To the extent that this is true, how many of them were drafted after Jordan's second (1998) retirement?
I think you may have misspelled Pierce, Garnett and Allen? And we should be okay with it, because this culture is a monster of our own creation: if we, as consumers, hadn't spent every day since Jordan retired telling these players that their careers are zero sum, without a ring, maybe they wouldn't feel the burden of winning a ring, no matter what?
So you say. I don't believe that, for a second. If anything, I believe, to the contrary, that they want to be part of a "superteam," just as much as those other guys, they just (a) don't want to go somewhere else to form a "superteam," and (b) want to be able to say that they were "the guy," no matter what. If Damian Lillard thought that he could get Giannis Antetokounmpo to come to Portland, and defer to him, he'd be trying to recruit him, right now. I think that Lillard totally wants to be on a "superteam," he just doesn't want to be thought of as the guy who had to "ring chase." If he could get people to come to him, he would. In my opinion, the only difference between a guy like Lillard and a guy like Harden is that Harden doesn't care if we think that he's "weak" or "soft," for going to "chase" a ring. Lillard is just as "weak" as Harden is, he just doesn't want us to think that.
Right. He accepted it. That's why he's still in Oklahoma City.
Yeah, you'll never convince me on the myth of the "strong personality" in sports, so I guess I'll have to do that thing I hate, and agree to disagree.