time great I basically meant best of their generation. Was poor word usage.