What's more important? Team Chemistry or Raw Talent

Chemistry. Talent wins games, not championships.

 

Chemistry wins out IMO. Chemsitry plus talent gives you teams like the Lakers, Cavs and Magic while talent alone is Denver and Dallas. Chemistry by itself can carry a long way to just look at the Jazz, they have talent but are very injured and almost took game 1 today.

 

You need both, our olympic teams showed just having superior players doesn't win you games, you will lose if you don't play together. And teams without talent have no chance.

You need talent to win.

You need chemistry to win big.

 

so the answer to the OP's question is chemistry

 

enough talent at the NBA level will win out, I would not say the Lakers had much chemistry last season or this season, but they were the most talented team. CHemistry is important, but it can only take you so far without talent.

 

I think it's chemistry, biggest example is the Nuggets, they had enough talents to compete against the Lakers, but instead they lost against the jazz because of their egos and they didn't have chemistry.

 

The three stooges have great chemistry but Larry, Moe, and Curly are not going to win you any games.

You get talent first. And then you plug and chug to build chemistry.

Lottery picks are spent on talent. Late picks are usually spent on role players and fillers to complete the team and build chemistry.

 

You don't want to be 100% either way. If you look at some of the dream teams, they should've won the gold medal in the Olympics but didn't, due to chemistry and the like.

OTOH, having great chemistry and no talent is also useless. There are always college teams with better chemistry than NBA teams, but none of them would win in the NBA.

A better question is, which is better, 80% talent, 20% chemistry, or vice versa?

At first glance, I'd rather have 80/20 talent/chemistry than the other way around. OTOH, there have been many teams with 3 stars that sucked. The latest one to come to mind is the Wizards, with Jamison, Butler, Arenas. I always remember the Warriors' Run-TMC trio (Hardaway, Mullins, Richmond). And, there was our own Olajuwon/Barkley/Pippen. The Dallas Mavericks always have several stars, and they never win anything.

Oh, let's remember Shaq/Penny Hardaway/Horace Grant. Who was it that beat them in the Finals, the only time they made it?

I think, what's missing here is balance. It is better to have the talent, provided that you have balance. If you have 2 superstars and 3 losers, you're going to suck. To win in the playoffs, your 7th, maybe 8th man need to be pretty decent players.

To summarize my long-windedness, I'd rather have 80% balanced talent, 20% chemistry, versus the other way around.

 

Yeah, for 22 games, the Rockets were the greatest team in history. Or was that the year before?

 

Eh... the question isn't really well defined. Say the team has all the chemistry in the world... if they a bunch of high school players it doesn't mean anything. And on the same end with talent, obviously you can have all the talent in the world and still lose.

The people that answered chemistry, you are probably imagining a team with at least SOME talent (like the Rockets last year). So it goes to show that this team with all the talent in the world, they should also have SOME chemistry.

 

A high school team with 100% chemistry would lose to a team of 5 random NBA players who have never played together before.

Thus, talent > chemistry

 

But again, the 5 with talent you are presupposing some kind of chemistry. You would think the worst case scenario with chemistry you have a team that doesn't want to pass the ball to each other and just goes one on one with whoever is on them, and the other 4 people don't give him room and all stand around him waiting for the ball. Then on defense they don't rotate to cover doubles or anything like that.

I would imagine highschoolers could beat a talented team with that little chemistry.

Exactly what I"m talking about why this question isn't very well defined.

 

You think everyone gets along on the Lakers? Does it matter? Did it matter when Shaq and Kobe were winning championships? Obviously not.

 

Mike Tyson could beat up an old man.

Thus, younger men > older men.

Flawed logic.

You need talent to some extent, but chemistry is everything. Just look at how the Pistons became worse every year.

They didn't re-sign Ben Wallace. They still won 50+ games, but they were not the couldn't contend anymore. The GM thought Maxiell could replace Wallace, but he was wrong. They traded Billups for Iverson and became even worse. They signed CV, and Ben Gordon along with drafting Stuckey and Bynum, while only losing Rasheed Wallance, yet somehow managed to get even worse.

Talent is important, but it depends on how you assemble that talent. Chemistry either develops or it doesn't over time.

 

You're disproving your own point.

Losing Wallace led to a reduction in talent that resulted in chemistry problem.

 

I do like them hot Cheetos fo sho. Plus if the Rockets have 6 LerBons I'd piss my pants and Les would be way over the cap

Chemistry vs raw talent? I take chemistry because then the team would be more fun to watch.

 

IMO

70% talent - as in how good your players are, this includes how well coaches develop talents
15% coaching - as in how well the coach fits everyone together
10% fit - as in how well the players fit with each other(talent spread out and not contradict each other's strengths)
5% chemistry - as in how well the players "like" each other

 

Every team in the NBA has talent, not every one has chemistry.

DD

 

I agree with your answer.

IMO it comes down to what stage your team is at. A team like the thunder/warriors, young team, they talent is probably more important. They need the talent to work with to build chemistry.

Chemistry to me has a degree of age and experience in it. For example, the Thunder, previously their main aim is to gather talent to build around, and now once having the talent, their aim would be to build chemisty.

I feel both are equally important, just one has priority over the other at different stages of the building phase for a team.