by magius on Mon Aug 16, 2004 5:16 pm
the 4th is in fact true, i agree a great player does make his teammates better, but such a quality is fickle and intangible to judge even if you watch said player 82 times a year with the intensity of a hawk, not to mention almost impossible to prove with older players we may not have any real experience with due to innate bias. I think that the only feasible way one can prove a player can make his teammates better is by pointing to the before mentioned big three: title, title mvp, mvp. I don't think a player can achieve this pinnacle without being a player who makes those around him better.
We know that bryant and garnett don't excessively make their teammates better, one because they don't have the big 3, and 2 because for the most part they are surrounded by players who have had careers elsewhere and have not seen any individual statistical jumps. But we don't know if duncan does or doesnt considering that almost all of the parts around him have not had experience without him in the nba. I am inclined to say that duncan binds a couple of good individual talents (manu, parker) into a unit that can win (i dont think manu, parker would be in championship winning situations without td), and makes role players succesful, not in the manner of statistical succes, but rather he makes them looks good iin terms of others look upon them as good role players who contribute to a winning team which is exactly what kerr and the likes were, when people play with duncan, people conlcude that those people do the little things right because the spurs win, but maybe it is actually one of two things: they've always done the little things right, but no one noticed cuz they werent winning, or two duncan lets them concentrate their energies on the little while he does the big, and energizes their confidence in a winning enviroment created through himself (the energy level of a player in a winning situation and losing is leaps and bounds apart). I think the same could be said of many of the greats: mj had a couple of good talents who wouldve been statistically succesful elsewhere (pip, rod) and a bunch of rolies. hakeem had drex and cassell. duncan had robinson at first then manu, parker.
In the end I think the big 3 (championship, playoff mvp, mvp) is as solid a criteria as any in judging the great and the very good. It has yet be disproven, and I think that the obtaining of the three is an accumulation of a multiplude of intangibles into something tangible.