You should judge NBA players by 1) their strengths and weaknesses, and 2) how much help they need to win.
Full stop. Anything else is stupid.
To simplify it more:
How easy is it to build a championship team with them, and how hard are they to stop?
Judge Players Based on Their Skills and Impact
NBA Games are largely decided before they are played, and are influenced by few factors:
- Which team has the best player
- Does the best player have a good enough team around them
- Which team is healthy
- Which team shoots the best
And what is the best player comes down to being able to do at least 2 of these things really well:
- Can they score consistently and efficiently?
- Can he playmake and pass?
- Can they defend at a high level
You have to do 2 of these at a high level.
This is why skillset matters.
(This is also why SGA is a fraud player. He was able to get away with not being that good of a defender or playmaker, meaning only his scoring is above average – and even still, his scoring efficiency drops in the playoffs and is boosted by the referees.)
Anyway… if you are the best player, then the question is:
How great are your strengths? (Are you hard to stop?)
How bad are your weaknesses (Can teams have an easy time stopping you?)
And how much help do you need to hide your flaws?
If you have great strengths, and minor weaknesses, then it is easy for your team to build around you. And as long as you and your team aren’t cursed with injuries, you will almost assuredly win a lot of titles.
Judging a player then becomes evaluating how much help they need, instead of looking at rings or accolades.
For instance, as great as Shaq is, weaknesses as a perimeter defender and reliance on paint scoring requires you to give him a near MVP level guard like Kobe or Wade. Meanwhile, Hakeem doesn’t need a guard at that level to win with.
Accolades are Dumb
Accolades are dumb because
- They are narrative driven. A player can literally lose out on an MVP because of voter fatigue.
- They ignore competition. A player can earn a lot more accolades or awards than another player because their era had weaker competition
- Accolades don’t accurately paint the player’s general greatness. They can have an up and down regular season because teams have a decade to study their flaws, but still be the best in the game.
Now, in all honesty, accolades are a nice way to tell the story of the league, and get a view of a player’s greatness at a glance. But they should not be the primary way to judge and grade a player.
Rings Are Dumb
Rings matter, we agree rings matter, but they shouldn’t be the ONLY metric to praise a player. Obviously, it ignores how incompetent your front office might be (you can be a special player that is easy to build around, but your GM or ownership can still make terrible moves), and it ignores the era you play in (for example, the NBA has made it impossible for championship teams to keep their rosters intact thanks to the new salary cap rules). And it punishes a player who overachieved.
Read up on how Kevin Garnett’s front office screwed him over. You can say Garnett could have taken less money, but this has nothing to do with his skill.
Stats Are Dumb
Stats are limited by what we choose to record. As we explained in our article, stats do not measure everything about a player. There are many impactful things players do on the court that stats do not measure. For example, Curry’s gravity isn’t measured by traditional basic counting stats. His “assists” numbers are nothing crazy, but his playmaking and on court impact on offense is as great as anyone ever.
How to Judge NBA Players
Go by their actual strengths and weaknesses, and evaluate how much help they need.
If you can score at high enough level that defenses have to focus on you and change their gameplans for you, it opens up opportunities for other teammates, and it makes it easy for your coach to come up with gameplans, and it makes it easy for your front office to get the right players since they will have more options.
If you can pass at a high level and playmake, it makes it harder for the defense to come up with the right strategy to stop your team.
And if you can defend at a high level, you can shut down the opponent and make it easy for your coach and teammates. And if you are not a great defender, then be good enough that your coach can protect you without too much problem, and your front office doesn’t need to sacrifice good offensive players too much.
If you are lacking in some of these areas, then the question becomes: how badly are you lacking, and how much help do you need to cover it?
Examples
For instance, an easy reason why Kevin Durant is not a top 10 player is because his weaknesses as a playmaker and offensive leader are so debilitating, that he needs to play with another MVP-level player (like James Harden or Steph Curry) that can draw defensive attention and give him simpler looks.
If you don’t think LeBron James is not the GOAT, don’t use rings – because some of his Finals losses were inevitable (2007, 2017, 2018, etc.). Instead, point out that he needs other top 10 players alongside him since you can’t run a smooth offense with Lebron, because of his ball-dominant style and weaknesses as a reliable shooter. This makes it harder to build around LeBron and leads to a lot of bad luck with his roster construction where he has to always “carry his teams”.
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