
@ all this talk about "leaders" and other nonsensical intangibles. You know when athletes legit get to be called leaders? When all that "leadership" pays off with championship trophies & rings. Some people like to sh!t on championships & think it's all about the paycheck, but for the high-profile, front line players, those rings cement how you're remembered, and can dramatically alter your narrative in a very positive direction.
Who talks about the legendary leadership skills of Jordan, Magic, Jeter, Messier, & Lott without all of those men owning a hand full of rings (even 1 ring can legitimize talk of you being a leader). They'd still be great players, but that's it.
No one mentions Stockton or Malone as leaders, there's no stories of Dan Marino's awesome ability to lead, sometimes I wonder if Don Mattingly's Yankees career was a figment of my imagination and he was their captain for over a decade. The guy who succeeded him will never fade into obscurity just based on how much we'll hear about Jeter's intangibles virtually forever. The main difference being one has accumulated jewelry over his career while the other accumulated Gold Gloves with minimal team success.
Until you're hoisting that trophy with the battle scars to show for it, you simply haven't led a damn thing, regardless of how fair or unfair that assessment may be. Let KD & Sabo do their thing and take it from there, because if that team underachieves under the tenure of that duo, not one person will be debating a damn thing about who "lead" them to nowhere.