MUCH has been said about superstars not being good enough superstars, based on failing to win a championship.
The impression is logical and fair – what else do we expect superstars to become, but champions?
What flies under the radar, I guess, is how they become a champion. Many superstars fail to recognize the one important perk of their elite status: the chance to win the Larry O’Brien trophy even when they are past their prime.
But only if the superstar is willing to excel again, but in a different capacity: as a role player.
This explains, I think, why many super teams loaded with superstars past their prime fail to win together. I always think about Karl Malone and the loaded Los Angeles Lakers (2003-04), and how I fear it will be the same way for the Chicago Bulls in this DeMar DeRozan-Zach Lavine era.
For basketball fans, and the overly optimistic, it is easy to look at a team loaded with superstars and predict an automatic trophy by the season’s end.
But time and time again, many superstar teams defied the expectations of fans and front office, to become another entry to the many and growing lists of NBA super teams that didn’t win a championship.
Why? Because a champion team needs superstars to play as superstars, and its role players to play as super role players.
Michael Jordan played as a superstar in Chicago, and his teammates were top-notch role players, something another superstar – Steph Curry – was blessed to have in his numerous Finals trips.
Having ascended the mountain, it is now easy for superstars to ride into the sunset.
But for those still chasing it with slower legs, it would mean joining a contender and accepting what they think is a demotion, being relegated as a role player.
Playing begrudgingly is just one problem. It’s also a burden to the team if an ex-superstar fails to transition, or if he was terrible at it, or if he sees it as an unwelcoming prospect. The role player cadre is an elite group in itself: reserved for the young and agile, for those who can still run, jump, and hustle with the best out there.
Most important of all is this — the role player is a mindset. It becomes an instinct to which you answer to.
I’d like to believe that it can be done – transition from the superstar of your heydays to an effective role player once your skill and the opportunities given to you to lead a team as the alpha dog have both diminished.
Doable. But difficult.
Not only do you need to unlearn your old habits and learn a new approach to playing, but more importantly, you have to swallow your pride and spit subservience to a system (and to younger superstars) both of which are now bigger than you.
You have to take pride in becoming the errand boy and embrace the yeoman’s yoke. And it is difficult for someone who has already started to feel the steady and daily visitation of stiffness and aches.
For old superstars are old. Their ways and tendencies are set. They might try to play as a role player, but they will always gravitate towards doing what they’ve been doing for years, thinking they are still as effective, and avoiding the truth that it is not like that now.
Karl Malone was a great superstar in his prime. But he was far from great – either as a superstar or as a role player – when he wore the purple and gold in LA.
LaMarcus Aldridge was a great superstar. Tall with a smooth midrange. He would’ve been a great role player in San Antonio if he focused on anchoring the interior defense, but that version of him never materialized.
And why, all of a sudden, are the Clippers doing well despite predictions of implosion because they are loaded with ball-heavy superstars that will render futile all efforts to play team ball?
Two things: first, Russell Westbrook has embraced his reality. He is a role player now. And it seems like he is taking on this challenge with the same MVP fervor.
The other reason is James Harden.
What would happen next to the Clippers when Harden joined the team was an unpredictable coin toss. In his I-want-out mode, Harden is not just useless, but toxic.
But when he is all in, he is good and he can make the team better. And he does that not by scoring. His ability as a point guard orchestrating the offense is often eclipsed by his scoring. We’ve associated Harden with iso offense and and-one field goals that we overlooked his passing game.
Harden and Westbrook and those who are now on this path have discovered there is life after superstardom, and that’s becoming a superstar role player. It could be just as rewarding if it gives you one, two, or three more years to chase – and win – that one elusive championship.
And by the grace of the basketball gods, we’ll have more kids aspiring to be role players and fewer superstar wannabes, who are already conceited very early in their basketball life.