Texas Chuck wrote:DraymondGold wrote:To me, these odds seem pretty low for the offensive floor-raising archetype to win a championship. Does anyone disagree with my list? Am I missing anyone playing in an offensive floor-raising role?
I think its just the wrong way to look at it period.
If we are looking at the last 25 years then the championships are largely tied to the following:
Tim Duncan
Kobe Bryant (Shaq and Pau can't be ignored here obviously)
The Warriors
Lebron
We have some interlopers of course. The Mavs, the Wade/Shaq Heat, the Pistons, the Bucks, the Kawhi Raptors, KG Celtics.
And if we go back further we see how championships are tied to players. Mike with 6 of 8 with Dream getting the two where he was gone. The Pistons get their two but before that Magic and Bird are getting them all.
The common thread is not archetype, but talent. Lebron was the best player in the world, the Warriors the greatest collection of talent, especially once KD joins, Kobe and Shaq, Tim Duncan, Mike, Dream, Bird, Magic. These are just the best players period.
Not every team needs to be the Warriors to win. And while I understand their system is seen by the theorists as the "right way" to play, the reality is they won because they had the most talent. Take even last season when Curry and Draymond were both largely healthy and played great, the system and the two stars still sat home when the playoffs were going on.
And if a ceiling raiser can't lift the floor then he's dependent on finding a great team to land on. This doesn't seem to lead to a conclusion this player is definitely more valuable. Look at KG, who is considered one of the classic ceiling raisers and how long it took him to land on a team good enough for that to matter. Conversely Dirk, a guy with a floor raising rep, managed 4 contending teams before the last one finally broke through. His floor raising gave his team more chances at championships than KG.
Or the ultimate floor raiser probably ever Lebron--all he did was drag his teams no matter who they were to the Finals year after year after year. Surely that's extraordinarily valuable.
tldr to say I think you are pulling the wrong data. This isn't about floor raiser versus ceiling raising. It's about titles congregate around the best players, period.
Well, a few things I would add:
- to win you need the right team, and it's true for 100% of players. Even LeBron had to leave his first team and handpick a very favorable situation to win
- the right team means a proper combination of talent and fit. And there are players that are more difficult to fit than others and that's why they are often considered poor ceiling raisers
- you can be both a floor and ceiling raiser (or neither, like myself, lol), and there are levels of how good you can be at each. but what really counts is how easily (=in how many situations) is it for you to elevate your team to the point of contention or above
