lessthanjake wrote:I think one can look at impact and ability in depth without entirely losing sight of the fact that having team success matters a great deal when ranking a player’s greatness in a team sport.
Some can, sure. It's less common than you might think, though.
People have always ranked players based on some combination of the eye test, a player’s personal stats/accolades, and their team success.
Absolutely. We use the tools available to us, after all. And until comparatively recent years, we've only really had so many tools. Even something as simple as range-specific shooting data, right?
In other words, I think we get a better assessment of a player’s statistical case by looking at not just raw box stats but also impact data and whatnot.
Yes, the broader the collection of data, generally speaking the more we learn. Raw box score stuff is only so useful. Individual numbers of any sort are only so useful, so the more we can look at what's happening in-depth, the better off our understanding, I agree.
That ends up being to the benefit of certain players whose impact data looks better than their box data (and vice versa is the case too). But that doesn’t mean that team success goes by the wayside when assessing a player’s all-time place. It just means that we’ve honed the tools we have to assess one of the other major pillars of player greatness (i.e. the statistical element). Becoming better at assessing individual statistical data does not mean team success stops mattering IMO.
Sure, but again... look at this comparison. The differences in roster context are pretty vast. And then individual playoff performance isn't exactly Bird's resting strength. He has a bunch of high-profile rough performances in his core responsibility area than one would generally like, so are the two extra titles really showcasing a gap of any meaningful sort, or are we just articulating that he was able to contend more because he had more help?
You know?
Bird was amazing, and Jokic isn't without his own "coming up short as a scorer" kind of moments. But if I'm looking at these two guys in particular, then the nature of the question being asked becomes so very important. The phrasing suggests who was better on career value, which isn't the same as "who won more." Now, pen can correct me any time because I'm no telepath and don't know exactly what he meant of course. But I doubt he wanted a discussion just based around who had a career with more team success, right? And in this specific context, the rings don't really illuminate anything about the two stars involved so much as their teammates.
