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Friday, January 10, 2014 10:24AM
Carmelo Anthony has been a No. 1 option his entire career, but never in a position to contend for a title.
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Imagine what might have been said of Manu Ginobili if he had never played for the Spurs. If some other team had selected the little-known Argentinian in the second round of the 1999 draft. If he'd never played with Tim Duncan. If he had wound up being the best -- and therefore the highest-paid -- player of another team, then our perspective of him would be different. Entirely different.
If Ginobili had been taken by someone other than the Spurs and wound up being the best player on a less-talented team, he probably would have never reached the NBA Finals, no less won three championships. The blame for those postseason failures would fall square on Ginobili's shoulders, because that is what happens in the NBA. As a result of his failure to play into June, you would be hearing that he isn't good enough the other 11 months, that he takes too many chances on defense, that he holds the ball too long, that he is left-hand dominant.
Understand that we are talking about one of the most inspiring, focused, high-end achievers of the modern NBA. Ginobili's instincts, competitiveness and talent are exceptional, and he deserves much credit for the ongoing success of the Spurs. But there have been aspects of that success, and of his own career, that have been beyond his control; the main aspect being that he was drafted by the right team, which enabled him to excel in the right role that brought out his best qualities.
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Most of the league's great players are never so fortunate. By way of their own ambition, admirably, they take on roles that ask too much of them. Ginobili was asked to play in support of Duncan alongside Tony Parker, and to Ginobili's credit he made the most of that opportunity, playing the role of sparkplug and facilitator to perfection.
But if Ginobili had been drafted by an organization that needed him to serve as the leader and best player, then he surely would not have run away from that assignment. He would have embraced it and attacked that opportunity. And in the end, based on the kinds of exceptional stars who have been able to lead teams to the championship, Ginobili would have fallen short, and he would have been skewered for his failures.
When speaking with NBA talent evaluators about the best players in the league, the phrase repeated most often of any star is: "He isn't good enough to do it alone." It's a way of saying that certain stars -- Carmelo Anthony being the most-cited example -- aren't good enough to carry a team.
But the truth is that no one in the NBA has ever been good enough to win alone. Over these last four decades Michael Jordan came closest to meeting that standard, but he couldn't win until Scottie Pippen was ready to help him. LeBron James couldn't win with role players in Cleveland, but he has won the last two championships in Miami thanks to the presence of Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh (criticized as he's been). The reason Kobe Bryant has been adamant in defense of Pau Gasol is because the arrival of the latter enabled the former to win his fourth and fifth championships; Kobe was foundering in the playoffs until Gasol arrived.
If you were to somehow remove Anthony from his teams in Denver and New York and replace him with Ginobili, would those teams have played deeper into the playoffs? Maybe in one or two instances they might have won an extra series, based on Ginobili's exceptional spirit and skills, but for the most part the postseason results would have been the same. Would Ginobili have been able to lead the 2009 Nuggets past the Lakers in the Western finals? Would he have guided the Knicks past the Pacers in the second round last year? The answer in both cases is no.
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And then the vice-versa: If Anthony had entered the NBA in the environment of Duncan and Parker and Gregg Popovich and the Spurs' seamless approach to teamwork, would Anthony's career have taken a different course? Others may disagree, but I believe that you wouldn't be hearing nearly so much talk of Anthony as a selfish star if he had played with a superior talent like Duncan and in a setting like San Antonio's. What if the Pistons had selected him instead of Darko Milicic and Carmelo entered the league with teammates like Chauncey Billups, Rip Hamilton and Ben Wallace? The environment would have shaped his career along a different path, and the winning would have rewarded him with a different reputation than he has today.
If the ball stops today with Anthony, it probably has something to do with the fact that his teams have always needed him to score. As a rookie his scoring led the Nuggets to a massive 26-win improvement and a playoff appearance, which was more than LeBron James accomplished for his team that year. Anthony's play has been defined by the needs of his team.
There are tiers of stars in the NBA. At the top are a few players who have what it takes to carry a team all the way -- and even they need a lot of help to get there. James recognized what he needed when he left Cleveland to play with co-stars in Miami. In so doing he was following the example of the Celtics, whose trio of stars -- Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen -- had each been the best player of his own losing team the year before they joined together to win the 2007-08 championship. Garnett, Pierce and Allen was each heavily criticized for not being able to carry a team to the championship, but that was because the weight each was being asked to lift was much too heavy.
Kevin Durant looks capable of leading Oklahoma City to the championship -- so long as Russell Westbrook is dominating at point guard, Serge Ibaka is converting the open shots that opponents are daring him to make, and Reggie Jackson is maturing as a teammate in order to lead the Thunder's athletic second unit.
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If Durant doesn't receive the help he needs, then he will bear the blame for not being good enough. It's the irony of NBA stardom that each championship revolves around a single star who is able to control only so much.
The day is coming when Chris Paul is going to be held accountable for his failure to play beyond the second round. The truth of it is that he'll never go deeper in the playoffs unless he has the right blend of talent around him. Paul's current shoulder injury has provided an opportunity to his teammates to share the ball and to make a stand in his absence, which may lead to more confidence (and ball movement) when Paul returns to lead them next month. The rest of that team needs to be tougher and edgier and not as dependent on Paul to create everything for them. Maybe they can develop that edge over these next several weeks.
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Will Anthony Davis be the kind of selfless star who can lead his team to the championship someday? It will happen only if the right players are surrounding him. Think about what so many people would be saying of Duncan if he'd never had Ginobili and Parker as his teammates: In that case Duncan would be criticized -- in the same way that Garnett was maligned when his last two teams in Minnesota were going 65-99. He was disparaged because his fellow starters included Ricky Davis and Mark Blount. Those complaints vanished when Davis and Blount were replaced by Pierce and Allen.
Fans of the Trail Blazers ask whether LaMarcus Aldridge should be traded because he'll never be good enough to lead their team to a championship. I disagree with the premise. Aldridge can lead Portland so long as he has others to help him lead. Ginobili at various times has been the No. 2 or 3 player on the Spurs, but there is no doubting his leadership. Parker and Pierce and Allen and Wade all provided indispensable leadership to their championship teams, even as they complemented a superior player who needed them as much as they needed him.
Just because a star doesn't have it in him to be the best player of a championship team, that doesn't mean there isn't an important place for him. This is a league of complicated formulas, which is why so many of the best players want to play with each other. As rich and famous as all of them become, the NBA humbles its biggest stars until they recognize the help they need.
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