As someone who spends most of his free time on sports and the arts, I've long believed creativity to be an underrated element of athletic greatness. But I think it's important to understand what we mean by that term.
You mentioned Blake Griffin and his spectacular dunks. I would argue that, while he is a walking highlight real and a franchise or near-franchise player, Griffin is not an especially creative player (Jay Caspian Kang apparently agrees with me). He only has a few post moves, and he relies far too much on his raw physical talents. Even his dunks, while extraordinary in their explosiveness, are not especially creative (JaVale McGee did far more interesting things in the dunk contest last year, but lost anyway -- because, you know, he's not a spokesperson for the event's sponsor).
If you really want to think about the importance of creativity, I'd point you away from Griffin and towards a far less highlight-worthy player: Jeremy Lin.
As a New York ex-pat, it's been shocking to watch how the Giants' incredible Super Bowl victory has almost immediately been overshadowed by the suddenly brilliant play of Lin, the Knicks' Taiwanese-American point guard, recently of Harvard by way of the D-League. Lin is, by his own admission, not especially gifted physically. Unlike Blake Griffin, he can't score 20+ points in a game though sheer athleticism. Instead, Lin has to find creative ways to attack the basket: stutter steps, off-tempo dribbles, moving off screens and away from the ball. He's like a dead-broke and homeless man's Chris Paul. It's been a pleasure to watch, and I hope it continues.
Of couse, that's not to say that Lin is, or ever will be, a franchise player: the odds of that happening are still pretty damn long. The dude has played three good games. Let's see what happens when it's March, and the Knicks are fighting to hold onto the eighth seed, and they're playing on the road in Boston, and Lin is being guarded by Rondo and defense stopper Avery Bradley while the home crowd yells racial slurs at him and Melo refuses to pass the ball because he wants to take contested 35-footers. That'll be the test. But even if he never becomes more than a flash in the pan, Lin has already proven himself to be an exceedingly creative player -- and, at least for now, it's allowed him to lift his game above and beyond his physical shortcomings.
All this is just to say that creativity and franchise-ness must be separated out. Monta Ellis is one the most creative scorers we have today -- but I completely disagree that he's a franchise player. The dude shoots 40 percent from the field. He doesn't play much defense. He turns the ball over. And he can't be counted on to pull his team to victory in a close game -- indeed, he just had another insane scoring night in a losing effort. Steph Curry is, as has been said before, an offensive savant. But it remains to be seen whether or not he's a franchise player either.
On the other hand, consider a team like the late-90s Jazz. They had two franchise players -- two of the best players ever at their position -- who played together for years. They had a supporting cast built around their strengths, and a coach who excelled at getting teams to execute flawlessly. For two straight years, they completely dominated a pretty stacked Western Conference... and yet they were one of the least creative teams in NBA history. Every time they set up their half-court offense, the opposing team knew what was coming: pick and role. Stockton and Malone. It was completely uncreative -- and completely unstoppable. The Jazz were a well-oiled machine, a juggernaut, an elite franchise with elite franchise players. They were boring to watch, but they almost always scored more points than their opponent.
Which brings us back to Jordan. What made Jordan great was that he combined the sheer athleticism of Griffin (even in his later years, when he changed his game, Jordan was still so long, so strong, and surprisingly quick), the sheer will to win of Kobe, and the creativity of someone like Nash. To call him a franchise player would be like calling this a hot dog. Jordan was a Utah Jazz assassin: watching those last two Finals series, it sometimes seemed as though he had been put on Earth to destroy the Stockton-Malone Machine, like a basketball John Connor. The Jazz kept coming, kept executing with precision, kept playing their brand of perfect, deja-vu basketball. Only it wasn't enough. Why wasn't it enough? Because Jordan had something they didn't have:
-DMB
P.S. - For the record, while guards get most of the attention for being creative (Rubio dishing, DRose driving), big men are just as capable of elevating their game with creativity. Who would you rather have right now, Blake Griffin or Kevin Love (and why)?
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