Do team championships equal individual greatness in team sports?

NBA All-Star Karl Malone recently announced his retirement from professional basketball. Though universally hailed by columnists, sports talk radio hosts and fans alike, all kept dredging up the fact that Malone, despite three trips to the NBA Finals, never won an NBA Championship.

So what? Why is that relevant?

Individual greatness in team sports should not be dependant on whether or not a player won a championship. I could list a number of great players in the NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB that never won championships (Karl Malone, Dan Marino, Ted Williams...) but I shouldn't have to. A lot of factors explain why certain players didn't win a championship: Teammates, injuries, caliber of opponents, etc. In Malone's case, he arguably had the teammates (John Stockton and Jeff Hornacek though you could a better center could have pushed the Jazz over the top) and Malone never suffered a serious injury as a member of the Jazz (his key teammate, John Stockton, never suffered a serious injury, either). But what Malone and the Jazz did have was Michael Jordan and the Bulls. The level of competition was as high as it gets. The Bulls were a juggernaut that, unfortunately, the Jazz had to face twice in the NBA Finals. And while many people feel that Malone and the Lakers should have won the NBA Title in 2004, it certainly wasn't Malone's fault they didn't. Malone tried playing through a serious injury but, in the end, the injury limited Malone's ability to help his teammates substantially and Detroit pulled off the rare major NBA Finals upset (something that only has happened twice in the last forty-five years).

In nearly two decades of playing professional basketball, Malone did everything he could do to win a title. No one worked harder. Few, if any, power forwards in NBA history have been better (only Elvin Hayes, Kevin McHale and Tim Duncan can be ranked near Malone among power forwards). Yet some will still cite Malone's poor fourth-quarter play in the playoffs as a big reason why Malone didn't win a title. And I will concede that point. However, not every great player is a Michael Jordan or a Magic Johnson when it comes to clutch play. And, as I pointed out earlier, there are many reasons why great players don't win championships. The absence of an NBA Title on Malone's resume should have nothing to do with how great he should be considered.