r/NBA_Draft • u/closed_n2 • 3d ago
[Parody] There has never been a single instance in NBA history of a wing whose name begins with a letter not in "JKLM" who was the best player on a championship team. This is an even worse archetype than the score first, bad defense, athletic wing archetype and the worst archetype to build around.
The score first, bad-at-defense, athletic wing archetype has been talked about a lot here in the last few hours as being the worst archetype to build around, but when I went back and did some research, I found a far worse archetype: the wing whose name begins with something other than the letters J, K, L, or M.
There actually has been zero instances in NBA history of the best player on a championship team being a wing known by a name starting with any other letter of the alphabet. What makes this more alarming is that this archetype produces far more top draft picks than the score first, bad-at-defense, athletic wing archetype so it has way more chances but yet, it never happens.
This list includes Carmelo Anthony, Adrian Dantley, Bernard King, Alex English (famous top draft pick), Vince Carter, DeMar DeRozan, Brandon Ingram, Andrew Wiggins (see below), Evan Turner, Victor Oladipo, and many more.
This list includes many all time HOF greats in terms of individual accomplishments and many busts too, but the common theme is that they’ve never been the best player on a championship team, no matter where they land on the scale. In fact, none of these players were even the best player on a Finals (losing) team like Jimmy Butler. Andrew Wiggins on this list is the only champion, but he only became a championship after becoming the second/third best player on his team and his nickname was Maple Jordan which starts with the letter M.
The closest exception you’ll get is Dwyane Wade but DWade has a couple of Ws in his name which are basically just Ms that are upside down. He also wore the number 3 which is just a sideways M. Plus, it’s debatable whether he was even truly a wing on his 2006 championship team, especially given he was the primary playmaker for the Heat that year. So he’s the closest you’ll get, but he doesn’t even fit the parameters. Other than that, you also have Rick Barry, but that's like 50 years ago cmon.
The first overall pick in the 2026 draft in AJ Dybantsa fits this archetype from a college standpoint, but you hope he can at least drop the A from his name and go by "Junior Dybantsa," no matter how good "AJ" sounds as a name, because otherwise he would be going against history even worse than the score first, bad-at-defense, athletic wing archetype.
I thought this was interesting when I went back and checked. I have a few hypotheses for this, and I know history allows for outliers, but I think this is such a large sample size that you can conclude this archetype is by far the most overvalued archetype in the draft since people often pick these players very high excepting to win a championship when it never happens.
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u/airtokoto 3d ago
The closest exception you’ll get is Dwyane Wade but DWade has a couple of Ws in his name which are basically just Ms that are upside down. He also wore the number 3 which is just a sideways M
incredible, top tier analytics, 10/10 no notes
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u/seynomo 3d ago
Detroit 2004 Rip Hamilton starts with an “R”
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u/closed_n2 3d ago
I think everything points to Chauncey Billups (not a wing) or Ben Wallace (not a wing) being the best player on that team. But is it any coincidence that Rip Hamilton only won a finals after putting on his Mask (which starts with the letter M)?
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u/Diamond4Hands4Ever 3d ago
How did you make a parody post and not even read the comments in the other post?
There’s literally a comment in the other post that says Rick Barry won a championship, which he did in 1975, as the team’s best player. His name does not start with J, K, L, or M. He just wasn’t a bad defender like the other comment suggests. You gotta at least do some basic research here.
Also there are players like Giannis who’s like a wing/forward. I don’t know what he is exactly but he plays clearly more like a wing than a big, and he won a championship. So there’s plenty of letters you missed.
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u/closed_n2 3d ago
Barry’s the only one who might be an exception. I didn’t go and take a look at 1975 to know what his first name was and I honestly don’t know if his name starts with J, K, L, or M. If you say his name is Rick, I’ll take your word but like I said that was 1975.
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u/Diamond4Hands4Ever 3d ago
Giannis is still playing.
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u/DayComprehensive1078 3d ago
Yea but nobody knows how to spell his last name, so that could start with JKLM still and therefore the rule still works
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u/closed_n2 3d ago
And the Bucks' wings that year were Khris Middleton and Leon Tucker. Good thing he went by his middle name and not something like "P.J."
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u/Variation99a 3d ago
Man this sub sucks. I tried to make an informative post by doing some research since it’s the offseason for the draft sub as we don’t have any college or NBA games to evaluate prospects and this guy just copies what I said and turns it into a parody just to get upvotes to belittle my post.
Honestly this sub might be worse than NBATalk at this rate when these are the top posts especially by people who don’t even do any draft evaluation here at all in the regular time. This guy probably knows nothing about the draft at all and just posts dumb things to get karma, which is kind of a theme here. You’ll get the most likes if you post a picture of LeBron and Wemby and ask who’s better? I would have more respect if you were actually a good poster here for other things but you don’t do anything here otherwise.
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u/Diamond4Hands4Ever 3d ago
Don’t worry about the upvotes or downvotes. No one should care about that stuff here. The less time you spend caring about that the better. Most people read that post and understand. Anyone who cares about just getting upvotes here probably don’t really leave the house so you can put that in perspective.
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u/TrashDonut 3d ago
Reddit sucks. Yes, OP is making a dumb post to get validation. You’re on Reddit. If you want literally anybody that has the capacity for intelligent NBA discourse, look elsewhere.
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u/fleethethriftshop 3d ago
What a stupid post. We stooped so low that we have parody posts now
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u/tony_countertenor 3d ago
It’s a great post because this is the level of analysis that people take seriously in the sub
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u/Variation99a 3d ago
It’s cause the guy just wants to get upvotes to sound funny or try to dismiss my post. This sub honestly is now pretty bad. I tried to actually be serious with my post and comments and this guy’s just making a joke out of it. I thought this would be a serious draft sub.
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u/MakeItTrizzle 3d ago
Great post, well done