That never even occurred to me. I just see Steve Nash with MVPs and I wonder what the regular season means. Finals MVPs is where its always been at. If Pippen had won Finals MVP or a couple, he'd be perceived differently. People would be able to say "Pippen was more of a factor than Jordan in a couple of those NBA Finals). Instead, Jordan won all 6 Finals MVPs, and therefore gets most of the credit (as he should).
First of all this is ridiculous. Even if Pippen split those NBA Finals MVPs with Jordan 3 and 3 and all their other stats stayed the same. Nobody would be comparing the two. Jordan is not the greatest of all time because he has just that, he also has 5 regular season MVPs, scoring records, was phenomenally efficient (see his PER), played really good defense for a 2 guard, could also run an okay 1 guard game and just created so many shots from situations where he shouldn't have had one. Jordan was great because if you watch basketball you just see it. Jordan won his rings after his best years arguably. However even before he won his rings people knew Jordan was one of the greatest.
Jordan doesn't have the most rings, but people consider him the greatest because of the way he played the game. It's a team sport, it's very dependent on a team. Hell Jordan had a season as a 2 guard where he shot over 50% from the field, pulled down 8 boards a game, dished out 8 assists and average over 30 points. In the 2 guard spot for most of those minutes, that's insane.
Steve Nash is arguable one of the best men to ever play the 1 guard in basketball with or without a ring. I'd say Stockton is the best man to run the point and he never wound up with a ring. We can argue the Johnson vs. Stockton debate, but Stockton in terms of the role of a point guard, was by far the best in the business. He would shut down the guard he faced with tight d and steals and would make those plays. He never won the NBA championship, why because of Jordan and the super great bulls team.
My point, there are a ****ton of teams that compete for team titles, but the players on them can be amazing. The Czech have won two straight davis cups, but going into both finals they caught huge breaks. Nadal's injury and the Serb injury + testing issues helped them huge. And hell it is what it is, but Federer's greatness is not affected by Davis Cup in my opinion. It would be different if the swiss were giving it all and losing in finals, but frankly it's a clear lack of motivation from Fed now to play Davis Cup that is preventing him from even standing a chance. He showed up in his peak and nobody else was around. He doesn't value it that much. In individual sports you can get away with that and Davis Cup isn't the same as it was anymore. In the 30s it was huge, nowadays the average tennis fan/sports fan won't know much about it or care. Hell I couldn't even tell you what countries each finalist beat to get there. It's not like the World Cup, it's not the NBA Playoffs etc. Tennis has the majors. Davis Cup is a nice boost, but frankly I doubt it's any tennis players top priority. As I'm damn ****ing sure Berdych would trade Fed a Davis Cup for a Wimbledon in a heartbeat.
tl;dr Davis Cup don't mean **** in my eyes. Blast me as a ******* idgaf. On the real though how the hell has France not won a single damn Davis Cup in the past few years with their ****.
