sp6r=underrated wrote:falcolombardi wrote:
Boston winning would be interesting because the debate about tatum would intensify even more, but a ring would still get him serious respect he doesnt really get right now
Tatum would get a boost but the important impact of Boston crushing their way to the title would negate the theory that a GOAT team needs to be built around a guy who clearly best in the league.
The way I think of it, it’s less that an all-time great team needs to be built around a very-top-tier superstar, and more that that’s the *easiest* route to building a great team.
I think in the past we’ve seen title teams that were incredible but didn’t have one of the very top superstars. Instead, their model was to have a large number of all-star level guys on one team and good depth. I’m thinking of teams like the Bad Boys Pistons, 2004 Pistons, and 2014 Spurs.
Those teams were *really* good. So I think it’s not really that that model doesn’t work. It’s probably more that that model is harder to achieve. I think a big reason for this is how salaries are structured in the NBA. With a max contract, the top-tier guys are actually underpaid compared to what they’re worth. So when you have them, you’re really getting more than you’re paying for. The flip side is that if you don’t have one of those guys and instead have a bunch of all-star level guys, you need to pay all of them like all-star level players, and all-star level players typically command at or near the max contracts, which makes it almost impossible to stack up a bunch of them on the same team (and even harder to do so while retaining depth).
In the past, I think these sorts of teams got around this by having one or two really good contracts. For instance, for the 2014 Spurs, they had Kawhi on a very cheap contract, and Manu on a pretty good contract too. So they weren’t really paying for as many all-star level guys as they had. The same was true of the Bad Boys Pistons, I believe. And no one on the 2004 Pistons was paid a ton. These teams just managed to get a bunch of all-stars on a bargain. And that’s not really a model that teams can actually rely on getting. So the more reliable way to build a great team is to get a couple major superstars who are worth more than they’re paid.
But I wonder if this multiple-all-star model is as difficult to achieve right now. The Celtics don’t really have anyone on the cheap. The salary cap is just high and non-strict enough that they are able to pay for all these guys, even without having them on incredible deals. At the same time, the existence of super maxes maybe makes major superstars actually be less of a bargain than they have been at times in the past. I’m not sure this will be possible moving forwards, with the way stuff will be changing in this regard, but given all this stuff, this year it may just be that the multiple-all-star model is actually genuinely the best model.
Of course, we’ll see. The actual basketball explanation for needing a major superstar is that you need such a person to generate offense against the best playoff defenses. That may ultimately prove to be true if the Celtics face the Timberwolves, but in general I think things are slanted enough offensively that generating an advantage against great playoff defenses may not be the exclusive realm of the top few guys, and might extend a bit downwards to guys like Tatum, with the real concern being whether the team has people who can convert on that advantage before the defense stabilizes (which is something the Celtics are very well built to do).
