Split Personality: The Star Necessity?

By: Paul Mugler

So when are the Bulls going to trade for a superstar so that they can build a team that can win an NBA championship?The Bulls finally seem to have gelled as a team and you want to start the KG trade rumors again? KG is not going anywhere unless the Timberwolves decide to start over, and that doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen anytime soon. It’s not like there are teams itching to get rid of players like Kobe or LeBron. If you’re team is lucky enough to have a superstar, you try and build around him, you don’t trade a superstar.

Well Allen Iverson was traded from the 76ers and he’s a superstar! By the way, how come the Bulls didn’t try to trade for that guy? Michael Jordan wanted Iverson on the Bobcats and if there is anybody out there who knows what type of guy you need on your team to win a championship, it’s Michael Jordan.

Isn’t he the same guy that drafted Kwame Brown with the 1st overall pick in the draft?

All right…bad example…but its guy’s like Iverson that you need on your team to win championships. A team that is correctly built around a superstar player has a better chance at winning an NBA championship with the way the game of basketball is played today.

I know the Bulls can make a good run at the Easter conference title because they have a bunch of talented players who are developing a ton of chemistry together, but they won’t win a title anytime soon because they don’t have that go-to guy in crunch time. If your team doesn’t have a superstar, it’s better off throwing in the towel with the hope that they can get a star player in the draft.

Well…don’t you think superstars sometimes are developed over time? Not all of today’s NBA superstars were pre-ordained superstars before they came into the league. Just look at what Gilbert Arenas has done the past few seasons! That guy has developed into one of the most feared scorers in the game and he wasn’t even in the superstar discussion until probably last season…or even a first round pick. Don’t you think Luol Deng or Ben Gordon can grow into being a superstar in the NBA?

Luol Deng and Ben Gordon may grow into excellent players in the NBA, but I highly doubt either will be a superstar. The best player that I can see Luol Deng being is someone like Shawn Marion, a great 2nd option scorer on a team and above average defender. Gordon can certainly score and should get better as he grows more accustomed to the NBA, but he will never be the all-around player you need to be in order to carry a team. The Bulls should definitely keep one of those players, but if the Bulls have to trade one of them get a superstar player, they should do so. I don’t think the Bulls can win a championship without that go-to guy.

Oh yeah? What about the Pistons two seasons ago? They were the 2004 Champions and they didn’t have any superstars on their team. That team was built upon the chemistry between high-quality players.

That 2004 Pistons team was a glitch in the matrix. When you look at every other team that has won a championship in the past twenty years, almost every team was lead by one of the following players: Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Moses Malone, Isiah Thomas, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O’Neal and Tim Duncan.

The only team in the past two decades that seems to have bucked the superstar trend was the 1978-79 Sonics team, which was lead by Dennis Johnson and relied on team chemistry much like your 2004 Pistons squad. However, I feel like the ‘78-’79 championship was the season before the “age of the NBA superstar” was ushered in, since Magic and Bird were drafted in the 1979, draft and their combined presence forever changed the face of the NBA.

Ok I can see your point, but when I look at the teams that have won titles in the past twenty years, I see something different…the teams that defend win titles. You always hear that defense wins championships, right? It’s not a coincidence that all those superstars you mentioned were on good defensive squads or played good defense themselves. Steve Nash is a superstar and he hasn’t won a championship yet because he and his team can’t play defense.

But the Suns have been in the conference finals two years in a row playing an up-tempo style, and if Raja Bell hadn’t been hurt last season, they may have beaten Dallas. The Suns are definitely battling history, but Mike D’Antoni believes his run’n'gun style can win a championship and I think he’s right. The NBA game is changing due to rule changes in the past few seasons, where legal zones and hand checking rules have made it a faster, more versatile, high-scoring game. That plays into Phoenix’s hands…and also into the hands of a team with a high-scoring superstar. With a healthy Stoudemire, the Suns have a shot to win it all.

Well maybe the Suns can prove the defense-wins-championships theory wrong, but two years ago, the 2004 Pistons squad (with no superstars) took down the Lakers that employed both Shaq and Kobe…two of perhaps the top three superstars in the game at the time. Don’t you think that if we let the Bulls grow a bit together…these players can build the same type of chemistry that propelled the Pistons to win a championship title?

Maybe…but history shows that it is much harder to build that type of chemistry between players than to build a team around a superstar. Why do you think it took so long for a team to win a title using this chemistry strategy? One reason is that it requires a team to find 4 to 5 starting players that complement each other perfectly. Most NBA general managers can’t even manage to acquire players to complement one superstar on a team, let alone complement four other better-than-average players to fit a certain coaching scheme.

If your team’s general manager is capable (or lucky) enough to gather the right players in the right place at the right time, then a team built on chemistry could conceivably work, but that requires so much to go right to win a title…and in the last twenty years, it has happened 5 % of the time! It’s much easier to build a team around a superstar…therefore a team is more likely to win a title with a superstar.

You also have to face the fact that as the players emerge together, each will have to forfeit the possibility that they could be a star on another team. So it’s hard to achieve, and also hard to keep that chemistry-laden team together for a longer run.

The Bulls have enough talent to trade for a marquee name and should do so if the opportunity is there. Otherwise, the Bulls will continue to be an above-average squad in the NBA’s weak Eastern Conference.

Let’s say your superstar theory is correct. Didn’t you say earlier that a team without a superstar should just lose on purpose and hope to land a superstar with a high draft pick? Don’t you believe in giving a team time to grow before throwing in the towel? It’s not like Jordan won right away when he came to the Bulls…it took him 7 years to win a championship!

Also, don’t some players evolve into being a superstar? I think that playing in the finals and in the playoffs can sometimes make players grow into being a superstar, when they might not have been before. Dirk Nowitzki has evolved into a superstar by leading the Mavs deep into the playoffs the past few years. This season, we are watching Gilbert “Hibachi” Arenas grow into a superstar.

With players opting to go to the NBA as teenagers, it may take awhile for some players to grow into the stars they will become…and it doesn’t make sense to give up on players so early. Luol Deng is showing a lot of growth this year…he may turn out to be a superstar, and if somebody asks for him in a trade, it would be a mistake to give him up. Do you not agree that a team needs time to gel, even if it has a superstar on its squad?

An NBA team definitely needs time to develop chemistry together in order to play well…and during that time, a team will encounter a lot of ups and downs. It’s also true that a superstar needs time to grow and develop, as he learn the ins and outs of life in the NBA and how to lead a team to victory.

However, if your team hasn’t decided on who is its star player and how to build a core team around him; your franchise is at a competitive disadvantage. This disadvantage occurs because the NBA is a star league…and the teams with stars are rewarded with certain perks that range all the way from better calls by refs in close games to favorable team schedules by the league’s home office.

Now, when looking at the current Bulls roster, I’m not sure you can say any of their players will be a sure fire superstar in the NBA. Maybe Deng…maybe Gordon…and even though Ben Wallace’s presence can alter the way a game is played, he is not close to a superstar player because he averages less than 7 points a game and shoot 40% on his free throws. He might be the leagues true anti-star, paid as a franchise player.

The Bulls lack of that alpha-dog player is why the Kevin Garnett to the Bulls trade rumor persists. Chicago has the resources to get the superstar they can build, develop and grow with. The Timberwolves may ask for the moon, but a package of Deng, Thomas and the 2007 draft pick may get the job done. Until a trade like this happens, the Bulls will be a team that may beat up on the weak teams in the East but not be able to win against the elite squads of the NBA. Because of the salary cap and free agency, a team’s window to compete together is only open for so long. The Bulls need to act and make a move now before their window of opportunity closes.

It may be too late for the Bulls to get KG now though, since Minnesota has started to play well and won’t want to break up their team just for the sake of breaking up their team. It looks like this Bulls team is the team that John Paxson wants and will continue to add pieces to. And you know what? I like this Bulls team because they don’t have that identifiable superstar! Sometimes, when the Bulls are clicking together on offense and playing great defense…the TEAM becomes the superstar…just like what happened with that 2004 Pistons team.

So as fans, you can keep rooting for a trade that may not ever happen, or you can root for a bunch of great players playing and developing together as one. This seems like the route that Paxson is taking, so we probably have no choice but to go along with it as well. Plus, if you really want a superstar on the Bulls, there’s always the draft. Don’t the Bulls own the Knicks first rounder this year?

Yes! And you know Isiah is going to screw this Knicks squad up some more since there’s a month to go before the trading deadline.

Come on Isiah … we want Oden.

Paul Mugler is a freelance writer based in Chicago. Reach him at pmugler@hotmail.com.

Paul Mugler is a freelance writer based in Chicago. Reach him at pmugler@hotmail.com.

Share This Article

No Comments

No comments yet.

Comment On This Article