Do Great Players Miss the Playoffs?

With Kevin Love being traded to the Cavaliers came a lot of talk about how good he actually is. Is Love an NBA superstar? A star? Or merely a really good player?

It's a topic that's been hashed and rehashed, so I don't want to get into it. But it did make me think: do great players miss the playoffs?

First, let's define what a great player is. The term is very subjective, so I need to decide on what makes a great player. The easiest way to do so is to look at All-Star selections and All-NBA selections. We can't just go by the All-Star selections because they're partially decided by fan votes.

So we're talking a great player. Not a hall of famer, or even a superstar. Just a great player who can carry his team. I think a good example is Kevin Garnett. Minnesota made the playoffs eight times in Garnett's twelve seasons there. During that stretch, he made the All-Star team ten times and made an All-NBA team eight times. Most of those seasons Garnett wasn't surrounded by the best talent.

Garnett's best teammates during his stretch in Minnesota? Tom Guggliota, Wally Szczerbiak, Stephon Marbury, Terrell Brandon, Sam Cassell, and Latrell Sprewell. Seriously, look at that list. It's more depressing than the February temperatures in Minneapolis. Those were the best players surrounding Garnett, and he still dragged them to the playoffs every year. In 03-04, when he caught in their primes Cassell and Sprewell, the T-Wolves made it to the Western Conference Finals.

That's what a great player does. He drags an average supporting cast to the playoffs. I don't care what they do once they get to the playoffs. That's a completely different animal. But getting your team to the playoffs requires consistent, tough-minded play, night in and night out. It's hard to do and only the best do it. Let's take a look at a few who were able to carry their teams.

Paul Pierce--The Truth didn't have a lot of great players around him until Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett showed up. The best teammate he had before 2008 was Antoine Walker. I'm not going to knock Employee Number Eight, who was a three-time all-star, but he's not exactly Scottie Pippen.

Pierce's Celtics made playoffs ten out of the fifteen years he was there. That's not bad. It's the sign of a player who carries his team. Tony Delk and Raef Lafrentz aren't doing much heavy lifting. Pierce averaged 21.3 points/6.7 rebounds/4 assists during the playoffs in Boston. I think it's safe to say he's a great player who carried his team to the playoffs most years.

Dirk Nowitzki--Dirk has had a better supporting cast around, even though he never had that true number two star. The best the Mavericks could manage was Jason Terry, which was enough to win a title in 2011. (You can't count Steve Nash, because he played for Dallas before he really peaked and became Steve Nash)

The Mavericks have made the playoffs thirteen out of sixteen years since Dirk arrived, getting the most out of lesser players because of all the attention paid to the Big German. Nowitzki averaged 22/8/2 throughout his career, and in the playoffs stepped it up with a line of 25/10/2.

Dallas has been very successful for a decade and a half, and Nowitzki is the reason. Great player, hardly ever missed the playoffs.

Pau Gasol--The Meal Ticket (Yes, that's his nickname. Or it was.) is a really good comparison to Kevin Love. They're both post players who started off their careers in a small market, had limited success, and were traded to championship contenders.

Gasol made the playoffs three years in Memphis, but he had much better teammates around him than Love has had in Minnesota. He wasn't exactly playing with all-stars, but Jason Williams, Shane Battier, Mike Miller, James Posey, and Bonzi Wells isn't a bad team. But if you look at those players, what you see is a bunch of gritty defenders and knockout shooters stationed around a big man who can consistently score in the paint.

Memphis got swept every year they made it to the postseason. Maybe with another star on the perimeter to compliment Gasol the Grizzlies could've gone farther, but that never materialized. Pau was traded to the Lakers and Memphis rebuilt around Marc Gasol, Mike Conley, and Zach Randolph.

So what about Kevin Love? He never made the playoffs in Minnesota. Was that his fault, or the team around him? After all, the three players above all missed the playoffs in their career, especially in the early stages of their careers.

The best teammates around Love so far? Ricky Rubio, who might be the worst shooter in league history. Al Jefferson, who promptly tore his ACL and was then traded. Michael Beasley? Luke Ridenour? That's the best the guy has played with his whole NBA career. If I were him, I'd be a walking storm cloud of negativity and hate. People have accused him of chasing stats. So what? What else is he supposed to do when it's negative ten degrees and Rubio is clanging another wide open three?

I'm not sure if Love is a legitimate star, or even a legitimate number two. But he's better than his time in Minnesota suggests. We'll finally get to see him play some meaningful NBA basketball. Maybe then we'll be able to make a better decision on where he stands.