This board really needs to apologize to Andrew Wiggins

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

Awww...were not gonna talk seriously about this are we? I thought we were just mucking around.
You'd have to pace adjust the stats. 98 Finals, winning teams were scoring in the 80s. But sure...Wiggins could approximate 98 Pippen. Not so much 93 Pippen though.

Ultimately if there's a serious point here we agree on, I'd see Wiggins as a viable wing on a champion.

Also if Wiggins trained against MJ everyday for a decade, he'd become a substantially better player physically and mentally. God knows how weak Pippen would have been if he never trained with MJ

How is the cult of Jordan that denigrates all his teammates still running in 2022? One thing I love about Curry fans is they don't denigrate his teammates on the Warriors.

Bulls performance in 94/95 without Jordan including playoffs.

Code: Select all

W     L   W%       MOV
95   62   60.5%   3.57

They performed at a 50 win level w/o Jordan for a year and a half. There must have been a couple of guys on that team who were markedly better than 2022 Wiggins.

.

Is it odd that Curry fans don’t denigrate Curry’s teammates? I don’t feel like Jordan fans denigrate his teammates, at least not as severely as LeBron fans denigrate his teammates. I think the 2007 Cavaliers supporting cast is the most underrated supporting cast of all time thanks to LeBron fans endless smear campaign. I don’t remember Kobe fans denigrating Pau and Odom. Denigrating the teammates might be a little particular to LeBron fans. Magic fans did not denigrate Kareem and Bird fans did not denigrate Parush and McHale but they did not celebrate Maxwell as much as they should have and some wrongly claim that Maxwell should not have received the 1981 Finals MVP. Some Curry fans say that Iguodala should not have received the 2015 FNVP but they are probably right. LeBron fans are probably responsible for Iguodala winning the 2015 FMVP.

Dr J fans and Moses fans did not clash.

[tsherkin]

I don’t remember Kobe fans denigrating Pau and Odom.

They do. Not all of them, but there is a vocal cadre of them who do.

And as for 2007, they were pretty bad, leastwise on O. Mostly comprised of incompetent scoring threats like Larry Hughes. Ilgauskas had a nice J and passing touch, and the team certainly had some defenders on it. They were also an excellent rebounding team, but they were wretchedly dreadful on offense apart from a couple of 3pt shooters. That team had no business in the Finals and the relative weakness of the conference did very much help them that year, leastwise until the Detroit series.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

The same things again and again for Wiggins.
He sucked in Minesota (while he had a season averaging 24ppg and 20ppg for his career in Minesota),

There are ways to compliment Wiggins. Looking at the raw scoring average of a guy who was force-fed into inefficient volume scoring on a bad team isn't one of them.

he was a bad defender(how exactly can a bad defender become elite?), now he is just a role player(while his teammates are Curry, Thompson, Green and he seems to be as significant as Thompson and Green at least) and whatever else.

He wasn't initially a good defender. He certainly developed into a guy with a positive defensive reputation, however, and he mostly seems to be showcasing that with the Warriors as well. He's long and athletic and seems to largely be able to stay on his feet and stay in front of his guy. Seems to rotate well. Certainly has bought into Kerr's gameplan, which is probably the best thing he's done at either end of the floor.

Also, "just a roleplayer" is sort of an odd phrase. There is certainly a lot of star bias in the way many people discuss the game, but teams need their roleplayers to win. It isn't a pejorative to call someone a roleplayer when they aren't a focal option. Wiggins is fourth on the team in FGA/g during these playoffs, he simply isn't a feature player. That's a roleplayer. He slots into a role. He's a starter, the bulk of his offense comes set up by other players. About 2/3s of his 2pters and all of his 3s have been assisted so far in the postseason. In the regular season, just shy of 90% of his 3s were assisted and about 50% of his 2pters. He's been hot from the long 2 in the playoffs and maintaining his 3pt shooter from this RS, even as he's scored a little less. He's filled in nicely as the Warriors have needed him to. He's basically league-average in terms of scoring efficiency, which isn't remarkable, but the way he's doing it suits the Golden State machine, which is laudable. He just had a timely game, so emotional investment in his performance is high, hence this thread.

But yeah, I think people treat "roleplayer" like a dirty word. We have ever discussed a little more differentiation in labels past "star" and "roleplayer," because a lot of people think, like, "Derek Fisher" when they think "roleplayer," and the space is broader than that. Wiggins isn't a scrub just chewing minutes, he plays a part in the team's success, but he's clearly not a driving force, and what specifically he does (leastwise offensively) is fairly replaceable. His defensive improvement is nice, though, because it allows them to put another long-limbed, athletic guy out there who can switch pretty liberally, and that's quite helpful too.

Just to add to this: Wiggins was league average efficiency wise over the course of the season, yes.

He was well above league average (.598 TS%) when Draymond was healthy. Thats important, because Wiggins was entirely out of his element during that time. We had one less ballhandler, which obviously hurt him, but more importantly, he was guarding and being guarded by PFs at that time. He cratered both offensively and defensively as he tried to take the Draymond role on defense, and effectively had to shoot way, way too much on his own as well. Its what pushed him into the all-star game - he wasn't just good on defense, he was the best SF at challenging shots by over a full percentage point to end the season. And that included his disastrous run as our PF when Dray was hurt - something that was made even worse when we decided to plug Kuminga into the starting lineup for a while.

I think the roleplayer discourse is because most fans are acknowledging that he's not a top 2 scoring option on a winning team, which is valid, but it also undercuts the across-the-board improvements Wiggins has made. He's a better shooter - not that he's getting more open shots, a cursory look at NBA.com's Tracking > Shots Dashboard, comparing his MIN years with his GS years, can confirm that. His rebounding is better. His defense is much better. He was never leading the league in oFG% in Minnesota.

In fact the thing where he often gets hammered - offball defense - is more systemic than anything. How you fit into a certain system, how they use you. And he's been great at that too.

He's our 3rd best player and 3rd most important player. If he goes down, there is no Wiggins replacement. Without him, our perimeter defense is below average, something that can be verified by the Draymond injury stretch when Wiggins played mostly PF, and we all of a sudden went from dominant #1 defense to fringe top 20. Because we didnt just lose Draymond, we lost Wiggins by miscasting him as Draymond.

But I think a lot of Warrior fans wont acknowledge or understand this until Wiggins goes down for an extended period, they need to actually see the results

I don’t think an offense would be very efficient with Wiggins as the first option. I think Wiggins would be less efficient as a 1st option.

I gave Draymond as the number 2 Warrior. Choosing who is 3 4 5 6 is difficult for me with my eye test. Peak Klay would be 3 but this Klay is not peak Klay.
Looney’s value goes up because we don’t really want to play Bjelica. Early season Bejelica and end of season and playoffs Bjelica were significantly better than January and February Bjelica in my opinion. 2022 Playoffs Looney has been the best Looney but Looney has played well in the playoffs before. Looney has looked solid but replaceable by the average starting center in the regular season but in 2022 playoffs Looney has looked better than the average regular season all teams starting center. I am still hoping that Wiseman will eventually be better than Looney but I am not as worried about the Warriors being weak at center or about Looney being injury prone as I would have been a year ago. Poole is the most improved Warrior but Looney has also improved a lot.

Do you have stats backing up your rankings of Wiggins, Klay, Poole, Looney. I tend to agree that Wiggins is 3rd best but I don’t feel like Wiggins being 3rd best is an easy call.

[tsherkin]

I don’t think an offense would be very efficient with Wiggins as the first option. I think Wiggins would be less efficient as a 1st option.

100% they'd be worse off with him in that role. It isn't what he's best suited for. The role they have him in now is amazing for him, and for them. It's a really nice marriage of his skills and athleticism with appropriate expectations and support from more feared scoring threats.

I also think calling him the 3rd-best Warrior is a little aggressive. He's been quite good for them, though, so at least entertaining the discussion is worthwhile.

[FluLikeSymptoms]

I don’t remember Kobe fans denigrating Pau and Odom.

They do. Not all of them, but there is a vocal cadre of them who do.

I had a guy the other day tell me that championship (all-nba) Pau was equal to current Brook Lopez and that Bobby Portis = Lamar Odom and he wouldn’t give it up. They rip fellow lakers all the time to make Kobe look better and it’s not just Shaq.

[tsherkin]

I don’t remember Kobe fans denigrating Pau and Odom.

They do. Not all of them, but there is a vocal cadre of them who do.

I had a guy the other day tell me that championship (all-nba) Pau was equal to current Brook Lopez and that Bobby Portis = Lamar Odom and he wouldn’t give it up. They rip fellow lakers all the time to make Kobe look better and it’s not just Shaq.

It's sad. Kobe was legit great on his own merits. He also had a very good team for that 08-10 run. Not a star-riddled super team or anything, but a very good team. Pau was phenomenal as a second star, slotted into the triangle beautifully with his skill set. Odom was very useful, even if he wasn't much of a scorer. Rebounding, defense, ball handling and passing in a tall package is a pretty good get. Kobe's legacy doesn't need that; he's pretty generally regarded as seated in the bottom end of the top 10 around here these days, which is a WILD level of achievement for any player. and he deserves it. But the endless nattering of certain elements of his fan club honestly creates that little bit of irritation that makes you not want to rate him as highly as he probably should be, just because you're so tired of hearing about him, you know? And how aggressively they go after other players, or any suggestion that he isn't NBA Jesus who did everything with nothing, or whatever.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

I don’t remember Kobe fans denigrating Pau and Odom.

They do. Not all of them, but there is a vocal cadre of them who do.

And as for 2007, they were pretty bad, leastwise on O. Mostly comprised of incompetent scoring threats like Larry Hughes. Ilgauskas had a nice J and passing touch, and the team certainly had some defenders on it. They were also an excellent rebounding team, but they were wretchedly dreadful on offense apart from a couple of 3pt shooters. That team had no business in the Finals and the relative weakness of the conference did very much help them that year, leastwise until the Detroit series.

If Hughs could shoot he would be a very good player. I think he was a very good defender and a good ball handler for an off guard. If Hughs would admit to himself that he could not shoot and not shoot he would be a better player.

Gibson had a good playoff run. Dontell Marshall was underrated. I like Snow but he was another non-shooter. That Cavs team did not follow the successful surround ball dominant drive and kick point forward LeBron with 3 point shooters formula.
Damon Jobes and Pavovic could shoot but we’re not as athletic for defense as I would like.

Give me 2 best talents of Hughs best of Pavovic player replacing Hughs and Pavovic and 2 best of Snow best Damon Jones player replacing Snow and Jones and then LeBron should be able to win the championship because the supporting cast would be upgraded to average finals supporting cast.

Replace LeBron, Damon Jones and Pavovic with peak Curry, Klay and Draymond and I think they could win the championship.

[tsherkin]

If Hughs could shoot he would be a very good player.

If ifs and buts, man. He was very bad, particularly that year. As a scoring threat, I mean. Horrendously inefficient. He even had a brutal down year at the line and shot under 68%. Crap mid-range game, didn't finish well at the rim that year (like, far worse than usual). He was so, so bad as a scoring threat. But as you say, he could D up a bit and he was another capable ball handler.

Gibson had a good playoff run. Dontell Marshall was underrated.

Donyell Marshall was nice, yes. We enjoyed him in Toronto. Stretch 4 who could rebound a bit.

They were not assembled intelligently around Lebron, as you note, for sure. That team was a fairly average 3pt shooting team. I think 14th ranked? It was definitely not the goods for a guy like Lebron, certainly not in that defensive environment. They never had a chance against San Antonio, for sure.

[FNQ]

I also think calling him the 3rd-best Warrior is a little aggressive. He's been quite good for them, though, so at least entertaining the discussion is worthwhile.

This is something I brought up on the W's board a while back and I kinda wonder what the GB thinks

I've in the past avoided calling Wiggins our 3rd best player outright for this reason. I think he's our #3 option offensively when he's on the court, and I think he's our 3rd most important player. For me, "best" is kinda all-inclusive WRT other teams. For example - Wiggins is our 3rd scoring option because we almost always have 2 guys entrenched ahead of him on the court (Curry/Klay/Poole). So he almost always gets to slot into the role he's perfect for. But a lot of teams may not have that option, and its a lot harder and more important to find the 2 primary scoring options. So to some teams, Klay is 3rd best. Some might even have Poole ahead of him...

But for us, if he goes down, its a huge deal. Big domino effect. And while Dray and Curry share tier 1, I think Wiggins is alone in tier 2 there. We did survive without Klay for a long time, were #1 in the league even. Poole has stretches/games where he's more important to the other team. Its the worst time to say it, but Looney has limitations that usually prevent him from being an impact guy.

I love Klay but if you told me the Warriors had to pick between him and Wiggins going forward.. all things considered, I'd have to go Wiggins too. Klay's a great scorer and everything, but finding players who can play next to Draymond as well as Wiggins has, its a really tough thing to do. Everyone except Iguodala has had a rough learning period when they've joined up, and even Curry has a play or 2 per game where he and Dray miscommunicate. It's a premium for us, but not one that likely applies league wide

[LBJKB24MJ23]

Everybody ripped him for years in Minnesota calling him a bust and a bad teammate. Then when he was traded everybody said Minnesota won the trade by getting Dlo. In reality he is a great 2 way player who has been great for the Warriors during this postseason run.

Time for people to just accept while not as good as Embiid or Jokic, he is a damn good player.

he plays with Curry, Klay, Green, and he makes $33M. until he starts making closer to $20, he will be rediculed for production vs salary.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

If Hughs could shoot he would be a very good player.

If ifs and buts, man. He was very bad, particularly that year. As a scoring threat, I mean. Horrendously inefficient. He even had a brutal down year at the line and shot under 68%. Crap mid-range game, didn't finish well at the rim that year (like, far worse than usual). He was so, so bad as a scoring threat. But as you say, he could D up a bit and he was another capable ball handler.

Gibson had a good playoff run. Dontell Marshall was underrated.

Donyell Marshall was nice, yes. We enjoyed him in Toronto. Stretch 4 who could rebound a bit.

They were not assembled intelligently around Lebron, as you note, for sure. That team was a fairly average 3pt shooting team. I think 14th ranked? It was definitely not the goods for a guy like Lebron, certainly not in that defensive environment. They never had a chance against San Antonio, for sure.

They had guys that could shoot 3s and guys who could play defense but not many guys who could both play defense and shoot 3s. 3 and D guys that you ideally want around LeBron can do both.

The 3 and D guys surrounding LeBron need to be capable of finishing at the rim on a open cut to the hoop when LeBron draws 2 men. Otherwise the only thing those 3 and D men need to be able to do on offense is hit open 3s. LeBron should have one poor man’s LeBron on the team as his back up and 2nd option. You don’t want the team to have to completely change it’s offense when LeBron sits so you do need a lesser version of LeBron on the team. Maybe the lesser version of LeBron can be a drive an kick point guard that can also run a fast break and and bring the ball up the floor to give LeBron a rest.

2007 Cavs with their offensive guys that could not play defense and defensive guys that could not play offense might be a nice team to coach if the coach likes the challenge figuring out who to play.

With Ilgauskas, Verajao, Gooden and Marshal the Cavaliers and LeBron fans can’t complain about their center and power forward positions. No great big man star but they are deep and diverse.

[tsherkin]

I also think calling him the 3rd-best Warrior is a little aggressive. He's been quite good for them, though, so at least entertaining the discussion is worthwhile.

This is something I brought up on the W's board a while back and I kinda wonder what the GB thinks

I've avoided calling Wiggins our 3rd best player outright for this reason. I think he's our #3 option offensively when he's on the court, and I think he's our 3rd most important player. For me, "best" is kinda all-inclusive WRT other teams. For example - Wiggins is our 3rd scoring option because we almost always have 2 guys entrenched ahead of him on the court (Curry/Klay/Poole). So he almost always gets to slot into the role he's perfect for. But a lot of teams may not have that option, and its a lot harder and more important to find the 2 primary scoring options. So to some teams, Klay is 3rd best. Some might even have Poole ahead of him...

But for us, if he goes down, its a huge deal. Big domino effect. And while Dray and Curry share tier 1, I think Wiggins is alone in tier 2 there. We did survive without Klay for a long time, were #1 in the league even. Poole has stretches/games where he's more important to the other team. Its the worst time to say it, but Looney has limitations that usually prevent him from being an impact guy.

I love Klay but if you told me the Warriors had to pick between him and Wiggins going forward.. all things considered, I'd have to go Wiggins too. Klay's a great scorer and everything, but finding players who can play next to Draymond as well as Wiggins has, its a really tough thing to do. Everyone except Iguodala has had a rough learning period when they've joined up, and even Curry has a play or 2 per game where he and Dray miscommunicate. It's a premium for us, but not one that likely applies league wide

I see what you're saying. And this is precisely why I wanted to at least leave open the door, because there are always those little preconceptions in our mind we have to overcome, right? It's hard to wrap around the idea that Wigs would be 3rd most important player on first pass. Probably because I am weighing Poole vs Wiggins in my mind and looking at tempo push, rim pressure and playmaking vs Wiggins' D. Poole is a notably better scorer but certainly worse on D. It's an interesting thought, though.

I noticed in the last game that Golden State capitalized basically every time Wiggins got into the lane, whether or not he made the shot. Having the luxury of him and Poole attacking the defense and forcing them into rotation and all that is insane on top of the team's shooting and passing. It really puts a ton of pressure on a D because you just cant afford to screw up or it's gonna hit you from all directions.

An embarrassment of riches, haha.

[FNQ]

Do you have stats backing up your rankings of Wiggins, Klay, Poole, Looney. I tend to agree that Wiggins is 3rd best but I don’t feel like Wiggins being 3rd best is an easy call.

thats too vague, its a lot deeper than just numbers. Wiggins is an ideal elite role player. Someone like Iguodala was during our initial run. If you don't have top 2 scorers, at least, ahead of Iguodala.. well Denver and Philly can speak to how that works out. He held his own early this year, but he and Poole kinda split the role. And on the other side of the coin, he's one of 2 pillars of our defense, which is the #1 defense in the league despite the Dray injury. So he's top 2 on that side.

So Klay, who I think is really the only one you can argue ahead of him right now, is the #2 scorer on our offense (and falling), and frankly a liability to our defense. Wiggins is the #2 in our defense (and rising), and 3rd on our offense. We've seen the team succeed without Klay, to a ridiculous degree even. Because we have someone who can step in and provide what Klay does, not in the exact same way, but effectively. Do we have someone who can effectively step in for Wiggins if he was out tonight? Moody would be the closest thing, and that's a fairly risky bet.

But lets strip away the namesake, the hype and all that.. lets look at Andrew Wiggins as he played in-position all season. At SF, he was the #1 oFG in the league. He was #3 overall in that %, while getting on average 8-9 shots on him per game. When playing SF, his TS% was a notch below .600 at .598. Its hard to show that without using the Spectrum data, but you can even see it in BBREF under the splits, noting that Draymond was injured from Jan 11th through March 14th.

So a 27 year old, greatly athletic, ~.600 TS player thats arguably one of the best defenders at his position. No name, just that information. That seems like a player everyone would want on their team.

On the other hand, you have a 32 year old wing, coming off 2 major leg injuries, who has recently just had a .547 TS%, and has been a fairly big defensive liability since returning. His peak TS season was in fact .598 when he was the 3rd option behind Steph and KD.

If it weren't for name recognition and nostalgia, the 27 year old would be the easy call. There's obviously a ton of context left out that also would help Klay's case (continuity being the biggest one), but if I had to ask if Klay helps our offense more than Wiggins helps our defense, I'd say no. If I was asked if Wiggins helps our offense more than Klay helps our defense, I'd say yes. But its a complex answer

[FNQ]

I see what you're saying. And this is precisely why I wanted to at least leave open the door, because there are always those little preconceptions in our mind we have to overcome, right? It's hard to wrap around the idea that Wigs would be 3rd most important player on first pass. Probably because I am weighing Poole vs Wiggins in my mind and looking at tempo push, rim pressure and playmaking vs Wiggins' D. Poole is a notably better scorer but certainly worse on D. It's an interesting thought, though.

I noticed in the last game that Golden State capitalized basically every time Wiggins got into the lane, whether or not he made the shot. Having the luxury of him and Poole attacking the defense and forcing them into rotation and all that is insane on top of the team's shooting and passing. It really puts a ton of pressure on a D because you just cant afford to screw up or it's gonna hit you from all directions.

An embarrassment of riches, haha.

It really is.. the young W's fans are so lucky. I became a W's fans in the 90s at like 7 years old, and told my brother that Mitch Richmond was my favorite player. He was dealt that summer. I have John Starks, Vonteego Cummings, Larry Hughes, and Monta Ellis jerseys. These guys just get KD dropped into their laps. Bitter AF still

Poole's an interesting case, because he teases you that he gets it, then reminds you he doesn't.. and a lot of it is intangibles stuff. There are a couple things that are glaring - his loose handle and defensive unawareness jump to mind, but there's a lack of maturity/self-control thats there too and it probably makes me biased against him. The 2 games vs DAL kinda show it:

game 1: with the game well in hand, he starts jawing with Bullock. So much so that Dray comes over to calm him down. Immediately after, gets a tech for jumping up and down on an incorrect OOB call.

game 2: not so much the attitude, but the defensive unawareness. We're playing a tag scheme on the PnR when the screener is Poole or Curry's man.. but apparently no one has told Poole that he doesnt literally have to tag Luka. We hedged with Poole 8 times, and 6 of those times it resulted in a quality look for the Mavs or a foul drawn. One particular one jumps to mind - forget when it was, but Poole came out, quick as hell, to cut off Luka, who was drifting away from the basket.. and obviously Wiggins was sticking with Luka (its a hedge) so Poole's man was wide open at the FT line. Cant recall exact time but if I see it again I'll call it out.. anyways, that level of frustration he unlocks may sour me more than others on him. But I've also said I'd welcome trading him for a top 4 pick and nabbing Jaden Ivey, who I think trades some of Poole's shooting for defense, and who may mature quicker upstairs

EDIT: one instance was at the end of the game (55 seconds) where we most likely have won, and Poole goes so hard to hedge that he blows by Luka.. Bullock easy open 3

FINAL EDIT: I said Poole had 8 hedge plays.. 5 of those were in zone. The 3 man instances all resulted in a bucket or quality assist opportunity

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

He was drafted to the wrong team

It was a sign of the times.. guys like him, Harrison Barnes, OJ Mayo.. they were given top billing because they were difficult shot-makers. And the thought was that the rest of their floor games would come around as well, like a Jayson Tatum. But the odds were always heavily against those types of players, more so than your "typical" #1 picks.. if Wiggins was drafted at a more appropriate spot, let's say 5-8, wasn't ever tried as the #1 option, and signed for less than the max, I'd wager his perceived value among fans would go up right now, as a player.

Narratives are hard to change, especially when it comes to sports fans. A very dug-in lot.. add anyone willing to have an earnest conversation to your favorites because its rarer than Draymond accepting a foul with grace

Narratives being hard to change makes a society vulnerable to propaganda and makes false flag terrorism an attractive option for spooks. Narrative being hard to change is part of human nature.

If 3 little 9 year old girls are best friends and 2 of them have a fight they must race to be first to tell their side of the fight to the 3rd girl. They understand this instinctively. They must win the race to talk to the 3rd girl because narratives are hard to change.

Once a pompous professor has taught his class something he can’t admit being wrong because being wrong discredits him as an authority.

Being a confident man is something that attracts women to men. Believing your own bull makes you seem confident. The woman will be disappointed when she discovers you are a bullshitter but she is already in the relationship by that time because she was attracted to the confidence.

America and the other nations would be smarter stronger nations if we changed narratives more easily.

Tradition is based on the “if it not broken don’t fix it” principal. Trial and error is more true than theory. Experiments should be repeatable. Experimental data is better than theory. People are not as smart as they think they are, and people are more biased and gave more conflicts of interest than they realize they have. People can believe whatever they want to believe until the price for having false beliefs becomes to high. Loyalty is demanded and loyalty must be proved by the willingness to act as if you believe the same things that you boss believes. Religious people can be good scientists despite the fact that religion requires believing things that are unproven.

Narratives being hard to change is a huge impactful phenomena. Naratives being hard to change must have benefitted individuals in the past and helped people have descendants or the phenomena would not have been in alignment with survival if the fittest. But on a societal level I think Narratives being hard to change is now a phenomena that weakens nations and weakens the ability of humans as a species to have a better future.

Luckily for humanity getting Wiggins wrong won’t matter but what caused people to get Wiggins wrong is relevant to real world problems.

[G35]

I don’t remember Kobe fans denigrating Pau and Odom.

They do. Not all of them, but there is a vocal cadre of them who do.

I had a guy the other day tell me that championship (all-nba) Pau was equal to current Brook Lopez and that Bobby Portis = Lamar Odom and he wouldn’t give it up. They rip fellow lakers all the time to make Kobe look better and it’s not just Shaq.

This is a modern phenomenon that started with Kobe.

But it was primarily that Kobe was not as good as Shaq and would never be as good as Jordan.

So Kobe was the first ATG that had to prove he was good enough to win at title without another star player. Because the narrative was Kobe can't win without Shaq. Kobe would not be as good without Shaq.

No other players had to deal with that:
- McHale, Parish, DJ were all still great alongside Bird
- Dumars, Laimbeer, Rodman were all still great alongside Isiah
- Kareem, Worthy, Scoot, Cooper were still great alongside Magic
- Pippen, Rodman, Grant, Kukoc, were still great alongside Jordan

But once Jordan retired and Kobe and Shaq started winning titles, there was this cadre of fans that wanted to start assigning credit for how much a player contributed to winning. So now, we are in the era of diminishing teammates to prop up stars:

- Wade and Bosh were not that great next to Lebron
- Kyrie and Love were not that great next to Lebron

These are narratives going to this day. Then we have the curious case of Steph Curry who is seen as an ATG, is given the label of the GOAT shooter, and has this ambiguous power of "gravity". So then Kevin Durant joins the Warriors and he is not as great because he took advantage of playing next to Steph and in the Warriors system.

The one team that really does not do that is the Spurs, but they had a abnormal dynamic that Tony Parker was never considered a truly great PG, and Manu Ginobli did not play enough minutes to be considered the best player on the Spurs, so Duncan was always the de facto best player.

But Kobe when he won back to back championships, there was a whole narrative that he had to have the best frontline in the league. That he somehow had an unfair advantage playing with Pau, Bynum, and Odom. So anytime those Lakers are brought up, its the bigs who made the Lakers great, not Kobe......

[vagelis]

Game by game the narrative for Wiggins will change until the last game of the finals

Have told you already
What I say all these years for Wiggins is just the truth against all these lies about him all these years

[syrus3]

Let’s see what happens after he gets the max contract. Ha! We’ve seen this script many times in the NBA before.

[vagelis]

Wiggins will get another max sign it and book it

[michaelm]

Looks like Wiggs can score 25 points for a contending team.