The Lone Wolves

The idea of the lone wolf is admittedly something of a cliche, but its an interesting phenomenon in the sport of basketball. Unlike football, where it takes almost an entire team to do almost anything positive on the field, or baseball, where rotations and batting orders make it difficult to isolate a superstar, a basketball team can simply sit back and allow a superstar to try to win the game on his own.

The way we view these players often depends on the media narrative. The first example of this is Wilt Chamberlain. Much of Chamberlain's career overlapped with that of another great center, Bill Russell. Chamberlain was a dynamic force. A 7'1 center in the 1960s with good athleticism and skills. Russell was 6'9 and more noted for his defense and rebounding. There's already a flaw in that logic, as Chamberlain slightly out-rebounded Russell over the course of their careers. But more than anything, Russell was given credit for being a winner. His teams won 11 titles compared to Chamberlain teams winning just two. This has always been an unfair knock on Wilt's career. Wilt won his first title in 1967 with the Philadelphia 76ers. The difference between that team and his past teams was that he had some help in the form of second year player Billy Cunningham. This was the first 'difference making' player that Wilt had played with. Russell won his first title as a rookie with future hall of famers Bob Cousy, Bill Sharman, and Tommy Heinson. This core was also joined by future hall of famers Sam Jones, KC Jones, and John Havlicek thought their title runs. Basically Russell, while still a great player, is given too much credit for being part of a great collective while Chamberlain is judged too harshly because he had to do it alone for most of his career.

This idea doesn't really go away in future generations. Michael Jordan, now considered a great champion, was knocked for being too dominant of the ball and it was even said that the great scorer would never win a NBA title while leading the league in scoring. It took Jordan until his sixth full season to win his first championship. He did so with the help of all-time great Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant. Jordan and Chamberlain might well be the greatest players of all time, but they couldn't do it alone.

This brings me to LeBron James. LeBron is hated by many for leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers to join stars Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami. LeBron spent seven season in Cleveland surrounded by nothing but role players and still got them to the finals once and led them to 66 and 61 wins the past two seasons. It had become clear that the front office wasn't going to be able to acquire any real help, so he had no choice but to pass up more money (players can make more money by re-signing with their current team when they hit free agency) and try to win a NBA title. In reality, he's done nothing different than the lone wolves before him, except instead of the help coming to him, he had to go to the help.