How hard is it to win a single-core championship in the NBA? Only four people in 77 years of history have done it, and James Curry has not counted them
Basketball is, of course, a team sport, and the legendary "1 against 5" is actually just an exaggeration, and perhaps occasionally there may be a shot of one person facing five people defending on the offensive end, but can one person defend five on the defensive end? If you want to win, you need the sincere cooperation of the team, and it is not just the credit of one person. Of course, a single core is also real, a team only builds tactics around one core player, and the rest of the players are supporting roles. There are also single-core teams in the NBA, but most of them are just ordinary teams, and it is very difficult to become a strong team or even win a championship. How hard is it to win a championship in the NBA? Only four people in 77 years have done it, not counting James in 2016 and Curry in 2002
Before 2011, Nowitzki, known as a soft egg by fans, was blacked out in the playoffs, and the 2-0 lead in the finals was overturned, but in this year, Novitzki's reputation was completely reversed. At that time, the Mavericks only had Nowitzki as a star, Kidd, Marion, and the others were all old, Terry was only a super six, and Chandler had not yet made it to the All-Star. But in the playoffs, the Mavericks swept the defending champion Lakers 4-0 and eliminated the Thunder, the Western Conference champion the following year, 4-1.
In the finals, in the face of the Heat, who outperformed him, Nowitzki's personal performance cooled down compared with the previous two series, but he never relented at the critical moment and completed the reversal of the Heat. He averaged 27.7 points and 8.1 rebounds per game throughout the playoffs, compared to Terry, who was second on the team, with only 17.5 points. The Mavericks were able to win the championship completely by relying on Nowitzki's supergod all the way, defeating Kobe, Durant, James, Wade and other opponents, and the gold content is too high
In the early years of the 21st century, it can be said that Duncan's teammates were the weakest, the Spurs did not have too high draft picks because of their good perennial records, Robinson was getting old, and Parker and Ginobili had not yet grown. But Duncan still completed the feat of two consecutive MVPs, while personally ending the Lakers' three-game winning streak in 2003. In the finals, with an explosive performance of 24.2 points, 17 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 1 steal and 5.3 blocks per game, he led the team to defeat the Nets and win the championship, ranking first among the two teams in terms of points, rebounds, and block triple-doubles, and far ahead of others. Parker, the Spurs' second-leading scorer, scored 10.2 fewer points than Duncan. In the series that beat the Lakers, Duncan averaged 28 points, 11.8 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game, single-handedly fighting against the OK combination at its peak.
In 1998, Jordan was 35 years old, and the Bulls at that time were also at the end of their power, Pippen was dissatisfied with the management and had injuries, Zen masters had contradictions, and teams such as Jazz and Pacers were on the rise. In this case, Jordan still played a full 82 games and won the scoring title and MVP strongly. In the playoffs, beating the Pacers was arguably Jordan's biggest obstacle in the 90s, with the two teams fighting a tie-break to determine the winner, and the Bulls only won by five points at that time. Against the Jazz in the finals, Jordan showed the strength to completely overshadow others, averaging 33.5 points per game, nearly 18 points more than Pippen, and completely single-handedly maintaining the Bulls' offense. With one defense and one attack at the last moment of G6, Jordan also successfully won the game and the championship. Throughout the '98 playoffs, Jordan scored 32.8 points and Pippen 16.8.
How strong was Olajuwon in '94? Maybe Jordan has to pinch a cold sweat when he comes. He has already won the MVP and double-team in the regular season, and has won the playoffs against the three major interior players of Malone, Barkley and Ewing. Especially in the finals, he suppressed Ewing to only 36.3% of the shooting rate, which is not an exaggeration to say that it was a complete explosion. Throughout the playoffs, he averaged 28.9 points, 11 rebounds, 4.3 assists, 1.7 steals and 4 blocks per game, explaining what it means to integrate offense and defense, and the five statistics were the highest in the team. The team's second-highest scoring score was only 13.8 points, a huge margin.