It’s not as easy as it looks…
Let me paint the picture. You’re playing for a team where you get to take all the shots that you want, but your team is mediocre. You just don’t have enough talent surrounding you, so you’re struggling just to make the playoffs. The good thing is that you’re one of the leading scorers in the league, so that gives you more than enough reason to get a nice little payday from any team that you wish to play for. You could stay with your team to get the max amount of dollars, but you decide to team up with another superstar to play for a chance to win the title.
There are many ways to go about that. You could play hard all season long and simply ask for a trade in the offseason or sign with another team if your contract has expired. Or… You could decide to not train in the offseason, eat all the chicken wings you want (#bodypositivity), and make various appearances at the Gentleman Clubs instead of improving on your game. Or…. Now hear me out…. You could simply express to your team that you’re not going to play for them. Even though you signed a legal contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars stating that you would. You can show up begrudgingly to training camp just to dribble the ball around a few times so you don’t lose millions of dollars, never show up for the games, and blame your absence on an injury that may or may not be 100% true. It’s 2022, so the choice is yours!
However you decide to leave, you understand that you’re going to his city and his team. You don’t want to start any trouble in the locker room, and you don’t want to leave a bad first impression on the team’s fan base. So you make it known that you’re going to play your role and that you’re going to try to complement your teammate’s game as best as you can. That all makes for great P.R., but you’re also expected to perform. Everyone is going to expect you to continue to play at an all-star level. And if you were an MVP candidate, then you’ll be expected to continue to play at an MVP-like level. You got all the help you need, so it shouldn’t be a problem, right?
But not so fast! It’s not as easy as it appears to be. For the most part, we rarely see a team that has two of their players that are legitimate MVP candidates for any given season. It’s hard to explain. It can be due to the fact that it’s hard for the players/coaches to manage which and when the players will get their touches. It can also be due to the fact that the star players don’t know when to take over the game for fear of stepping on anyone’s toes. Or it could be that the whole tactic of, “here, I just shoot the ball. Now it’s your turn to shot” approach is too predictable. The offense becomes stagnant, and it’s easier for the opposing team to defend. If you don’t have the right coach/system in place, it can be easy for teams with a substantial amount of talent to underachieve.
The reality is that they are few players that can strive in that role. It’s not for everybody. That’s why there have only been four teams that have won the championship since 2000 that had two players that got selected to at least the All-NBA 2nd team. Those teams were the 2001 Lakers, the 2002 Lakers, the 2017 Warriors, and the 2020 Lakers. There have also been an additional five other teams that went to the Finals while employing two players that got selected to either the All-NBA 1st team and/or 2nd team. Those teams are the 2004 Lakers, the 2011 Heat, the 2012 Thunder, the 2013 Spurs, and the 2019 Warriors.
That is also why there have only been 7 different pairs of teammates since 2000 that have averaged at least 25 points per game in the same season, and that was qualified to receive the scoring title due to the number of games they played that year. Here is the list of the teammates that have accomplished that:
(2001) Shaq – 28.7 PPG/Kobe – 28.5 PPG
(2002) Shaq – 27.2 PPG/Kobe – 25.2 PPG
(2003) Kobe – 30 PPG/Shaq – 27.5 PPG
(2008) Iverson – 26.4 PPG/Carmelo – 25.7 PPG
(2011) LeBron – 26.7 PPG/Wade – 25.5 PPG
(2017) LeBron – 26.4 PPG/Kyrie – 25.2 PPG
(2017) Curry – 25.3 PPG/Durant – 25.1 PPG
(2019) Curry – 27.3 PPG/Durant – 26 PPG
(2020) Harden – 34.3 PPG/Westbrook – 27.2 PPG
(2020) Anthony Davis– 26.1 PPG/LeBron – 25.5 PPG
Notice that when it works, your team is going to have an enormous amount of success. Four of those seasons listed above ended with a championship. Three of those seasons ended with the team reaching the Finals. Only one of those seasons, the 2008 Denver Nuggets, got bounced from the first round. You may also notice that the dynamic duo of LeBron/Wade only accomplished that once. Or that the other great duos of the NBA include Durant/Westbrook, Curry/Klay, Westbrook/Paul George, Kawhi/George, Lillard/McCollum, Tatum/George, DeRozan/Lavine, and Paul Pierce/Antoine Walker never accomplished that. So what does this teach us?
The first thing is that the whole notion that “ShAq CaRrIeD kObE” is one of the dumbest takes that exist within the sports spectrum. Anyone that utters those words will automatically expose themselves as someone that has zero knowledge of the game, or that they’re nothing more than a troll looking for attention. It’s crazy that Kobe and Shaq were able to accomplish that for three straight years. Let’s try to put that in perspective. If we’re talking in the history of the NBA, only Elgin Baylor and Jerry West were able to surpass the number of times that Shaq and Kobe averaged at least 25 points per game for a season. If we’re talking since the merger, there’s not a single pair of teammates that did it as many times. So when Shaq says, “We will always go down in history as the most enigmatic, controversial, dominant one-two punch ever created”, he is speaking the truth. The numbers and the hardware back it up. They might not be the most accomplished duo, but they are the most dominant.
There also is another common denominator with the list of players that have accomplished this rare feat, and that is the luxury of playing alongside LeBron James. He has been able to accomplish that with three different teammates. I know it’s been such a long time ago, but for the first seven years of his career, LeBron was the only player to average over 20 points per game for the Cleveland Cavaliers. He had to score nearly 30 points a night, while also being the primary ball-handler for his teams to be in the best position to succeed. After he decided to take his talents to South Beach, we were asking how a dominant scorer like Dwyane Wade would be able to mesh his game with that of a ball-dominant point forward. We saw immediately how Wade was able to remain one of the five best players in the league in the 2010-11 season. They showed right away that they could both dominate the league, but it was later acknowledged that the Heat were better off with Wade taking an even lesser role for LeBron to elevate his game to another stratosphere.
When LeBron decided to go back home, we were asking the same questions if LeBron’s game could co-exist with a player like Kyrie Irving. Once Kyrie recovered from his knee injury in the 2015 Finals, we saw that Kyrie averaged 25.2 points per game in the 2016 playoffs. They were starting to find their niche together, and Kyrie was able to continue that exact same production for the 2016-17 season. Once Kyrie decided it was best for his career to not play with LeBron James (SMH), we knew better than to not question if LeBron would be able to figure out how to play well with Anthony Davis. It was no surprise that they immediately dominated the league, and they ended up winning the championship in their first year together. Do you know how many times a team, that didn’t make the playoffs the prior season, has won a title after making a big free-agent signing like that? It’s just the Boston Celtics in 2008. There’s no disputing that LeBron’s ability to mesh with star teammates so quickly and easily is all a part of his greatness.
The next common denominator is playing with a team like the Golden State Warrrios, and playing alongside a player like Stephen Curry. The one question mark that always surrounds a team with so many great scorers is if there will be enough shots to go around to make everyone happy. With the Warriors, that’s never an issue. Since Steph Curry and Klay Thompson are both one of the greatest shooters in the history of the game, they don’t need to dominate the ball to put their imprint on the game. Heck… Klay Thompson doesn’t even have to dribble to score fifty on your team. And with all the attention that Curry receives from opposing defenses, that opens up so many different scoring opportunities for everyone else. So when the Warriors added an elite scorer like Kevin Durant, we knew that they were going to be too good to stop.
So what do we learn from all this? How can a player become an effective costar? Do you have to be a player like Kobe Bryant? Someone who could care less about stepping on anyone’s toes? Someone who has a forceful personality, and will be looking to get his whether you like it or not? Of course, we know that Kobe’s game was much more than that. He was someone that understood the triangle offense, and he obliged (for the most part) to play within the system for the first three quarters of games. But once the fourth quarter arrived, everyone knew that it was his time to close and to express his offensive creativity. His personality didn’t bring him a buddy-buddy relationship with the big fella. There was a lot of rift and a lot of distractions within the team. But they did a lot of winning. In fact, they still remain the only team of the 21st century to win back-to-back-to-back titles. Everyone seems to care a lot about building a peaceful environment within the team, but should they care more about the results?
Or is it all on the leader of the team? Should we start caring more about a player’s ability to elevate their teammate’s game and if they can help them thrive in their new roles as LeBron has? There’s no question that LeBron started the “super-team” era that dominated the 2010 decade. Players were following suit because LeBron made it look so easy. However, they quickly realized that it’s not as easy as it seems to be. LeBron seems to know exactly when to take over games, and when to take a backseat to his superstar teammate. He understands the flows of the game. He understands where to put his teammates in position to succeed. It’s a balancing act that he’s always trying to juggle through, but he’s an expert at it. It’s a skill that future generations have to learn.
So when we look at a team like the Philadelphia 76ers, we notice that James Harden is trying to figure out how to thrive in his new role. He understands that the Sixers are Joel Embiid’s team, and the offense revolves around him. So he’s trying to figure out when to take over, and when to take a backseat to the star of the team. We also notice that Joel Embiid is trying to figure out when to completely dominate the game, and when to differ to his costar. He knows that they won’t go far if Harden doesn’t play like he used to. The problem is that they’re trying to figure this out in the middle of a playoff series.
But maybe they can look to their elders. Shaquille O’Neal would often tell his teammates when going into a big playoff game, “feed me the ball, and get out of my way”. When Shaq was having one of those games, Kobe knew to back off and focus his attention on other aspects of the game. Which was primarily stopping the other team’s best perimeter player. And if the opposing team was starting to put too much attention on Shaq, then Kobe would make them pay. Shaq would open things up for Kobe, and vice versa. At the same time, that also opened things up for players like Derek Fisher, Robert Horry, and Rick Fox to get open shots. That’s one of the reasons why their 2001 playoff run is arguable the greatest stretch of games by any playoff team in history. We’re all waiting for Embiid and Harden to both take the mantle, and it seems like they might be starting to figure it out after their Game 4 victory against the Miami Heat.
From a historical standpoint, Kobe Bryant got what he wanted. He was eager to get out of the shadow of Shaq because maybe he knew that the casual fan wouldn’t truly appreciate what he did and what he had to sacrifice for the Lakers to be one of the greatest teams in the history of the league. He needed to play like one of the top 3 or 5 best players in the league, while simultaneously playing alongside a dominating force that needed to get his touches. They were able to make it work, and they put historically great numbers that are rare to see even in today’s modern game. All these years later we can finally appreciate it. It’s not easy to do what they did. When another all-star caliber player wants to play as the “costar” for another great player, we’ll always compare it to ‘fro Kobe and what he was able to accomplish.
We’re also going to judge the next generation of superstars, and see if they can also successfully mesh with their superstar teammates when they inevitably get tired of trying to win games by themselves. Are they going to be able to find the balance of putting their teammates in a position to succeed while also playing at an MVP level as LeBron James did during the 2010 decade? It will show if there is another layer to their greatness, or if they’re nothing but a solo act.
If you don’t think you can fill the big shoes that the Mamba and the King left for you, then your next best option is to play with an already established team where you would be able to fit seamlessly with the system already in place. Just as Kevin Durant did with the Warriors, and just as Chris Paul did with the Phoenix Suns. It’s 2022, so the choice is all yours!
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