Dave_7

Above, a quote from another thread.

It begs the question. Is a championship won by going to an already successful team after years of unfulfilled efforts worthy of an asterisk? It would seem so.

Who has successfully pulled this off? Clyde Drexler? Mark Agguire? Bill Walton?

Walton gets a bit of a pass. He won one with the Blazers before going to the Celts (by way of the Clips, of course). Essentially, these are stars riding coattails to rings! It ain't supposed to be that way. Not with bonafied stars.

Stars are supposed to lead THEIR team to victory, never help another. Especially not for the sole reason of winning a first and (most probably) only championship.

It just ain't right.



Dave.

bachviet

You need to stop talking about GP and KM before jel comes in and messes up everybody's mood.

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whitak24

i would say yes....it gets an asterisk, but i don't really think it matters in their legacy.

i don't think a championship ring proves that one player is better than another. i mean, lindsey hunter has two rings....does that mean he's as good as hakeem, who also won two? darko has a ring, but lebron and carmelo don't. does that mean he had a better rookie season?

for the players themselves, it's great. i'm sure they're going to feel better about having a ring. and i think the fact that the jordan/pippen combo twice beat the malone/stockton combo indicates that jordan/pippen were better, at least on the championship stage, or better at leading a team in the highest pressure situations. but in my opinion, Malone's legacy was cemented back in 97, 98, and 99. if Malone retires without a ring, he still goes down as one of the NBA's greatest power forwards and an all-time legend. if he wins a ring as a supporting player on another team, he may get credit for being the "glue" that helped push a good team over the top, but it doesn't, in my opinion, make him a greater player.

cheapchinese

I agree with dave here, even though they are a nice addition to the Lakers.
It seems like both the players were using the Lakers to get a ring.

zenbooty

I disagree. I mean, the Lakers chose to sign them, right? No one put a gun to the GM's head or anything. They had lost to the Spurs, wanted to beef up for the following year, and these guys were available. I could just as easily say that it seems like the team was just using these players to get a ring, right?

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ray

Do you think the Lakers would have made it as far as they did without Malone and Payton? Given their previous 4 seasons, I would say the Lakers had a very good chance of making it to the Finals without Malone and Payton.

So I agree with the guys above. Malone and Payton were using the Lakers to get a ring.

whitak24

correct me if i'm wrong, but i don't think dave's point was that GP/KM were "using" the lakers to try and get a championship, but rather questioning whether it can really be satisfying to win a championship that way.

i mean, yes, GP and KM wanted to get on the lakers' coattails, but they are (were) both great players who brought something to the table. as zen said, the lakers wanted them. the lakers thought they were going to be the history-making all-star/HOF team that would win 70 games and waltz through the playoffs.

and i disagree with ray -- without malone, the lakers wouldn't have sniffed the finals. if not for his superhuman effort in game 4 of the houston series, that series would have been tied 2-2 and easily could have become a 7-game dogfight (although LA would have won). without his defense on TD in round 2, the lakers aren't even close enough in game 5 for d-fish to hit his .4 shot. (in fact, game 5 probably would have been the series clincher for SA). in addition, without him in the locker room throughout the season (even when he was hurt), the team would have imploded from the shaq and kobe feud, but he helped mediate that.

DarkFury

More or less I thought that this was blatantly obvious.... sudden move to a "big draw" team, a big pay cut from what you'd normally expect of someone of their "superstar level". Why else would someone do that? Charity? Bwaaa haa haa haa...


You never know... who woulda thought that Kobe would actually still have bene playing throughout his "problems". Either way... stranger things have and probably will continue to happen.

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kei2

Let it be noted that the whole "riding coattails" thing's success rate all depends on the individual(s) around which the team is built. Guys like Bill Wennington and Luc Longley won rings because they happened to wear the same unis as Jordan and Pippen. Role-players are important contributors, but to varying degrees depending on the stars. Much to their dismay, Payton and Malone went where the chances at the title were probably best and came away empty-handed. Similarly, Dallas loaded up last season (bringing in Antoine and Antawn, two guys who must have been elated with the trades, to complement their core of Nowitzki Finley and Nash) and couldn't make it past the first round.

Again though, as whitak noted above, championships aren't everything. Such stats can be very misleading. The Lindsey Hunter vs Hakeem Olajuwon comparison is a great example.

Dave_7

Well, it was a little bit of both. I don't think they harbored any "love" for the Lakers organization... even now.

I think it is sad when a real star (like GP/KM "were") drops rank to the level of role player for another team to win a title.

GP was a sad sight on the bench in the 4th quarter with his chin in his palm, pouting.

And it's especially sad, when it doesn't work and there ends up being no ring, after all that fuss.



Dave.

Showtime

I think GP got what he put into it. He could of learned the offense and probably could have played better D'. Well see how he does next season.

I think any player that has put in work and played his best with a team without winning a ring can do whatever he wants. Why suffer in Utah with no chance of winning it? Why get traded to where ever? We traded away Vlade for a Highschooler. We went 10 seasons without a ring and than Shaq made his way here. We went after Phil and pulled 3 rings in 5 seasons with the 3 of them. Sounds like a smart decision on all parts. Malone and GP should have locked up a ring and would have if it weren't for all those injuries. So there's no guarantees no matter what a players does to try and get a ring.

-jel

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