and this is why the term "on paper" was created. "On paper" we were supposed to be dominant but then reality set in. We were injury plagued (Pau and Steve both missed 25+ games) and struggled trying to adapt to new about 3 different systems mid-season. Your better than this. You cant use an "on paper" roster to to gauge how a team's season went, youre only as good as you play. Had we made the playoffs as a 1 seed and lost to an 8 seed with this roster THEN you could try and make that argument. But the team never meshed, was injured, and had to switch systems pretty often.
Those are fair points. But you're comparing him to Duncan and there's no "buts" there. He was a rock whatever the situation.
He won with another GOAT big man and the worse backcourt to ever win a title playing totally through the front court (1999).
He won as the sole superstar and a bunch of role players (2003).
He won meshing seamlessly with two other star players and no disputes about ball-sharing arising (2005, 2007).
He deferred to Tony Parker in the finals because of matchup reasons even though he was still the best player and leading scorer.
He started off winning on grind-it-out defensive teams. And now he's back in the finals as the
#2 option on a team that pushes the ball and plays up tempo pick-n-roll.
No matter what team you want to build, you just insert the GOAT and
