"Ring Logic" while discussing players

[parapooper]

Greatness for me is always how much CREDIT you give to an individual or team in reaching the pinnacle of success in there field in comparison to there peers. Especially if were talking about the top echelon of players that are generally seen as being individually dominant in there field.

So yes the amount of rings plays a major part BUT the overall weight on the individuals impact in getting those ring/s is the true test.

This is what the ring nay sayers miss the point when they try to bring up the "Robert Horry with his ringzz" argument.

First, 99% of the time the Horry argument is brought up it's against people who do nothing of the sort you mention and instead just count rings.

Second, even your method (which is more effort than 95% of people put into ring arguments) is not fair
How much ring-CREDIT do you give Horry vs. Barkley?
How much ring-CREDIT does pre-91 MJ get and how much does post '94 MJ get?
Are those CREDITs in any way helpful in deciding which player in those 2 pairs is better?
Some players are in a position to get that CREDIT every year of their career, others have almost no chance to get such credit.

[Jetzger]

I feel the same about rings in basketball as I do a QB's win-loss record in football: there's nothing we can learn from looking at either that we couldn't learn through something else. It provides no unique information. It should be considered irrelevant to player evaluation.

[mysticOscar]

Greatness for me is always how much CREDIT you give to an individual or team in reaching the pinnacle of success in there field in comparison to there peers. Especially if were talking about the top echelon of players that are generally seen as being individually dominant in there field.

So yes the amount of rings plays a major part BUT the overall weight on the individuals impact in getting those ring/s is the true test.

This is what the ring nay sayers miss the point when they try to bring up the "Robert Horry with his ringzz" argument.

First, 99% of the time the Horry argument is brought up it's against people who do nothing of the sort you mention and instead just count rings.

Second, even your method (which is more effort than 95% of people put into ring arguments) is not fair
How much ring-CREDIT do you give Horry vs. Barkley?
How much ring-CREDIT does pre-91 MJ get and how much does post '94 MJ get?
Are those CREDITs in any way helpful in deciding which player in those 2 pairs is better?
Some players are in a position to get that CREDIT every year of their career, others have almost no chance to get such credit.

When talking about greatness u do realise were referring to the best of the best in the history of the field. We know how dominant these crop of players are....so to ignore the times they reached the pinnacle of success and insted focus on a player hving 1.3 reb or 2.2 pts more than another great player is insane. Those types of stats are influenced as much as by the type of team mates they have and the type of roles they have in the team as winning...probably even more.

But remember....basketball is not about individual stats...its about ur individual impact that contibute to a winning team.

[KobesScarf]

Team success matters but its about expectations not rings. Kobe carrying the 06 Lakers to a game 7 vs Suns is a greater accomplishment than any of his rings.

[Bad Gatorade]

On the whole, I don't really like the rings argument.

We have numbers for almost anything, provided that we look at the numbers at a sufficiently granular level. I feel like rings are often a lazy catch-all for something that can be uncovered through enough analysis. Looking at players that have won rings vs great players that haven't is perfectly fine, but I much prefer it as an opening point to further investigation, rather than as an actual criterion to incorporate in the decision making process. There are a lot of numbers out there, and they work wonders in either supporting, or critiquing, many of the narratives that rings bring.

Rings can be affected by teammate quality, teammate fit, opponent quality, controversial decisions, natural variation (both from the star, and from role players, especially 3 point shooters), injuries - that's more than enough for me to not be a fan.

That being said, I'm definitely grateful for discovering the PC board, as we've got a plethora of incredible posters that are willing to delve into the minutiae of data analysis, and uncover why things happened. Even posters with opposing views can each provide coherent, substantiated arguments that are enough to question your views on certain players, if not sway them entirely. It's a wonderful realm of analysis and I'm glad to be a part of it.

[mtron929]

I feel the same about rings in basketball as I do a QB's win-loss record in football: there's nothing we can learn from looking at either that we couldn't learn through something else. It provides no unique information. It should be considered irrelevant to player evaluation.

Well, I feel like this argument can be made for pretty much any other metric. Because there are so many metrics out there, any one of them can be safely removed, and it will not impact the overall evaluation of the player(s). It is the aggregation of all the stats/metrics that provide a complete story and "rings" is one dimension of this. Now, I will agree with you that it is overrated and overused, but it does provide some useful information.

[parapooper]

I feel the same about rings in basketball as I do a QB's win-loss record in football: there's nothing we can learn from looking at either that we couldn't learn through something else. It provides no unique information. It should be considered irrelevant to player evaluation.

Well, I feel like this argument can be made for pretty much any other metric.

Not really, if you look at any of RAPM or VORP or WS you can usually say whether a player is bad, meh, good or great. Looking at the ring-count of a player has absolutely zero information.

If you have a player with a BPM of 5 and one with a BPM of 0 you basically know for certain which one was better. Can't say the same about players with 5 and 0 rings - the guy with 0 rings could be vastly superior.
So if a measure does not even help you at all to correctly rank a GOAT level player over a low impact role player then why on earth would anyone think that same measure has more usefulness for ranking players that have less separation between them - it just makes no sense whatsoever.

[JordansBulls]

Losses with HCA is best way as the man

[Homer38]

Losses with HCA is best way as the man

No, it's more stupid because sometimes you can play well, even when you lose and sometimes the opposing team is better than their record because they have not taken the regular season very seriously

[parapooper]

Greatness for me is always how much CREDIT you give to an individual or team in reaching the pinnacle of success in there field in comparison to there peers. Especially if were talking about the top echelon of players that are generally seen as being individually dominant in there field.

So yes the amount of rings plays a major part BUT the overall weight on the individuals impact in getting those ring/s is the true test.

This is what the ring nay sayers miss the point when they try to bring up the "Robert Horry with his ringzz" argument.

First, 99% of the time the Horry argument is brought up it's against people who do nothing of the sort you mention and instead just count rings.

Second, even your method (which is more effort than 95% of people put into ring arguments) is not fair
How much ring-CREDIT do you give Horry vs. Barkley?
How much ring-CREDIT does pre-91 MJ get and how much does post '94 MJ get?
Are those CREDITs in any way helpful in deciding which player in those 2 pairs is better?
Some players are in a position to get that CREDIT every year of their career, others have almost no chance to get such credit.

When talking about greatness u do realise were referring to the best of the best in the history of the field. We know how dominant these crop of players are....so to ignore the times they reached the pinnacle of success and insted focus on a player hving 1.3 reb or 2.2 pts more than another great player is insane.

So using a players individual advanced boxscore and impact stats over 80-100 games and against a mix of opponents to evaluate him is insane, but making it a huge factor if a teammate or opponent hit a clutch 3, bumped his knee or had a night of bad sleep makes perfect sense? Using an accountants decision on a trade or how the draft balls fell as a major input in how you rank a player apparently also makes more sense than just checking how well that player played.

Those types of stats are influenced as much as by the type of team mates they have and the type of roles they have in the team as winning...probably even more.

Team quality has more influence on individual stats than titles? That's beyond ridiculous.Nobody ever won with a bad team. Plenty of player had great stats on bad, medium and great teams. Just look at MJ and LeBron - vast differences in teams but very similar stats over their careers. And the rings correlate almost perfectly with team quality, and not with individual play which was pretty constant for both.

But remember....basketball is not about individual stats...its about ur individual impact that contibute to a winning team.

Then why care about ring count, which tells you absolutely nothing about an individual's contribution to winning?

[2klegend]

Everything has to be discuss in context and that include the ring discussion. Not all rings are equal. When discussing of player greatness, ring is very important. When comparing player, you have to bring up 4 categories to compare them. Peak, Prime, Longevity, Rings. How you assign the weigh in each of those categories is up to debate.

[mysticOscar]

First, 99% of the time the Horry argument is brought up it's against people who do nothing of the sort you mention and instead just count rings.

Second, even your method (which is more effort than 95% of people put into ring arguments) is not fair
How much ring-CREDIT do you give Horry vs. Barkley?
How much ring-CREDIT does pre-91 MJ get and how much does post '94 MJ get?
Are those CREDITs in any way helpful in deciding which player in those 2 pairs is better?
Some players are in a position to get that CREDIT every year of their career, others have almost no chance to get such credit.

When talking about greatness u do realise were referring to the best of the best in the history of the field. We know how dominant these crop of players are....so to ignore the times they reached the pinnacle of success and insted focus on a player hving 1.3 reb or 2.2 pts more than another great player is insane.

So using a players individual advanced boxscore and impact stats over 80-100 games and against a mix of opponents to evaluate him is insane, but making it a huge factor if a teammate or opponent hit a clutch 3, bumped his knee or had a night of bad sleep makes perfect sense? Using an accountants decision on a trade or how the draft balls fell as a major input in how you rank a player apparently also makes more sense than just checking how well that player played.

Re-read what I posted: "We know how dominant these crop of players are....so to ignore the times they reached the pinnacle of success and insted focus on a player hving 1.3 reb or 2.2 pts more than another great player is insane."

To make it even clearer for you....Ignoring what all the great players play for (winning cchampionships) when you rank greatness is insane. i have no idea how you somehow got the idea that I saidd we should ignore stats all together.

This might come as a major surprise to you....but guess what....players that have been crediteed with greatest impact on winning championships (Jordan, LBJ, Kareems, Duncan's etc..) also have the greatest impact stats. Funny how that works right?

Those types of stats are influenced as much as by the type of team mates they have and the type of roles they have in the team as winning...probably even more.

Team quality has more influence on individual stats than titles? That's beyond ridiculous.Nobody ever won with a bad team. Plenty of player had great stats on bad, medium and great teams. Just look at MJ and LeBron - vast differences in teams but very similar stats over their careers. And the rings correlate almost perfectly with team quality, and not with individual play which was pretty constant for both.

Great players more often than not lead there team to playoffs and finals. The general consensus greatest players generally have the most rings (where they had the biggest impact to that success).

Comparing players greatness using mere stats is insane. First it is impossible. Different opponents, different eras, different play styles, different roles, different team mates etc...

But remember....basketball is not about individual stats...its about ur individual impact that contibute to a winning team.

Then why care about ring count, which tells you absolutely nothing about an individual's contribution to winning?

Again..you are just a typical ring nay sayer that love to use "Look at Robert Horry's rings!" when it comes to the ring and greatness argument. I've told you already that it's not only about ring counting, and you have even said in your previous posts that my post was not about ring counting.....but now you have reverted back to simplifying my statement as ring counting.

I can feel you working your way up to the Robert Horry ring statement. Typical.

[Ron Swanson]

It's a tough debate and I agree with most people when they say that context is important. The truth is somewhere in the middle. On one hand, we can all pretty much agree that Russell doesn't win anywhere near 11 rings if him and Wilt simply traded places (supporting cast, coaches, teams), so rings in essence can be used as a crutch to overrate an individual player's greatness. On the other hand, the "rings are overrated" argument was once used by someone to try and convince me that David Robinson was a better all-time great than Michael Jordan....

[Johnlac1]

Russell is deservedly among the greatest, but he always played with two top ten players. During his early years he had the best pg Cousy, second best pf Heinsohn, and best sg Sharman.
In the sixties he had Havlicek and Sam Jones. Havlicek was the best swingman, and Jones was the best sg. The latter were in the top ten players from the sixties. So they had three superstars against most other teams two at best.
So while Russell's record is incredible, it's not like he played on lousy teams.
And give Red Auerbach credit for being the best coach and gm in the league. He knew how to get the right players and play them the best.

[Whopper_Sr]

I was exploring basketball reference and looked at some lists:

1. Career Playoff Win Shares
2. Career Playoff VORP (Value Over Replacement Player)
3. Career Playoff BPM (Box Plus/Minus)

Guess who is number 1 on all of them? LeBron James.
Jordan is right behind him at number 2 for all 3 categories.

Shouldn't these be more valued than number of rings?

[giberish]

I was exploring basketball reference and looked at some lists:

1. Career Playoff Win Shares
2. Career Playoff VORP (Value Over Replacement Player)
3. Career Playoff BPM (Box Plus/Minus)

Guess who is number 1 on all of them? LeBron James.
Jordan is right behind him at number 2 for all 3 categories.

Shouldn't these be more valued than number of rings?

It's skewed with the extra games that keep getting added. But still something to consider.

[90sAllDecade]

I don't rank individual players on team based awards or metrics, like rings or win shares. It's a flawed biased approach imo, as has been shown. (I don't have time like I did in the past to break those metrics down, that can be looked up in this forum.)

Marketing and the emotional pull of championships and even offensive player value over defensive will always create a bias from fans, casual and more indepth alike imo.

I rank on who the actual best player was and factor in rules, team support and competition when measuring them.

[homecourtloss]

I was exploring basketball reference and looked at some lists:

1. Career Playoff Win Shares
2. Career Playoff VORP (Value Over Replacement Player)
3. Career Playoff BPM (Box Plus/Minus)

Guess who is number 1 on all of them? LeBron James.
Jordan is right behind him at number 2 for all 3 categories.

Shouldn't these be more valued than number of rings?

It's skewed with the extra games that keep getting added. But still something to consider.

VORP and win shares are but not BPM.

In addition, yes, more games are added, but James is going to wind up playing many, many more playoff games Han Jordan most likely because he played more, didn't take breaks, went further in the playoffs when he wasn't winning titles. That has to count for something.

[Ron Swanson]

No, they shouldn't be "valued more than rings" because they're still assumption based numbers. Win shares doesn't tell you how many championships or games a player is single-handedly responsible for winning anymore than PER tells you how much theoretical impact an individual player has on the court. It's statistical based guesswork.

I mean, at some point you have to acknowledge what a player was actually able to accomplish in his career rather than using statistics to craft an alternative narrative that could or could not have happened under the same circumstances. Amongst the all-time greats where not much tends to separate them numbers wise, there's too much noise and it often leads to contrarianism lines of thinking (Kobe isn't even a top-50 player ever based on WS per 48) and over-analysis of all-time "greatness", that in and of itself, can't be quantified by any statistic other than what actually happened.