Baseball & football are more team oriented sports than basketball.
In football, you're one of 22 players to play regularly (offense & defense)
In baseball, you're 1 of 13 players to play regulary (position & starting pitches)
In basketball, you're 1 of 5 and you play both sides of the ball.
Ring talk is a little overrated, but it's not completely crazy.
You can't be the GOAT in a sport like basketball without winning a ring unless you're team is the worst team of all-time.
I'll grant you football but the QB is the most important player on the field and Dan Marino for a very long time was in some GOAT discussions. Montana was still given the nod because he was Joe Cool and had all the Super Bowls but the point is people made it a discussion, both fans and media. They didn't act like it was this crazy notion to put Marino in that class.
Baseball I can't agree really because the position players are playing both sides of the field. Defense in baseball in very important even if it's not discussed that much. Hell, it was a long time before people would consider a DH for the hall of fame because they didn't play defense. Regardless, because Bonds and Griffey Jr. both had a ton of gold gloves, Griffey doing it especially at the CF position and then Bonds being as dominant as he was at the plate, they were in a lot of GOAT discussions and Bonds is still considered by most to be that guy despite what the old time writers are doing by keeping him out of the hall.
In the NBA, if you don't have rings they treat you like you don't exist. They treat you like you don't matter at all. Kenny Smith shouldn't even be able to talk shyt to Barkley at all, they aren't anywhere close to the same stratosphere at players but because Kenny has a couple rings as a got damn role player he thinks he can talk some shyt, why? How? That doesn't even make sense.
My whole point is that players without rings are dogged and it's madness, it's a team sport. You need to have good teammates.
