It was 2006, one year before Martin Scorcese took home his first Oscar, and hip hop group 3-6 Mafia had just ambled off the stage after winning the Academy Award for Best Original Song. The camera then panned to host Jon Stewart, who couldn’t help but quip: “3-6 Mafia one, Scorcese zero.”
The audience howled, as it should have, because in the entertainment world this is considered a joke. The problem is, in team sports, where championships are quickly becoming the sole measuring stick for greatness, a line like Stewart’s would be taken a lot more literally.
I won’t soon forget a newsroom discussion last year in which colleagues and I were gathered around a Celtics’ fan computer screen, watching a replay of Ray Allen blowing by then Lakers guard Sasha Vujacic to cap the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history. But before the play was even complete, a co-worker rebutted with the utmost seriousness “Whatever, who’s got more rings, Sasha or Ray?”
Uh, the answer is Vujacic, who leads Allen in the finger-jewelry department 2 to 1. But seeing how Allen is the all-time 3-pointers-made leader, and Vujacic doesn’t even start for the Nets, that’s kind of like saying “Whatever, who’s been part of more hit records, that Beatles roadie, or Keith Richards?”
It doesn’t stop there.
In his debut column for ESPN, Michael Wilbon argued that Tom Brady was a better quarterback than Peyton Manning for one simple reason: One has three Super Bowl wins, the other has one.
“I can count to three,” Wilbon said.
Well, can he count to four? Because that’s how many titles Terry Bradshaw won with the Steelers, even though he threw for a paltry 96 yards in his first Super Bowl victory and went 9 for 19 in his second.
If not for a Hall of Fame defense behind him, we wouldn’t be talking about the rings Bradshaw wears on fingers, we’d be talking about the championships he let slip through them.
Look, if somebody wants to use titles as the barometer for a golfer, swimmer or tennis player’s prowess — fine. But when sizing up athletes in team sports, championships can only be one leg of the relay.
Brady is considered one of the great clutch quarterbacks in history, and his former teammate Adam Vinatieri one of the great clutch kickers. But if Vinatieri misses some of those famed postseason field goals, is Brady somehow worse?
If Steelers defensive lineman James Harrison doesn’t return an interception 100 yards in the Super Bowl two years ago, is his quarterback Ben Roethlisberger still on the cusp of all-time-great status?
Is it absurd to think that most Hall of Fame speeches should include a heartfelt shoutout to Lady Luck?
I ask because as the NBA now sits firmly entrenched in the second round of the playoffs, discussions are swirling about how Kobe Bryant is trying to “catch” Michael Jordan, as if Bryant’s five titles were somehow sculpted with the same magnificence as Jordan’s six.
Bryant has won one regular-season MVP, was the second-best player on his team for the first three titles, has never shot 47 percent for a season and went 6 for 24 in Game 7 last year. Jordan, meanwhile, has won five regular-season MVPs, six Finals MVPs, shot well over 50 percent for his career with the Bulls, averaged eight more points and shot 4 percent better than Bryant in the postseason — and always was the team’s alpha male. There was no famous Robert Horry 3-pointer, Derek Fisher fling or Ron Artest explosion to bail Michael out of a sure playoff-series loss, either.
That’s right, as great and global as Bryant may be, fortune has played a major role in his fortune.
Just take comparisons to LeBron James for one.
In 2009, James averaged 38 points, eight assists and eight rebounds while shooting 49 percent in the Eastern Conference Finals series loss to Orlando. Bryant averaged 32, seven and five against the Magic in the Finals while shooting 41 percent. But because he had All-Stars around him and captured the championship, he’s a winner while LeBron’s a choker.
Nevermind that in the three seasons between Shaquille O’Neal and Pau Gasol, Bryant’s Lakers never escaped the first round, while James never lost a first-round playoff series with the now abysmal Cavaliers. No, the difference in success isn’t just because Bryant’s the Black Mamba — it’s also because James was snake-bitten.
Hey, obviously the goal in sports is to win. If an athlete is all style and no substance, he’ll be forgotten like a dream five minutes after the alarm.
But victory requires help. And a little luck, too.
Championships add chapters to one’s legacy, but they don’t write the whole book.
Matt Calkins is the Trail Blazers beat writer for The Columbian. He can be contacted at 360-735-4528 or email matt.calkins@columbian.com. Follow on Twitter www.twitter.com/blazerbanter
