An article Originally posted by sbb30 on a "man up" topic, it was buried and may have been posted before, but deserves it's own thread. Check the date...replace Allen Iverson with Stephon Marbury and ...

http://www.slate.com/id/87690

There's No "I" in "Coach," Either
By Malcolm Gladwell
Posted Monday, Aug. 7, 2000, at 9:30 PM ET

The Philadelphia 76ers recently made an abortive attempt to trade Allen Iverson. Under the terms of a complicated 10-player, three-team deal, they would have given up Toni Kukoc, Matt Geiger, and Iverson and received, in return, Glen Rice, Jerome Williams, and Eddie Jones. The deal, of course, never happened. Jones went to the Miami Heat instead. And it's a good thing too, because for Philadelphia it would have been a terrible trade. In exchange for one of the most exciting players in the game and Kukoc, a superb playmaker, they would have gotten an all-star (Jones), a journeyman (Williams), and an aging gunner (Rice), who, by all accounts, studied defense at the George Gervin Institute of Waving Goodbye. But the team made an argument for the deal that is worth exploring in some detail. Iverson, it seems, wasn't getting along with the Sixers' coach, Larry Brown, and in the case of an irreconcilable conflict between the star and the coach, the Sixers maintained that the coach had to win. This, in the world of pro sports, is what passes for the moral high ground. Philadelphia would not be pushed around by a petulant, pampered star. One player could not be allowed to damage the integrity of the franchise. There is no "I" in team—etc., etc., etc. Were the Sixers right?

Let's start by asking a general question: Is a coach ever worth more to a basketball team than a star player is worth? In cases where the coach is mediocre, the answer is easy. Gregg Popovich is not worth more to the Spurs than Tim Duncan is. Even in the case of great coaches, any comparison usually ends up on the side of the player. Who was worth more in Chicago—Phil Jackson or Michael Jordan? Clearly Jordan, because without Jordan there is no myth of Jackson the great coach. Jackson in Los Angeles is a tougher call, but to say that Jackson was the last piece of the championship puzzle for the Lakers is not to say that he was the most important piece. In football, by contrast, it clearly is the case that a great coach is worth more than even the greatest player. Bill Parcells was more important to the Giants than Lawrence Taylor was. So too for Joe Gibbs. He won three Super Bowls with three different but equally uninspiring quarterbacks. (First Joe Theismann; then Doug Williams, of whom it was once said, legitimately, that he was the only man who could overthrow the ayatollah; and finally Mark Rypien, who was as mobile as a goal post.) But basketball is not football. Great football coaches create winning cultures and systems. Great basketball coaches call plays that no one follows.

My only problem is that I find it amazing that people compare our situations to any other team. The aura here is killing us. Our organization is killing us. We can't be worried about star players because we don't have any. We need to change the philosophy here first, bring in winning players even if they are past their prime, change the culture AND THEN we can worry about stars and what our final record is. With our culture we could bring in Tim Duncan and he would be useless here.

there's no "I" in Mebury, but there is one in Iverson... things that make you go "hmmm"

the key is, Iverson was once considered a spoiled malcontent diva, hence philly wanting to dump him...the moral of the story is, they kept both brown and iverson and they went to the finals.

the moral of the story is that Iverson's a HOF talent, & none of the players on the Knicks come even close... you can work around alot of malcontent if you bring it every night w/eye popping production like AI does... Mebury doesn't compare, nor do any of the other spoiled malcontents on this roster.

Posted by TMS:

the moral of the story is that Iverson's a HOF talent, & none of the players on the Knicks come even close... you can work around alot of malcontent if you bring it every night w/eye popping production like AI does... Mebury doesn't compare, nor do any of the other spoiled malcontents on this roster.

Okay so there were two morals

Posted by rvhoss:

see? dont blame it all on me... and Isles didnt even respond to this one

It's Fish's fault

come on fatty, did you have to call me an idiot?