Back in a 1999 column, my old boss, Bill Simmons, coined the Ewing Theory. A friend of his "was convinced that Patrick Ewing's teams (both at Georgetown and with New York) inexplicably played better when Ewing was either injured or missing extended stretches because of foul trouble," he later wrote for ESPN.
Ewing was a star center for the New York Knicks, who drafted him No. 1 overall out of Georgetown in 1985. Unfortunately, his career directly coincided with a guy named Michael Jordan, so Ewing's Knicks won lots and lots of games, but never enough to secure an NBA title.
Ewing had just gone down with an Achilles injury during the 1999 Eastern Conference finals. The eighth-seeded Knicks were tied, 1-1, with the second-seeded Indiana Pacers. Everyone assumed the Packers would walk to the NBA finals, so Simmons wrote his column, debuted the Ewing Theory ... and the Knicks immediately won three straight games to clinch the series.
Over the 25-plus years since, the theory has been flattened and mocked. Oh right, so it's good not to have good players? Haven't the Knicks, uh, not been back to the Eastern Conference finals in the two decades since Ewing left the team? Of all the people you could've picked, you had to pick Patrick Ewing?
Simmons only landed on Ewing for the theory because a buddy of his was obsessed with that particular example, but the idea was more important than the individual. As he wrote in a 2013 update:
That's the thing about the Ewing Theory ... it takes various shapes and forms. Sometimes, we just overrated a player, or mistakenly believed he was more valuable than he was. Sometimes, an injury or departure can lead to more minutes for players who fit that team's style and framework better. And sometimes, it might take a simple injury for everyone to realize, We lost our way. We relied on that guy too much. I'm not doing enough. You're not doing enough. Let's step it up. You win a game or two, you build a little momentum, and before you know it, everything falls into place and you're a team.
Sounds familiar, right?
Like, what if the presumed best soccer player in the world, say, changed teams over the summer, but then his new team immediately got worse and his old team immediately got better? Or, you know, exactly what's happened with Kylian Mbappé after leaving Paris Saint-Germain for Real Madrid?
So, ahead of an El Clasico between Real Madrid and Barcelona in the Copa del Rey final (stream live on ESPN+), let's dig into why Mbappé made Real Madrid worse, how PSG got better after he left, and what it all says about Mbappé as a player.
• Watch on ESPN+: Barcelona vs. Real Madrid (Saturday, 3 p.m. ET)