Kobe has a title … so does Adam Morrison
Kobe Bryant finally has that NBA championship sans Shaquille O’Neal.
But you know who else woke up Monday morning with a title to his credit? Adam Morrison. Ditto for Shannon Brown and Josh Powell and D.J. Mbenga.
The next time someone wants to use championships as an important component for individual greatness, feel free to bring up one of these guys. None of them played even one minute of the Lakers’ 99-86 series-clinching victory against the Magic, and yet, they will forever have a championship on their resume.
Heck, Morrison wasn’t even in uniform for Game 5.
Now, I’ll be the first to say that players buried deep on a team’s bench often don’t get the credit that they deserve. These guys go through the same practices, the same workouts, the same preparations as everyone else. The difference is, they rarely get the payoff. They rarely get on the court.
All that aside, they still have a title to their credit while players like Charles Barkley and John Stockton don’t. Pete Maravich, Bob Lanier and George Gervin are in the Basketball Hall of Fame, but they never played in an NBA or ABA finals.
Basketball isn’t the only sport with stars who never won a title. Baseball greats Ted Williams, Ernie Banks and Ty Cobb have a grand total of zero titles to their collective credit. The same goes for football stars Dan Marino, Barry Sanders and Jim Kelly.
Eric Dickerson and Earl Campbell never played in a championship game.
Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers never even played in a postseason game.
Using team championships in measuring individual greatness might be the silliest argument in the universe of sports debates. Start talking about the greatest point guard or the best quarterback, and almost without fail, someone will ask, “Well, how many championships did he win?”
The championship question is often used as a tiebreaker, too. Joe Montana or Dan Marino? Well, Montana had a ring, Marino didn’t.
It seems like an easy way to break the impasse, but it really doesn’t work. It’s one thing to fixate on titles when you’re talking about individual sports. How many Grand Slam titles Roger Federer won. How many majors Tiger Woods won. Those are important measures in their greatness.
That isn’t the case in team sports.
You know what? The next time someone wants to use team titles in a debate about individual excellence, I’ll have just two words for them — Adam Morrison. Or maybe I’ll go with D.J. Mbenga. I haven’t decided just yet, but either way, the fact that those guys have a championship should go a long way in making my argument.
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