The Boston Celtics did what LeBron, D-Wade, and Bosh are trying to do, only a few years back! Boston, apparently under the care and handling of Danny Ainge, acquired Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. Now, let’s not worry about their HoF credentials. Instead, let’s look at the facts. They–Boston–won a championship with those players. And those players played like HoF players. Now LBJ (and Wade and Bosh) are attempting to do what could very easily be described as exactly the same thing in Miami and it’s like LeBron has become the epitome of what’s bad in sports.

Hogwash.

You know what I think? I think part of the backlash occurring now, ironically even from other players, is fueled by a feeling that these current players–James, Wade, and Bosh–have had the temerity to take aggressive, directed steps toward what GMs have done in the past. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it’s almost like people are mad that some of the slaves have decided to organize versus letting the slave-masters determine who works where.

(I know. Again, that’s unfair.)

(By the way, I can’t help but think your friend works in sports. Something about the tone that reminds me of friends of mine who work in sports. Whatever.) Again, the points he makes are largely valid, but often tangential to what I’m trying to say. For that reason, I’m kinda stuck with one response: So?

As I’ve said in 2 other (now 3) posts, the NBA Playoffs are won, it seems pretty obvious, by teams with superior firepower. That is the result, I’d argue inevitably, of a series format. The regular season, for reasons having largely to do with length, is simply not a good rubric. For one thing, role players generally play better at home. For another, the pressure of the playoffs manifest on players in ways that tend to either immortalize them or expose them. (The comments about Malone being “least clutch superstar of all time” are very well taken in this regard.)

Dilution of the talent pool doesn’t change that series-format-arithmetic, it just give teams with *not* superior talent (Cavs?) a chance to compete, if they have one transcendent player. That is, unless they come upon teams with more than one transcendent player. (By the way, as I actually said in the piece, who gives a large rat turd if Parker and Manu aren’t headed for the Hall? They were and are demonstrably better than the Cavs players against whom they competed.) GM ineptitude doesn’t modify the arithmetic either. GMs don’t play, they build. The ones who get a lot of credit somehow assemble talent despite dilution, salary caps, etc.

Finally (really this time, we all hope) I am not defending LBJ from attacks about his handling of the situation. What I am saying is this. It makes absolute sense for him to seek a team with (what he hopes will be) superior talent. This path has always made sense, and any suggestion that past players wouldn’t have done it–aside from specific cases like Pippen in Chicago or Jordan’s personal approach–is ludicrous and goes against every praxeological principle we know. (Yes, I managed to get praxelogy into a sports debate!) It even goes against empirical data, as players moved around even in the 80s. It is further undercut when one examines, as I did, the evidence. The teams that win have superior talent. By the way, one could certainly argue that such talent seems superior because the teams won, sort of a chicken-and-egg thing, and that’s fair too. It just seemed pretty cut-and-dried to me, looking back. Hey, that’s sports debates!

Next, we can argue about the supposed HoF-ness of past players, but that’s a waste of time. Why? They’re already in the Hall! That you (or I) think [put player here] should or should not be in the hall is irrelevant, since that decision is made. I admitted that Parker and Ginoboli might be great debates, but who cares? They were (and are) better than anyone on the Cavs roster at the time, both from objective data (stats) and subjective impression. (I don’t think you’re saying that the Cavs roster was better than the Spurs, are you?)

Finally, as I said to another respondent, it is, almost without exception, true that the NBA Playoffs are won by the team with superior talent. (Let’s put the debacle with the Kings aside for now!) Boston put together a team with superior talent, and they did it in the salary-cap-bad-GM era that both you and the other respondent mention. Again, let’s not argue if KG or Ray Allen or Paul Pierce are headed for the Hall. Clearly, they provided superior talent for Boston. And just as clearly they played at that high level during Boston’s run. It’s about firepower. Always was. Always will be. That Cleveland did not have superior talent is, I think, unarguable. You may believe that there are valid reasons for this. Maybe so.

One last point, that I didn’t include in the piece that plays, I think, to the contention that past players just “took it and played hard.” The data just doesn’t support that contention. Even in the 80′s players moved around and became key cogs in title runs. Dennis Johnson to the Celtics comes to mind. (Tiny Archibald, anyone?) In this regard, what LeBron has done, with D-Wade and Bosh, is absolutely typical of the NBA specifically, and professional athletics generally. I take strong exception to the suggestion that he’s somehow more shallow or more willing to put winning above other things that is true of anyone who competes at that high level. Now, it might be that athletes are a-holes generally, or that he is actually more shallow, but this episode doesn’t prove it. He’s just not unique, judged by almost any rubric, and the formation of his “big three” in Miami ain’t even news, really.