Originally Posted by spursfaninla
Of course it takes good teams to win championships, and one player alone can't do it.
Of course taking one of the key parts of a championship team off of it probably prevent it from being a champion.
However, we CAN say that certain pieces are relatively more important than others.
We can also say that championships, along with wins during the regular season, prove which team was best that year. Now, the classic example is Wilt. Until he learned to dominate alittle less and help his teammates become better, he didn't win. His most dominant years are not the years he went all the way.
Furthermore,
there are teams that put you close enough to catch the ring, but then special players put their teams on their back and take it home, and I think those types of players deserve a special place in history. Hakeem did it in the playoffs. So did Shaq and Kobe. So did Duncan.
Its hard for me to put David ahead of Hakeem, for example, when I saw Hakeem drop something like 45 on him 3 games in a row on the way to showing him the regular season MVP was not the playoffs MVP. Of course, if Hakeem had much inferior regular season accolades and numbers, it would not be a fair comparison. But in fact they are similar in the points, rebounds and blocks that they had over their careers. Davids were better, but Hakeem was a better PEAK PERFORMER.
Like it or not, a big part of a player's legacy is taking it to that next level, and some great players don't do that when it really counts. David, for the most part, just didn't.
I didnt' watch Russell, but from what I understand he was an INCREDIBLE defender. I do understand that the game has changed significantly (its not that players have fogotten how to rebound, or are greatly inferior rebounders to the best players of the past, its that there are 30 less shots per game to rebound...). However, you also have to judge players against their contemporaries, and the closest players to Russell and Wilt in rebounding are 6 away!! That would be like the best players today rebounding about 13, and then Duncan walking in and averaging 19....It would be evident he was something special.
Hey, popularity isn't everything. Sometimes most of the people ARE wrong. And it is actually very difficult to parse out one player's impact on the game vs. another on their own team, much less players on a completely different team. But to try to put David in the Top 5 of centers, I believe, is not justified in terms of team success. He was never the best player on a championship team, as all of the other guys ahead of him (on the HOF monitor list) were.
If you want to look at peak season efficiency and stuff like that, Garnett should be in the same ballpark as David then. And you hate him, so reconcile that reality my friend. :pctoss
