You're the one who's taking the sentence too literal, even if rocks crew were the protagonist it would take more than a year to serialize.
It's a form of exaggeration more or less. What we get from the interview is Akainu being PK level, seeing how he exaggerated about his strength. Makes sense since Goofy will fight him after he claims the title, maybe during the arc potentially.
Oh so now I'm the one who takes it literally?
Dude, it's simple, story length is determined by the Story itself and world building, that's what Oda wanna draw regardless of protag
They were talking about how weak protag adds drama and tension to the story, so if someone like Akainu would be protag, the series would heavily loss it's value and like Oda said "It wouldn't last a Year"
Roger spent decades to find One Piece, why don't u use that to say Akainu is Beerus Level
And what's more interesting is that you people realize that a weak character like Luffy can become PK Level cuz he is protag but when it comes to Akainu being Protag, u claim Non-Protag Akainu is PK Level lol
This is literally mental gymnastics. And tbh it's not just me who said this, Wikia agrees with me