Which is harder to obtain: an NBA ring or an NCAA championship? Even if it takes unmatched talent and perseverance to win both titles, this query may spark discussion among basketball players. For Kemba Walker and Carmelo Anthony, the response is obvious. The challenges of winning an NBA title are more demanding than perfecting the college game.
Walker announced his retirement from the basketball world lately on Melo’s 7 PM in Brooklyn pod. But halfway through the broadcast, he and Melo got to talking about why it’s harder to win an NBA ring after Kid Mero, the pod co-host, made a comparison between college and professional sports.
Mero made the observation that there are more teams in the NCAA tournament than there are in the NBA, making it a continual elimination minefield. For a team, a single defeat signals the end of the campaign. Does that imply that winning an NCAA championship is a more difficult feat?
Anthony countered that it is more difficult to advance through a single win in a playoff series than it is to defeat a team four times.
Carmelo Anthony speaks about the difficulties in NBA
He maintained that the squads are fully aware of each other’s advantages and disadvantages by the time they had faced off two or three times in a series. In a situation like this, pulling off a victory is far more difficult than in a single-game elimination match. Melo said,
“It’s hard to beat a team four times. After two games, three games, unless you just got a trick in your bag, you’ve been holding your card in your back pocket. Like ‘It’s nothing you don’t know, it’s nothing I don’t know.’…Now it’s whoever gonna commit the least number of mistakes is gonna win,”
Kemba Walker, who was recently retired and never won an NBA championship but was an NCAA champion with the UConn Huskies in 2011, co-signed these remarks. He asserted that, given the caliber of players on every team in the NBA, it is impossible to win just one game, let alone four in a series.
Walker continued by pointing out that since NCAA tournament games are played in neutral locations, there won’t be overt hostility toward a team. NBA, on the other hand, has both home and away games. As a result, a team must contend with the pressure of the home audience when they travel.
