OT: How important should rings be to a player's legacy?

[FerreroRocherrr]

Think about it this way.

If Dumars didn't slip up and choose Darko instead of Melo, all this talk about Melo having no ring would be completely out of the question.

[andyhop]

As a Wolves fan I can tell you that the only thing better about KG in Boston over Minnesota was his teammates.So if you are upgrading him on the basis of his ring it just means you either underrated him before the ring or have no understanding of how important teams are over individuals in the NBA.

[KnicksGadfly]

The argument is not and has never been Horry or Malone. Horry never got to come to the elite player dining room. It is Malone vs Shaq vs Ewing Vs Olajuwan vs Dirk vs Robinson vs Duncan vs Mourning vs Kareem etc etc.

just to illustrate my point. Love cannot compare to LA because Love can't get his team into the playoffs. He is still on the losers side of the room.

Agree with your Horry point a lot. I see this argument made by RealGM members a lot: "Lol Player A is better than Player B because of rings? LOL then Robert Horry is better than Karl Malone"

I would actually not agree with LA and Love. I think Portland has the right pieces to do well with Kevin Love, and even though Portland would lose something in terms of defense, the offensive gains would be tremendous. I'm actually not very impressed with LA on the offensive end. Switch LA to that Wolves team and I'd argue that they'd achieve the same results.

[Quadruple H]

A lot of good posts here.

I think the importance of rings to a players legacy is simply based upon the importance you give to the debate.

The debate being a players rank in history. Which will always be subjective.

My opinion is that not having a ring is generally not a knock on any individual player, but rather achieving a championship as the best player on your team will generally lift people's opinion of you in their rankings, and rightfully so.

It's all about context also, like someone said in the Malone vs Horry point.

Were you the best player on your team? Who did you play against?

I think the big picture always has to be analyzed when you're ranking players against each other.

In general I think an informed NBA fan can get a pretty good idea of where players rank, at least in a tier-type system.

But all things considered, winning championships cements your legacy. It can't be taken away from you no matter what. Especially if you were the top player on a championship team