Nate505 wrote:lessthanjake wrote:Nate505 wrote:No, but if you look at their team relative to the teams they played, they did.
There's a reason the moment he announced his wuss ass decision that many was upset about it, because it just ruined the competitive balance of the league.
On another note, it seems clear that more people view his rings as weak compared to just about any other NBA star I can think of. That doesn't mean much (he is still an NBA champion, he still got the actual rings, he still got to be in the parades, his name will still be in the record books, he will still go to the HOF as a 2x champion, etc.), except that it actually seems to really bother Durant. Because respect and legacy do not have iron clad requirements. I think he really thought they did for some reason.
I’d have two responses to that:
1. On paper, the Warriors were not just way more talented than the teams they played either. The Cavaliers had LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Love, not to mention a lot of great role players. That was a really stacked team. Was it quite as talented as the Warriors? Maybe not, depending on how good you think Draymond and Klay are. But at worst it really wasn’t far off on paper. It was just far off on the court because the Cavs were stacked with stars who all need the ball in their hands and aren’t big off ball threats, whereas the Warriors were stacked with stars who are off ball threats. The latter will always be way better because the guy who has the ball has things a lot easier if the other stars are huge threats off the ball, as opposed to just switching off who iso’s while the other stars stand in the corner as mediocre spot up shooters. The Warriors easily beat the Cavs because their stars were better ceiling raisers than the Cavs’s stars were, not because the Warriors were way more talented. And that’s a credit to Steph (and to a lesser extent Durant and Klay) being superior members of a super team than LeBron, Kyrie, and Love.
2. You mention people said that it “ruined the competitive balance of the league” the moment the announcement was made. But here’s the thing. People said the same thing about the Heat when LeBron and Bosh joined Wade. But, while they were a great team, it didn’t end up ruining the competitive balance of the league at all, despite them having at least as big a talent gap over everyone else. And, again, that’s because LeBron, Wade, and Bosh were not great off ball threats, so the whole was not as good as the sum of the parts. Steph Curry is the greatest off ball player in the history of basketball, and Durant and Klay are great ones too, so the whole actually was as good as the sum of its parts. Those Warriors actually lived up to the “ruined the competitive balance of the league” prognostications in a way that no other super stacked team in NBA history has. And it’s because of the fact that it was a team stacked with ceiling raisers, rather than a team stacked with floor raisers. That should not be held against them—in fact, it should be celebrated as a key part of these players’ legacies.
We can just agree to disagree on the first point. The Warriors had two MVP candidates in their prime on their team (and not just candidates...guys who actually won the award before 2017), and the Cavs didn't. That alone, especially in a sport like basketball where ceiling raisers are far more important than floor raisers, made the way more talented.
In fact, I don't remember a time when a team got two players who have won an MVP within three seasons being on the same team together. Perhaps it did happen at one point. The closest I can think of is Magic and Kareem, but Kareem won his last MVP in 1980 and Magic won his first in 1987. I guess Barkley and Hakeem were close together too, but 97 Barkley was a total former shell of himself.
And yes, when you put two MVPs on the same time in their prime, it's not shocking they ruined the competitive balance of the league.
I agree that Curry/Durant is better than LeBron/Kyrie, because Kyrie isn’t an MVP level player. But LeBron is a top 2 all time player, so that makes up some of that talent gap, and Kevin Love is IMO a better player than anyone else on the Warriors (we are talking about a guy who was a 26/13/4, 27 PER player the year before he came to Cleveland—Klay just isn’t that). I’m not saying that the Cavs were quite as talented as the Durant Warriors, but they weren’t nearly as far off on paper as they were on the court. And that’s because Steph and to a lesser extent Durant have games more suited to dominating on a super team than LeBron, Kyrie, and Kevin Love do.
As for your question about two MVPs on the same team, Dr. J won the MVP in 1981 and Moses Malone won it in 1979, 1982, and 1983. The Sixers lost in the finals in 1982 and then added Moses Malone to their team in 1983. They also had three other multi-time all stars in their prime (Maurice Cheeks, Bobby Jones, and Andrew Toney). They did dominate their first year, but then ran it back the next year and lost in the first round, and then added Charles Barkley the year after that and lost in 5 games in the ECF. So they didn’t do as well as the Durant Warriors.
Of course, Durant and Westbrook won MVP three years apart and were on a team together for years around that time and didn’t win a title.
There’s also plenty of examples that technically don’t meet your criteria but really do in spirit. For instance:
In the early-mid 1980s, Kareem and Magic were both MVP-level players, even though Magic didn’t actually win MVP until 1987. They just were on the same team together so they didn’t get them except Kareem when Magic was a rookie and Magic once Kareem had declined a lot. For instance, they were 3rd and 4th in MVP voting in 1984, despite being on the same team. Of course, the Lakers were great, but they weren’t unbeatable (in the sub-era I’m talking about they went to the finals 4 straight years and won twice and only topped 60 wins once).
Wade never won an MVP, but the man had averaged a 29.2 PER the two years prior to LeBron coming to the Heat, and had been a dominant Finals MVP a few years earlier. He hadn’t won MVP, but he also was on a bad team that wasn’t winning 50 games, and the player winning MVP in those years was the guy who joined him in Miami. There’s a very good argument that Wade was the 2nd best player in the league when LeBron went to the Heat. Indeed, Wade had been #2 in the league in PER the prior two years, been #1 in the league in PER a couple years before that, and put in the era’s best individual finals performance the year before that. So while he doesn’t fit the criteria, the actual context of what happened there was actually more “unfair” if anything, since LeBron and Wade were arguably the league’s two best players, while Curry and Durant were not (due to the existence of LeBron). And that’s not even mentioning that they also added Chris Bosh—who had been #4 in the league in PER the year before he came to Miami (and had averaged 23.3 PER for the five-year span before going to Miami). Factually speaking, the year before they joined together in Miami, LeBron, Wade, and Bosh were literally #1, #2, and #4 in the league in PER. Everyone expected them to break the league—including themselves (remember the “not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4…” thing). But they didn’t break the league, because the whole was less than the sum of its parts. The whole for the Durant Warriors was as good as the sum of its parts, and it is because they were ceiling raisers. And that should be celebrated. If I had a stacked team, I’d probably rather add Curry or Durant to my team than even LeBron, because they just clearly thrive better on a stacked team. And that has to be a major positive on their legacies.
