Greatness . . . How Do You Measure It?

I have spent the past two weeks watching a player who many consider to be the greatest in the world nearly pull off the impossible. LeBron James put a totally depleted Cleveland Cavaliers team on his back and got them within two games of winning the NBA Championship. In the end, the Golden State Warriors walked off basketball's biggest stage holding the trophy. They put away James and the Cavs in six games to win their first championship in forty years.

Almost immediately, the discussions began on what another finals loss (the fourth in six appearances) means for LeBron James' legacy; his greatness. And as I heard the pundits go back and forth on national sports talk radio about James' performance and how he stacks up against  past NBA legends, I kept coming back to the question, "What is the best way to measure this greatness?" Essentially, you have the athlete's body of work, but there are so many different ways to look at it. That's what makes these "greatest ever"conversations so interesting to me.

Do you want to create a little more excitement in your life? Walk into a sports bar in Chicago with Bulls memorabilia covering the walls and say to anyone who will listen, "Michael Jordan was a great player, but LeBron James is so much better." Depending on the level of civility in the bar, your fate probably lies somewhere between enduring an onslaught of verbal insults and being run out of there by an angry mob of Jordan supporters. In any case, that's not the discussion I want to have right now. I am more interested in focusing on how people arrive at their conclusions when they say that someone is the greatest of all time in his/her sport. There are so many factors to consider, so here are some I would like to put out there to see how much importance you place on them.

1. Individual Sport vs. Team Sport
Clearly, someone like a golfer or tennis player has far more control over the final outcome when a championship is on the line. This makes it possible to whittle down the field of the greatest ever faster, but there will still be serious debate over who is actually the greatest. With team sports, things become even more challenging. Winning championships means having to depend on other teammates. How often do the great ones have enough of a supporting cast to get the job done? I think this is where criticism can be a little over the top sometimes when trying to judge the greatness of athletes playing sports like football, basketball, baseball, or hockey. Since the NBA Finals just wrapped up, let's use basketball for our working example as we look at the next three factors.

2. Number of Opportunities to Win A Championship

This is something that I don't hear discussed all that often, and I find that surprising.  Considering how difficult it is in professional sports to become a champion, I would think it would get little more play. But that usually doesn't happen unless the player in question loses and the pundits chalk it up to another failed effort. Here is a partial list of Hall of Fame players and the number of NBA Finals appearances they have made compared to the number of years they played in the league (all numbers come from the nba.com website):

	Playoff Appearances	# of Years Played
Bill Russell (Celtics)	12	13
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Bucks/Lakers)	10	20
Magic Johnson (Lakers)	9	13
Michael Jordan (Bulls)	6	15
Larry Bird (Celtics)	5	13

Bill Russell spent practically his whole career playing in the NBA Finals. Twelve appearances in thirteen years is pretty impressive.  The others spent roughly a third of their careers or more competing for a championship. Does that make Russell the greatest? Not necessarily. This is just one piece of the puzzle. Let's look at another one.

3.  Number of Championships Won

This is the one we hear about the most. After all, we sports fans are all about results aren't we? So let's look at the same players and compare their records in the finals.

	NBA Finals Record
Russell	11 - 1
Jabbar	6 - 4
Johnson	5 - 4
Jordan	6 - 0
Bird	3 - 2

Again, Russell leads the way with 11 rings. Some would argue that the competition level wasn't the same in his era due to the fewer number of teams. I don't disagree, but you have to admit, it's a pretty remarkable accomplishment. Jordan clearly made the most of his appearances to the finals, having never lost in six trips. Many feel it's this fact that cements his place as the greatest player ever. Then you have Jabbar, who has just as many rings as MJ and also got his teams in a position to win four more. Likewise, Magic was a solid 5 for 9. What kind of consideration is given to that kind of consistency, especially when they may have led an overachieving team into the finals only to lose to a one that was clearly better? As good as some of these Hall of Fame players were, some things were just beyond their control. Now let's see what they can control directly.

4. Career Statistics

On its face, this seems like the most clear cut way to determine the greatest player. In the case of basketball, we fans look at things like like total points, rebounds, assists and scoring average over the course of a career including the playoffs. In this modern age of analytics, there are also new metrics such as winning share (an estimate of the number of wins a player produces for his team) to consider. But even among the greats, there can be a significant amount of variance in their statistics. For example, Jabbar and Russell were both centers. Jabbar was a prolific scorer, and he still ranks first in career points. Russell is a distant 143rd. On the other hand Russell is widely recognized as the best defensive center ever to play the game due to his incredible  rebounding skills and shot blocking ability.

Jordan ranks 4th overall in points scored. Magic Johnson comes in at number 72. Johnson, who revolutionized the point guard position, is 5th overall in assists. Jordan is 42nd. Magic is ranked 2nd with 138 triple doubles (number of games achieving double figures in three of the following statistical categories - points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocked shots). Jordan's 28 triple doubles places him at 10th. Larry Bird ranks 31st in overall points and is slightly ahead of Jordan in assists. He also has over 2,000 more rebounds than both Magic and Jordan.

It doesn't take a genius to see my point. If we look hard enough (and we fans always do), we will eventually come up with the combination of numbers that strengthens our position when making our case for the best player ever.  This leads me to what is probably the single most important factor in determining a player's greatness.

5.  Pure, Unadulterated Fan Bias

Ah, yes . . . fan bias; the foundation upon which virtually every sports debate is based. Fan bias trumps all logical and rational thinking. Fan bias is king! We've all played the fan bias card at one time or another. Anyone who tells you different is lying to you. Here's my quick story. In 1982, Washington defeated Miami 27-17 in Super Bowl XVII. The Dolphins were my favorite team, and I was not a big fan of  Wahsington's quarterback, Joe Theismann. In short, I was pretty ticked off. So, I just went into my fan bias arsenal and came up with this little gem to get over my hurt feelings: Washingtion's Super Bowl win doesn't matter as much because they won it during a strike shortened football season.  They didn't have to endure the grueling 16 game schedule. Therefore, their Super Bowl win is far less meaningful." Yeah, that sounded good. So that's what I kept telling myself. I may even have expressed that thought whenever the subject of Super Bowl winners came up.

Now let's jump to 1999. The San Antonio Spurs had just won their first NBA Championship. A couple of days later, Phil Jackson, who had recently left the Bulls after winning his 6th championship was asked his opinion on the Spurs' win.  The Zen Master was quoted as saying that San Antonio's title should have an asterisk next to it because they won it playing a truncated 50 game regular season due to the NBA lockout. Now, I happen to like the Spurs, especially since David Robinson (who graduated three years after me at the Naval Academy) was one of the team's stars.  I was very happy that he had finally gotten his ring. When I heard Jackson's comments, I went absolutely bananas. I called him a jerk (among other things), then went on to point out that all the teams can do is play the schedule in front of them. The last one standing when all the dust settles has earned the championship, regardless of the circumstances. What a moronic thing for Jackson to say.

Isn't it interesting how fan bias works? You can feel perfectly justified taking a particular position to support your favorite team. Then when someone uses the same argument to devalue one of your team's accomplishments, you practically lose your mind. My position in '82 was just as ridiculous as Jackson's was 17 years later. When I came to that realization, I felt like I had taken a giant leap forward in my evolution as a sports fan. I am happy to say that I am in a better place now.

So what's the big takeaway here?  For the record, I like engaging in these "greatest ever" conversations, if for nothing else just to play devil's advocate. But with rare exception, it is really hard for me to acknowledge one athlete as being the greatest ever in a team sport. There are just way too many variables to consider. I prefer to think in slightly broader terms. Since we are going with a basketball theme for this post, here are the players that to me, represent the best ones at their position during my lifetime. All the players are in the Hall of Fame with one exception. I'll explain that one in a minute. I will also provide some justification based on the criteria above. And yes, there will be some fan bias that figures into this. I also wanted to recognize and credit the sources for the player images. They are noted in the captions.  Here goes:

Magic Johnson (Basketballphoto.com)

1. Point Guard - Magic Johnson.  Magic Johnson brought a completely new dimension to the point guard position. His court vision was unmatched, as was his ability to deliver a pass to a teammate from virtually anywhere on the court. The first three-quarter court bounce pass I ever saw was one Magic threw to James Worthy that split two defenders over 30 feet away.  He could make the most difficult pass look routine. Johnson was also an underrated shooter, especially in the clutch. I was surprised to find out that his career field goal percentage was over 53%. He carried the Lakers to an upset of the top seeded Portland Trailblazers in the Western Conference Finals before losing the 1991 championship to a stronger Chicago Bulls team. So he gets a few points for consistently getting his teams in a position to win it all, even if they came up short at times.

Michael Jordan (AllExpress.com)

2. Shooting Guard - Michael Jordan. MJ was as tough a competitor as you will ever find. Many of us knew he was capable of going off for 50 - 60 points every time he took the court. Jordan's ability to get to the rim gave defenses nightmares. And if teams tried to beat the crap out of him whenever he got into the paint (like Boston and Detroit did early on),  he killed them with a consistent mid-range jump shot. MJ was at his best in the playoffs. He is still ranked first in playoff scoring average, and he was pretty deadly in the clutch.  Jordan shot a rather pedestrian 32% from the three point line, but his teams had several sharpshooters to carry that load. Besides, he wouldn't need to shoot three pointers that much on my team because of this next guy.

Larry Bird (CBSSports.com/Getty Images)

3.) Small Forward - Larry Bird. As a Lakers fan, Bird scared the living daylights out of me. You want to talk about impact? The year before the Celtics drafted him, they lost over 60 games. During his rookie year, they won 60 games. Bird wasn't blessed with a lot of speed, but he had uncanny quickness and terrific footwork. And there weren't many players that could get their shot off faster than he could. Larry Legend was a threat from practically anywhere on the court. He was also the best passing small forward I have ever seen.  He shot nearly 40% from the three point line. That was impressive enough, but at crunch time, it seemed more like 95%.

Tim Duncan (Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

4.) Power Forward - Tim Duncan. Sorry, but I just had to make an exception to my Hall of Fame rule here. Duncan's resume is a model of consistency. He has achieved such a high level of excellence that it can't be ignored. Since Duncan has been with the Spurs, they have won at least 50 games every year except 1999 when the season was only 50 games long.  They even won 50 during the 2012 lockout season when it was only a 66 game schedule. He also has five championships in six trips to the finals. Statistically, Duncan ranks 14th overall in total points and 8th in rebounds. And he is still not finished playing.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (nba.com)

5.) Center - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.  This one was a little tough. Wilt Chamberlain and Russell had more rebounds (Jabbar was 3rd behind them). Russell was also a better defender. However, Jabbar was ranked higher than either of the other two in assists. He's also going to be the career scoring leader for the foreseeable future. I went with Jabbar because he was more of an offensive threat than Russell, and he helped his team win more championships than Chamberlain. I am not going to deny that my fan bias played into this to some degree. If you want to throw rocks at me, give me a second to don my protective gear.

So that's my five. Just so you all know, as some of today's stars retire, I reserve the right to amend this list. How does it square with  your best five? What factors did you consider when making your choices?  Heavily weighted fan bias is more than welcome as long as a reasonable case can be made. I look forward to reading what you all think.

Until next time . . .

Karl