On a scale of one to basketball: Counting rings with credit deserved

I don’t know about you, but I have opinions. Unfortunately, opinions are generally not worth a thing. What you need are cold hard facts. Numbers. That kind of thing. Well, I’m here with some numbers for you. The good thing about these numbers is that they support some opinions that I like. Hooray for that. Hooray for me.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Matt, what are these numbers? Why should I care about them? Why should I care about you?”

I’ll answer the second question first. It’s because we’re all connected by an abundant energy that moves among us, shared on a plane that we cannot perceive but can feel. We are more than the sum of our parts. We are a product.

The other thing is “Who should get credit for championships?” I don’t fully buy into the ‘Count The Rings’ mentality. For one, it’s a bit simplistic. If we go by who is the best by who has the most rings, that would put Robert Horry ahead of Michael Jordan, and I don’t know anyone who does that. If you do, send them to me. I have questions.

On the other hand, championships are the ultimate goal. Every player wants to hold that trophy above their heads and say “Look, Benjamin Franklin. I have this, and you’re dead. Who’s better now? Haha, you can’t answer me because the dead can’t speak. Loser. Big, dead, stupid loser.”

So what’s one to do in this case? It’s impossible to bring in every bit of context because so much of the context is so intangible. The importance of Ray Allen’s shot in game six of the 2014 Finals to Dwyane Wade’s legacy is extremely difficult to compare to the importance of Michael Jordan having flu-like symptoms in that one game that he had the flu to Scottie Pippen’s career. If you have a method of comparison, hit me up. I’m into that kind of thing.

So I’m just calling all that a wash. The context we’re going with is one’s relative value compared to the rest of the players on the team. The best way I can think of to do that is one’s comparative Value Over Replacement Player (VORP). We’re going with VORP because it not only takes into account one’s achievements while they’re on the court, it takes into account how often they are on the court in the first place. Contributions plus time. That way, there aren’t any flash in the pan actors like that one stretch in that one season where Rasheed Wallace played about eight minutes, but they were the best eight minutes anyone has ever played.

So what I did was this. I took every one since 1971 who had three or more rings and ranked them on their team by their VORP. I figured that if someone was the best player on their team, they should get full credit for that team’s championship win. If someone was the team’s second-best player, they should get half as much credit as the No. 1. If someone was third best, they should get a third of the credit. So on and so forth down to a team’s No. 5. Past that point, the relative VORP became hard to distinguish. It’s a machinational mish-mash.

I chose three championships because of “Count the rings,” and if you’re going to bother counting you might as well count all the way to three.

I chose 1971 because the seventies, in my mind, marked a shift from the era of Russell’s Celtics to the modern era of basketball. Also, there were not any real dynasties in the 70s. The only player to come out of that era with multiple titles in which they were a key cog was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Also, VORP only goes back to the 1973-74 season.

Kareem won one championship before VORP was able to be calculated, but I felt safe giving him an additional No. 1 ranking on a team with a late-career Oscar Robertson in which Kareem doubled everyone else’s rebounding total and lead the team in scoring by over 10 points. If you want to debate me on that, feel free. I’ll respond by sending you pictures of my cat.

So what do these rankings look like? Here. Look at them.

I think it looks pretty close to a list of peoples’ thoughts of who should be considered championship all-timers. It’s a nice mix of Counting Rings and our usual eye-test of who contributed most.

It’s also mutable. I think many would agree that LeBron leading a team to his fourth championship would put him in a tier that only Magic and MJ currently occupy. I think many would also argue that right now he and Bird have similar ultimate playoff success similarities.

More importantly, it adds a bit of subtlety to the idea of “rings.” It means Robert Horry isn’t ahead of Michael Jordan. It means Michael Cooper isn’t ahead of Larry Bird. Best of all, it means Kobe Bryant isn’t ahead of LeBron James. I like that.

Plus, it gives credit to people who deserve some shine for what their efforts met like Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, and Robert Horry. Their names are up there among the greats because they were around so often and contributed so much to some of the best teams of all time. They deserve recognition, just not in the same way Michael Jordan does.

Overall, I’m extremely happy with how this list looks. Maybe you’re not. If that’s the case, tell me about it. Argue with me. Be angry. I’d love to show you what my cat looks like when she’s on top of my turntable. Seriously, she picks the most expensive things in the apartment and decided that’s where she wants to be comfortable. It’s the worst. And it’s great.