Embrace the Star System

Last week one of my roommates and I were debating the impact of the loss of Larry Brown on the Pistons' hopes next season.

My roommate thought Detroit would fall far, finishing no higher than fifth in the East, a number I'm certain he plucked out of thin air.

I asked him, who's better? Miami? Who else?

My roommate's a delusional Nets fan, so he threw New Jersey on the table, which I of course consider ridiculous. (He's also a huge Angels and Raiders supporter, so you may correctly guess we don't agree on a lot sports-wise.) Why New Jersey? Well, they still have Kidd and Vincent, but they also added Shareef Abdur-Rahim, whom my roommate calls a 20-and-10 guy who never played on a winning team.

I inquired, whose fault is that?

My roommate later corrected himself and said Abdur-Rahim is a 20-and-8 guy, which is close enough to true, but even further illustrates the point: if he was a better rebounder, maybe his teams would win a little more often.

Anyway, I'm not here to talk about the New Jersey Nets and their playoff prospects next season.

No, I'm here to talk about superstars. (Meaning Abdur-Rahim no longer factors into the discussion.)

Sports are all about teamwork, you say. Parents put their kids on teams to teach them about unselfishness and working together. Or to learn how to suck it up when you have to do things you hate, such as when my parents kept putting me on soccer teams instead in a sport I actually wanted to play, like football.

Yet for all the virtuous lessons, and especially at the youth level, the team with the best individual player is almost always going to win.

And if you're the best player on your team, and your team can't cut it, well, it's probably your fault. It's not that simple, of course, but it's often close, especially in football and basketball.

There's a reason superstars get the big money. Yes, they put fans in the seats. But even more, it's the promise of winning that packs the house.

Let's face it, championship teams are almost always defined by that one truly great player. Shaq. Michael Jordan. John Elway. Tom Brady. Ray Lewis. Tim Duncan. Joe Montana. Stockton. Oh, whoops, scratch that last one.

If you remember my earlier meniton of Larry Brown before all this meandering, you're probably thinking, what a second, what about the Detroit Pistons? They won it all in 2004, and they did it with a team, not as stars, thereby proving once and for all that a great team beats individual talent every day of the week.

Yeah.

First of all, the Pistons are the exception that proves the rule. No, I don't know have any idea what that means. But I don't see how one fluke year-a series the Lakers easily should have won, had Kobe kept his ego in check and let Shaq shoot a little more-disproves most of basketball history to that point.

People say the same thing about the Patriots and their three-out-of-four Super Bowls run, but that's even more ridiculous, because the Patriots are actually loaded with individual talent. Tom Brady is the best quarterback in the NFL, hands down. Corey Dillon has long been one of the league's very best running backs. And Tedy Bruschi, last year, was probably the best linebacker in the world-and he certainly was the best come playoff time.

Don't forget Ty Law.

Of course, not every great player wins it all every time. There are a lot more factors that go into winning-quality of the supporting cast, quality of the opposition, injuries, age, et cetera.

But clutch performance isn't limited to the Super Bowl or the NBA Finals. Often, a player provides glimpses of his greatness with triumphs in earlier postseason rounds.

A good local example is John Elway. First, let me state my completely unbiased opinion that he is the greatest quarterback of all time.

With that out of the way, he took the Broncos to three Super Bowls in his early years and lost three times. He lost to absolutely loaded New York and San Francisco teams, and also to Washington, which had a fantastic if occasionally forgotten run. But he did get to the Super Bowl; this despite playing on a team that featured offensive weaponry like Sammy Winder and the Three Amigos.

At the end of his career, he got back to the game twice and won both. At the time, a lot of the credit was given to Terrell Davis and even more to Mike Shanahan, because you see it was the coaching that finally got Elway over the top.

Six years and no playoff wins later for Shanahan, you don't hear that argument much anymore.

Perhaps fans and analysts should have considered his entire body of work a little more closely before labelling him a choker. In his fourth season, he led "The Drive"; clearly not the work of someone who can't handle pressure.

Let me reiterate: this was in his fourth season (and I'm aware this column is rapidly devolving into Elway hero-worship). To put that into perspective, do you think David Carr will save his team's Super Bowl hopes with a late game-saving drive on the road this season?

But Elway did just fine in playoff games early in his career, and as soon as the odds weren't overwhelmingly stacked against him, he won it all.

This theory doesn't hold for baseball, by the way, mostly because it's such a democratic sport. Forget empirical evidence, I've yet to collect any compelling anecdotal evidence that baseball players make each other better, except possibly for a great pitcher who can pitch a lot of innings or in very tight situations and take the pressure off the rest of the staff-a guy like Curt Schilling or a young Mariano Rivera, for example.

How well a guy handles the pressure doesn't seem to change over time. So allow me to make some snap judgements on famous players.

Can they handle the pressure or can't they?

Here we go:

Brett Favre: Favre hold the record for MVP awards and won a Super Bowl early in his career. But the last few years he has put up some horrific playoff games. He's not winning another title with that team, but I'm not sure he would on any but the most stacked defensive squad.

Tom Brady: Just because he's the best doesn't make him infallible-don't forget that interception he threw in the end zone late in the Super Bowl against the Panthers. But his postseason record is perfect, and even though that can't last and he may never win another Super Bowl (nothing against him, I just appreciate that it's an incredibly hard thing to do), expect him to put up many more clutch performances.

Peyton Manning: The anti-Brady. King of the meaningless regular season statistics; lowly pauper in the playoffs-unless you think forty-nine touchdown passes while running up the score is some kind of impressive accomplishment. And his three playoff wins have come up against pathetic competition: two Broncos teams with serious issues and the 2003 Kansas City Chiefs, who practically begged you to score so they could get the ball back.

Michael Vick: Here's a man who is always a) oversimplified and b) called "electric". He's either the worst passer in the game, or the most amazing talent ever to grace it, instead of a more fair and true middle ground of both. He's won his first playoff game both years he's gone to the postseason, only to lose to the Eagles each time. As overrated as I think he sometimes is (come on, do announcers have to talk about him during games the Falcons aren't even a part of?), I am impressed with his win at Lambeau in the snow. And the Falcons have been competitive whenever he's started. I'll label him a winner for now.

Donovan McNabb: A bit of a tough one. He led his teams deep into the playoffs very early in his career. However, his innacuracy borders on comical, and his inability to notice time running out in the Super Bowl plants him firmly on solid choking ground.

Kevin Garnett: Another tough one. Puts up massive numbers every year, always takes responsibility, seems to be a nice, stand-up guy, and was stabbed in the back by selfish teammates last year). But it took him forever to win a playoff series (yes, his team was often the lower seed, but I say again: whose fault is that?), and he hasn't any memorable postseason efforts. I'd say he's more likely to tense up and misfire under pressure, but he's the one guy I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt.

Jason Kidd: Give me a break. Wins close playoff games against horrific Eastern conference teams with no backbone, then falls apart in the Finals faster than a political debate with Alex Sudreth. Sorry, but he chokes.

Tim Duncan: One relatively bad Finals can't undo years of performance. He'll come through in the future.

If you disagree or want my opinion on anyone else, go to the comments, of course. And I apologize for not having that Broncos/Rockies rundown last week, but a) I had a four-hour meeting Friday and was pretty much spent afterwards, and b) nothing particularly cool happened last week anyway.