BY Chance Weeks-Williams

Staff Reporter

Have you ever been in a heated sports debate about a certain player’s worth or skills, and the other person asks how many championships that player has? You are not alone.

Outside of individual sports like golf, and tennis, how can you blame or praise a single player for a win or a loss? The entire point of a team sport is to cohesively win a game or event.

Let’s take football for example, most people credit the Quarterback for wins or championships. QB’s like Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, and Aaron Rodgers will be the first to tell you that they didn’t do it by themselves. They don’t play defense or special teams; they can only control what happens on offense.

You’ll have a tough time trying to convince me that Trent Dilfer was a better Quarterback than Dan Marino because Dilfer was on the Raven’s Super Bowl winning team. That same 2000 Raven’s team had arguably one of the best defenses the NFL had ever seen.

Let’s take a look at Adam Morrison, who received two championship rings while he was a member of the LA Lakers. No one would put him in the same sentence as Dirk Nowitzki, even though Morrison has one more championship under his belt. They probably wouldn’t say that he’s a better player than Charles Barkley who was never on a championship team, even though he was heralded as one of the best ever.

Another example I’ve heard is the comparison of Michael Jordan and LeBron now. I don’t think King James is on the level of “His Airness” quite yet. The main argument is that LeBron doesn’t have as many NBA titles. After looking closely at his stats, Michael Smith of ESPN’s Numbers Never Lie showed that LeBron has achieved more at his current age than when Michael was at LeBron’s age.

Using that logic, NBA great, Bill Russell should be considered the all-time best player. He amassed 11 championships with the Boston Celtics during his 13 year career.

The Hall Of Fame in basketball, football, and baseball have plenty of players that don’t have rings. For example Charles Barkley, Reggie Miller, Patrick Ewing, Dominique Wilkins, Elgin Baylor,  John Stockton and Karl Malone are some of the more popular players.

Some analysts have prodded at the thought that it should be a requirement for a player to have won a championship before being elected to the Hall of Fame.

I don’t believe you should knock player’s chances at getting into the Hall of Fame, because the team they played on wasn’t the best in their respective sport.

The worth of a player cannot be calculated by jewelry, but by the numbers they put up. Numbers never lie.