Oh well, I’m betting he wouldn’t have gathered too many votes.

Most people around here are aware of my lack of interest in Ron Artest. So I’m going to say this. Kevin Martin’s value has sky-rocketed in part because of in-efficient offensive players like Mike Bibby and Ron Artest. If they weren’t such a high-risk/high reward type of offensive players, Martin’s super-efficiency would not be such a strong high mark of his game up to this point of his career.

If you have ever looked at the guys who took the most shots on the 50’s/60’s Celtics, it certainly wasn’t Bill Russell.. It was John Havlicek, Bob Cousy, Tommy Heinsohn, Bill Sharman and guys like that. Heinsohn was a typical shot-jacker as that’s what he did. Sharman was a shooter, and shooters have to take shots to shoot. On the 56-57 Celtics who had the highest FG%? Bill Russell @ 42%. Havlicek also took a ton of shots, but was more efficient (keep in mind 45% for the Celtics in those years was an astronomical shooting%), and came along in the middle of the Russell dynasty too, and was a far better overall player than anybody on the C’s other than Cousy or Russell. A thought out argument about Cousy or Heinsohn’s total value to the Celtic’s during their playing years would be an intriguing debate. (I don’t think Tommy’s entry in the Hall of Fame as a player is merited. As a coach he is deserving, very well deserving, and perhaps the most under-rated coach of all time, but as a player he is probably a bit overrated. The fact he’s in as a player says alot about how stupid, and political, things can be when held in contrast to actual reality. Heinsohn is in as a player, and isn’t as a coach.)

What’s my point? Winning is winning, and their isn’t a perfect formula. What worked for the Bulls in the 90’s, with Jordan and Pippen, worked because of their personnel. You can talk all you want about Jordan, but without Pippen, Grant, Rodman, and all those other guys Jordan would be ringless. That’s the way it goes in the Association. What usually doesn’t work well, and I caution this in the Beasley/Rose debate as well, is using a compare/contrast exercise with past successful teams, and the building of future teams. It only works with a conceptual idea of what you might see in the team. The perfect example of this phenomenon is the Odom/Bryant pairing. How many times were they compared to a poor man’s version of Pippen/Jordan? Too many times, and way too many times. The comparison didn’t fall short on Kobe’s end, but it fell way short on the Odom/Pippen end. That’s why I think all of this is as much about fit as anything. Pippen’s/Jordan’s game fit perfectly together, and that’s the real successful aspect. Both impacted games in their own successful ways. (Too many people forget the Bulls in the 94 season could have made the NBA Finals in 1994.) That’s why I think the Alpha Dog point, while useful in some ways, is a moot point. The greater question is why, if Artest is such a valuable player, that the Kings weren’t able to win more consistently with such a valuable talent on the team?