One of the things you hear a lot about if you listen to sports radio or read Reddit threads in sports subreddits are arguments about which player is the best player of all time in that sport. In the NBA, which is the sports league I follow the closest, the most widely accepted theory is that Michael Jordan is the best player ever. However it's not set in stone, and people's valuation is changing all the time, not only because new players are performing at a high level, but because we are learning more about the game and what attributes most closely align with success.
Basketball is an interesting game with an interesting history. In its beginning, just like in any game, players and coaches just simply weren't that good. The best players were the ones who had obvious physical traits that stood out above everyone else. Wilt Chamberlain was not only the tallest and biggest player of early basketball, he was also supremely athletic for his size and was completely dominant. He's another player in the argument for best ever. However, he was often beaten out, on the court and in forum posts, by Bill Russell, a player who was not quite as physically gifted but also pretty damn gifted and played his role very well on better teams than Chamberlain.Soon after the Chamberlain/Russell years, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the NBA's next best player ever argument player came into prominence. He was probably the best player of the 1970s, and he holds the record for most lifetime points scored by a player.
However, in the 1980s, the NBA made a huge rule change and allowed for the 3-point shot. This led to a pretty significant change in the way teams played, since outside shooting was valued higher than inside shots close to the basket. It took a long time for teams to relearn their strategies and account for this change, which is still ongoing today and a topic of much debate. The 80s were dominated by two players - Larry Bird and Magic Johnson - who unlike the best players of the 60s and 70s, were not huge players that used size and strength to dominate inside close to the basket. They were players who were known for their savvy passing, acute knowledge of the game and creativity, and their effectiveness at playing multiple roles for the same team. The game had opened up much more, allowing more strategies to be effective than "pass to the biggest dude."
The 1990s were all about Michael Jordan. Jordan was different than Bird or Magic, since he was not as well-rounded of a player, but his scoring abilities were just off the chart. He was the best player on the team that won 6 of the 10 championships of the '90s, despite only being in the league for 8 of them, and was the highest scoring player almost every year.
Since the turn of the century, the NBA has had a resurgence of really awesome players. Kobe Bryant was the best of the 2000s, but since 2010 it's been all LeBron James. Kobe played a game that was extremely similar to Jordan's, not in just having a similar skill set, but similar tendencies (for better or worse). LeBron is more of a combination between Jordan and Magic Johnson's style back from the 80s, what he lacks in shooting ability (not that you would consider him 'bad') he makes up for in passing and being a facilitator for his teammates. LeBron's teams have made it to the NBA Finals each year for the past 8 years, and smart money has them making their 9th this year.
The argument lately has been this: Has LeBron James passed Michael Jordan as the best player of all time? There's so much to unpack here.
One, is that simply, it's impossible to just consider Michael Jordan's skills and say "Would LeBron's team be better or worse if LeBron left the team and Jordan was subbed in." There are so many variables. LeBron plays a different position, he also is expected to do different things within the team, outside of his position, and to make it more difficult, he played 20 years ago against completely different teams employing completely different strategies. The same is true the other way around, would LeBron continue to have success on Michael Jordan's teams of the 90s? Impossible to tell. But, we can guess.
Additionally, how sure are we that Jordan is the best player ever in the first place? We have to run through these same steps for each player. He played in a much different time than Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell, back when Jordan's skills would have been less useful (not bad, still probably very good, buy maybe less useful). Chamberlain's scoring statistics in particular are insanely gaudy, more impressive even than Jordan's from the 90s, and Russell has 11 championship rings, 5 more than Jordan, so they both certainly have arguments.
And, are we sure that LeBron is even the current player whose argument is the most valid here? The obvious answer here is yes, since if you've been a basketball fan the last 14 years, you know he's been completely dominant, but there are some others who are playing currently who have a shot of eclipsing some of the all-time greats. James Harden and Steph Curry are a couple of players who are really bringing us into the next step in evolution of the game, where teams aggressively attempt 3 point shots and try and be as efficient as possible. It's too early to say that either of them are arguably the best player ever, like you can with LeBron, but it's not too far away.
So in the end, we have to make a judgement for ourselves. Of course, there's nothing riding on your decision, and watching basketball is purely for entertainment, so it's just a huge fandom-wide 60-year-long though experiment. It's okay if your opinion is different than someone else's, but we're doing it wrong if we aren't critically thinking.
Magic time: A long time ago, I was discussing a deck with a friend, a Jund midrange deck for Innistrad Block Constructed. We were discussing the merits of removing the red mana from the deck, and I was against it. I mentioned that "you're going to win more with Huntmaster in your deck than with Bloodline Keeper." That comment was met harshly. Magic cards do not exist in a vacuum, and it's impossible to say unequivocally that one card is better than another. They not only have different roles within their decks, but the format they are in is constantly in flux and the opponents and decks they play and cards within those decks are anyone's guess. Huntmaster of the Fells may look like a better card, and might be more popular, but it doesn't mean that Bloodline Keeper isn't good, or potentially even better given the right set of circumstances.
Here's the thing: at the end of the day, it's up to the player to just make their best guess. You playtest, you theorycraft, you think about all the matchups you expect to see and how often, and then you make a decision. You have to think critically, and despite that it's impossible to know what the correct answer is, there is actually a correct answer. This is especially true in midrange decks, where the strength of the deck comes from individually strong cards. Bill Russell, Michael Jordan, and LeBron James might not mesh the best on a basketball court, but in a midrange deck in Magic, they'd be amazing, since any one of them is capable of taking over the game, just like Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, and Scavenging Ooze are all awesome despite Jund not being built with them exactly in mind.
Rudy Gay is a current NBA player who plays a similar style to Michael Jordan. He's way, way worse, but still pretty good. Flinthoof Boar is an awesome Magic card, but we don't play it in Modern Jund when Tarmogoyf is legal, just like you wouldn't want Rudy Gay on your team when you can play Michael Jordan. We have to think critically and make good card choices for our decks.
Anyways, this is why I think this argument is important, and maybe if basketball isn't really your thing, then how about Modern. What's the best card in the format? And why? And what would have to change to make the second best card become the best card? And what cards that are coming out soon have the potential to shake things up on the list of best cards? We have to participate in these thought experiments because we don't have infinite testing time to figure it out for sure, so we take our experience and make our best guess. Trust your intuition, be welcome to being proven wrong, and don't disregard anyone else's ideas until you've truly considered them.
As for my own opinions (as we completely dive into basketball nerdland): I'd say LeBron James is actually the best ever, but it's closer to me than it might be to some LeBron fans. Jordan was such an exceptional shooter that his inability or unwillingness to facilitate for anyone else was mitigated by his isolation game. I think that people also overlook just how fast Jordan was. He got a ton of transition buckets that others wouldn't, and he was able to get open all the time because people couldn't keep up with him. All that being said, LeBron isn't only able to play all five positions on offense and defense, he's usually the best player on the court at those five positions. He has no weaknesses, he just has a couple of attributes that he's not legendary in. LeBron James is truly Tarmogoyf. He's always the smartest player on the court. He's like soccer legend Messi if Messi was built like a rhinocerous. Maybe a Siege Rhino? I would rank the top 10 players ever as follows:
1) LeBron James
2) Michael Jordan
3) Wilt Chamberlain
4) Bill Russell
5) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
6) Larry Bird
7) Kobe Bryant
8) Magic Johnson
9) Tim Duncan
10) Shaquille O'Neal
I think in three years, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant are both on this list, and James Harden has a real shot at it too. Ben Simmons in 15 years? Certainly possible, but that's a long ways away.
Anyways, hopefully there was enough Magic content in this basketball blog post to make it worth your while, and even if you couldn't follow along with all the physical-sports mumbo jumbo, hopefully you could still understand the lesson behind it. Thanks for reading, and keep checking in as I transition from 7 foot tall people back to 3.5 inch tall cardboard.
No comments:
Post a Comment