12/15/2023 0 Comments Khris middleton stats vs celticsSo really it’s just the Lakers who thought they could (and eventually did) turn their nose up at tradition.Īll that being said, with the exception of the Spurs’ title teams and the ‘15 Warriors, every champ in the last 25 years has featured at least one major non-draft pick acquisition playing a prominent role, usually as either the best or second best player on the roster.Īs for the Knicks, they already have two such acquisitions in Julius Randle and Jalen Brunson. Digging deeper, even the ‘19 Raptors had Siakam, VanVleet, OG Anunoby and Norm Powell, while Khris Middleton might as well have been drafted by the Bucks because of how raw he was when he first arrived in Milwaukee. The top two guys from both the ‘19 Raptors and the ‘20 Lakers were the result of free agency or trades, and the Bucks didn’t draft the second, third, fourth or fifth best players on their 2021 title squad.īut then the last two championships occurred, both of which reaffirmed the longstanding assumption that homegrown is where it’s at. One could argue that the recent tide seemed to be turning away from the necessity of home grow players. If we’re talking top three players, the only Finals teams that qualify are, ironically, the team many fans hope the Knicks can emulate - the ‘04 & ‘05 Pistons - and the last Knicks team to make the Finals, in 1999, when Spree, Houston and Camby had all arguably surpassed Ewing in importance by the playoffs. Gadepalli, MD, MBA asks… When was the last time at least one of the top three players on a Finals team was not drafted by that team? I feel like losing IQ, RJ or Mitch is a bad idea even for a “superstar”. ![]() History says that unless you catch once-in-a-decade (if that) lightning in a bottle, you need a superstar to win it all. So really, you’re not asking my opinion about an assumption you’re asking my opinion about a fact. For as much as those teams may have been “star-less” by the historical barometer of NBA champions, they each had four players in prominent roles that were All-Stars at or around the time they won it all.) (Not that the parts weren’t great in their own right. San Antonio’s magic was more on offense, while Detroit’s was more on defense, but in both cases, the whole blew away the sum of the parts. That leaves two teams in over four decades that have won it all without the typical superstar player, and they were both so damn unique, with the parts coalescing to such an absurd degree that they were closer to a sole organism than a collection of five distinct parts. ![]() When he’s been healthy, he’s been an MVP level player. ![]() Kawhi would have been a no-brainer for the above list if he’d had any semblance of a normal, injury-free career. You can throw the 2014 Spurs in with those two if you’d like, because Duncan was past his prime and Kawhi hadn’t yet ascended to his, but if we do that, I’d argue for the ‘19 Raps to be taken off the list. J, Moses, KG, Dirk, Wade, Isiah, Giannis and Jokic, it seems notable to me that the only teams in that time to win a title without one of these guys are the 2004 Pistons and the 2019 Raptors. If you consider (in no particular order) the list of the best 20-25 players since 1980 (roughly the “modern” era of the NBA) to include MJ, LeBron, Kareem, Duncan, Bird, Magic, Steph, Kobe, Shaq, Hakeem, KD, Dr. This conversation has been had in many ways over my years doing this newsletter, but let me try one more approach: Hamish asks… I'd like to hear your thoughts on the assumption that you need a star to win a companionship. Let’s start things off with a big-picture NBA question I received earlier this week. ![]() We have 18, count’em eighteen questions on the docket for today.
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