2018-19 NBA Off-Season

You are using hindsight to assess the circumstances based on outcomes.
That is like losing a pot with your four As against a straight flush and deciding four As is a bad hand.
At the time, people were ready to concede them the title.
Didn't they start the season as betting favorite for NBA futures?

 

They were Ray Borque.

 

Give or take bray he didn’t fall off as much the year he chased he ring.

 

Let's say Ws break up next year; Thompson goes to LA, and either KD or Green leave, maybe both.
It's still an incredible run. If they win this next one, that is four titles in five years plus the single-season win record.
And they'd already have four in the 'bag' if Green could've stopped himself from constantly kicking and punching dudes in the beans.

That is a historic run.

 

You're right. They also had the best record in league history (and the league's first unanimous MVP) the year before he signed. And they lost, at least in part, because Draymond Green, an all-league player, was suspended for a closeout game.

Deadpanning that they lost in 2016 and that KD was Finals MVP the following year isn't changing the narrative.

 

I'll add this: KD can definitely elevate his legacy with several rings, helping the Warriors to multiple titles in the coming years despite roster changes and aging. But to say that he's already elevated it dramatically after two rings with a team that was already elite without him is, to me, more than a little silly.

 

Is KD's legacy better off winning no titles in OKC?

 

Personally, I think the title thing is a red herring with regard to greatness.
Robertson won one title, right? And that was toward the end of his career and with Jabbar.
He is not diminished.

 

Although I will grant you that Robertson's trade circumstances were very, very different than the situations with Barkley or Drexler.

 

No, I think winning two (along with two Finals MVPs) does help KD's career some, but not a ton. They don't carry as much weight as a ring would've carried for, say, Malone, Stockton, Payton or Barkley had they beaten MJ and that Bulls team. Or LeBron winning in Cleveland against a 73-win team.

I'm with you that judging legacies by rings is often misleading. What if Kobe hadn't been traded to the Lakers and instead played in Charlotte? Would he have still won five rings? What if Duncan hadn't gone to a team that had a guy who won an MVP two years earlier, to play for a Hall of Fame coach?

KD is elite, and will be remembered as such, but I think that would have still been the case had he spent his entire career in OKC.

 

OKC could have been GSW. Harden Westbrook Durant. Or they could have been the best players on a disfunctional team. Having the most talent doesn’t always win. Sometimes they only win once or twice. Not 3 Not 4 ...

 

Probably, but he adds a few lines to the resume. He escapes the world of "guys still waiting for that first ring." The honor of, was a super great player with a teammate he didn't fully mash with and a run of coaches who were kind of so-so only carries a man so far.

Kobe is an interesting case because he's different if he doesn't win the two late titles for sure.