There is some astonishment right now with the San Antonio Spurs winning a title without some MVP-level player. But there shouldn’t be.
There is more information than ever. There is an astounding amount, in fact, and if you have access to deep databases there’s information on the position of every single player during every split second of the game. The analytics movement has pushed even concepts once esoteric like advanced, adjusted plus/minus into the public’s consciousness — ESPN publishes a sophisticated version of this, and Bosh was just quoted assaying one of the only two stats he cares about is plus/minus — yet we all being dragged down to ridiculous arguments that should have been vanquished years ago. We shouldn’t be flummoxed at the success of a team without a superstar (or one in his prime at least.) Stars don’t make the team; the players do.
Ten years ago, a star-studded Lakers team — not too far from three straight titles — led by a Hall of Fame coach and two of the best players in the game aided by two aging stars who were Hall of Fame locks met an upstart from Detroit, one who only had two players with All-Star berths. Detroit’s all-stars were Ben Wallace — helped immensely by the demise of the center position in the east, and Rasheed Wallace — who had turned into more of a role player. Detroit had no player over 18 points per game, and no player had ever averaged 20 points per game. Conversely, both Shaq and Kobe averaged 20 plus, and, of course, they’re two of the top scorers all-time. Including Karl Malone, and they have three of the top six scorers in NBA history by total career points. With Gary Payton they had four guys with 20,000 career points.
Detroit dispatched them unceremoniously in five games. It didn’t matter that Kobe and Shaq were better than anyone on the Pistons. Detroit’s starting five was, as a whole, simply better.
The NBA has seen this before.
For years, actually, people assumed alpha scorers held teams back from titles. The 1970’s were a run of well-balanced teams taking championships, like the Halvicek-Cowens Boston Celtics or Washington Bullets, who won a title with a Finals MVP under ten points a game, and the 1980’s were dominated by two deep teams with stars who were amazing passers in Magic and Bird. There was a 20-year span in which the league’s leading scorer won a title — from Kareem in 1971 to Jordan in 1991.
One of the most famous championship runs was Portland in 1977. It was a chaotic year — the one after the ABA merger — and the parity was high: only three teams at 50 wins and the highest was 53. The prize of the merger was Dr. J, an electric player who was the superstar yin to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s yang. Julius Erving joined other stars in Philadelphia, flanking George McGinnis, World B. Free, Kobe Bryant’s father Joe Bryant, Henry Bibby (another father of an NBA player), Doug Collins (yes, him) scoring 18 a game, and even the rookie Darryl “Chocolate Thunder” Dawkins. Expectations were higher for the star-studded team.
Portland, by contrast, was a well-balanced team led by a player known for his defense, hustle, and passing from the high post. Over 38% of Philadelphia’s points in the regular season came from two players, and that figure jumped to 64% with the top four. Portland, however, had shares of 31% and 53%, respectively. Walton, like Duncan, was a prize draft pick and a classic high character guy steeped in the fundamentals of the game, not the flash. They were led by a fantastic, forward-thinking coach, and attacked hard in transition and emphasized ball movement. The second best player was Maurice Lucas, an unassuming and workmanlike power forward. Portland even defeated MVP Abdul-Jabbar in the playoffs — a true legend, the best of the best, and in his prime.
Philadelphia had the star power, but Portland was, quite simply, a better team. Portland had the superior point differential, and they did this with Walton missing a few games. With him, they were on a 55-win pace.
We see the Miami Heat and the awe-inspiring LeBron James, a physical specimen like Dr. J was, and we see the perennial All-Stars Wade and Bosh — never mind that Wade is but a a shadow of his former self. We fill in the rest of the team as mere “role players” and assume the team is tremendous. The Spurs are led by old Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili (or Kawhi Leonard for the third wheel), so we assume they’re the weaker team. But people underrate the importance of the non-stars on a team. The Heat have had to start guys like the plodding Rashard Lewis, the ghost of Shane Battier, and the limited Udonis Haslem in important games. The Spurs bring Ginobili and Boris Diaw off the bench.
The difference between role players is subtle, but it’s lost on people. It’s too nuanced, and with a group of 5 to 8 role players the collective value accumulates to something very powerful. You could see it with Portland this season. They swapped out J.J. Hickson and Robin Lopez, and had a breakout season. For most fans the difference between Hickson and Lopez is negligible, but it’s clearly not.
There’s no universal law that you need a superstar to be the best team in the league. Never mind how difficult it can be to determine the best players, all that matters is that your team outscores the opposing team.
You don’t need a superstar in his prime to win a championship. There are many different paths to victory, some more obvious than others.
A fun way to illustrate this is to build elite teams without a top 20 player. Using Win Shares and not selecting any player in the top team in Win Shares per minute (minimum of a 1000 minutes), I built a team below that with a realistic minutes distribution would equate to 60 wins (and this includes 680 minutes given to low-level bench warmers rated much worse.)
Player WS/48 Minutes
Mike Conley 0.161 2400
Wesley Matthews 0.142 2600
Trevor Ariza 0.141 2600
Serge Ibaka 0.173 2600
Tiago Splitter 0.163 1900
Isaiah Thomas 0.149 1500
DeMar DeRozan 0.141 1800
Mike Dunleavy 0.121 1000
Josh McRoberts 0.132 1000
Marcin Gortat 0.146 1600
There’s no real star power here, but it would be a top-tier defense with some scoring punch off the bench. You don’t need an MVP-level player to reach 60 wins if you fill in the rest of the team with quality players.
If you don’t like that method, we can use Gotbucket’s RAPM — a metric that relies on no box score stats except for how well a player’s team outscores the other team when he’s on the court.
Sticking to everyone rated below 20 again, you can build a 60 win team without any superstar talent but instead with a wealth of quality depth. (RAPM is in terms of scoring margin, so if five players were +2 you’d except that team to outscore an average opponent by 10 points a game, roughly, on a neutral court.)
Player RAPM Minutes
Goran Dragic 2.62 2700
Danny Green 1.64 2400
Kawhi Leonard 1.87 2400
Channing Frye 1.33 2300
Nikola Pekovic 1.27 2000
Ty Lawson 2.65 1900
Matt Barnes 1.53 1100
Draymond Green 0.87 1500
Jason Thompson 1.61 1100
Pero Antic 0.41 1500
Losing to San Antonio is not be a black mark on LeBron’s legacy. It’s a a loss to a team who won more games and had a larger point differential.
There are rumors and extended discussions on Carmelo Anthony joining the Heat, as if LeBron can’t get it done without multiple stars. But that’s not the problem. It’s how you fill in the rest of the team. After losing Mike Miller and watching players succumb to Father Time, their supporting players are lacking. LeBron needs help, but not superstar help.
There are other ways to win.
