If you consider yourself a sports fan, you have probably made the joke, heard the joke, shared the joke or done something else to further badger the point.
Foot Locker even released a commercial starring Portland Trail Blazers point guard Damian Lillard and several notable retired athletes making the joke.
The punchline continues throughout the entire piece: An athlete cannot have a legendary legacy without a championship ring.
Even though we constantly see memes cracking on players such as Melo and Durant, this is not a recent trend.
People said the same thing about Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James until they finally won one, or several in the case of those three.
Scoring titles, MVP awards, All-Star appearances and all-time records suddenly look like minuscule achievements in comparison.
To a degree, they are.
Still, I do not think we can base someone’s entire legacy on the ability to win the big one.
I am a former athlete, and in the words of former football coach Herm Edwards, “You play to win the game. Hello!”
By no means am I saying it is not a big deal when a player never wins a championship ring.
I am saying we should consider a few other perspectives.
The Era
Let’s be completely honest.
In the NBA, the ’80s belonged to Dr. J, Bird and Magic. The ’90s belonged to the Bad Boys, Jordan and Hakeem.
The 2000s gave us Kobe and Shaq, Tim Duncan and the Celtics.
Unless you have been living under a rock, you have probably noticed that the current decade belongs to LeBron, Bosh and Wade.
What often goes unnoticed are the teams and players who routinely get close without winning.
Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Reggie Miller and plenty of others at least reached the biggest stage. Most players considered great gave themselves a chance to win it all at least once.
The problem comes when they peak during the same era as one of the sport’s defining teams or players.
Their work begins to pale in comparison because of the competition they face night after night.
They may have accomplished nearly everything possible, yet the pillars of that era still stand between them and a championship ring.
The Supporting Cast
Every Jordan of his era had a Steve Kerr or Ron Harper.
Those players bought into the system. Most would never enter the Hall of Fame, but they were willing to play the background and help the team win.
The problem is that some great players never have enough healthy, dependable players around them to make a championship run.
Injuries are part of the game.
Even when a team has its full supporting cast, a star cannot always rely on those players to close the deal. That is not necessarily an indictment of the star.
Sometimes these things just happen.
A classic example is Nick Anderson of the Orlando Magic missing crucial free throws during the 1995 NBA Finals.
Those misses helped Houston win the game, changed the momentum of the series and preceded a sweep.
Does that moment ruin Penny Hardaway’s legacy?
Before injuries altered his career, Penny appeared to be on his way toward becoming a Hall of Fame player.
A championship would place many players into serious Hall of Fame consideration, especially when paired with strong individual achievements.
However, no matter how well a star performs, parts of the outcome remain beyond his control.
The Leadership
A coach must adapt to the players he has.
That ability helped make Phil Jackson such a successful coach.
He adjusted his approach from Jordan and Pippen to Jordan, Pippen and Rodman. Later, he adapted again for Kobe and Shaq, then for Kobe without Shaq.
A coach who places players in the best situations to succeed is an underrated part of any championship run.
I notice it more as I continue watching the game.
The league has plenty of great players. However, teams suffer when coaches do not know how to use those players to their full potential.
Great coaching, along with the addition of Al Jefferson, helped move the Charlotte Bobcats from one of the league’s laughingstocks into the playoffs.
Granted, the presumed eventual champions swept them. Still, reaching the playoffs represented a step in the right direction.
Players can only control so much. They do not determine substitutions or manage rotations.
Leadership clearly affects how great a player can become and how much success a team can achieve.
Consider Ray Allen.
He was the man in Milwaukee and Seattle. Then Boston placed him alongside two other future Hall of Famers, one of the era’s most underrated point guards and a Hall of Fame coach.
That combination produced two NBA Finals appearances and one championship.
A Ring Changes a Legacy, but It Does Not Create One
I offer these perspectives as another season draws to a close.
Every day, I hear people say Durant cannot win the big one.
That baffles me because he is 25.
He has already reached the NBA Finals, and his best basketball may not have surfaced yet.
That is scary to consider.
I know none of this will stop many of you from cracking jokes.
Just understand the full argument.
Failing to win a championship does not automatically diminish everything a player accomplished.
Winning one does place that player into a more exclusive category.
A champion should take pride in that achievement because championships are difficult, rare and worth celebrating.
But the ring is the icing on the cake of an individual career. It is not the entire cake.
What do you think? Does a player need a championship ring to be considered great?
About the contributor: Bryan Narcisse was inducted into the North Augusta High School Hall of Fame in 2008 for his achievements in academics and athletics. A two-sport all-state athlete in basketball and track, he won a state championship in the high jump and earned a full athletic scholarship to Clemson University. After college, he played for the Harlem Globetrotters. He now serves as an area representative for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in Aiken County.