Superstar Cross-era Pairs

[eminence]

Recently I've kind of been thinking about different eras of basketball, and which players I would have enjoyed watching play together from different eras. I was looking at the 2014 top 100 list and noticed that the top 20 was half pre- and half post-Jordan (Hakeem sorta makes this work on technicalities right?), so that made a pretty convenient cut-off for this little exercise.

Make a favorite cross era pair and explain why you went with them - or more!

Pre-Jordan:
Oscar
West
Magic
Dr.J
Bird
Wilt
Russell
KAJ
Moses
Hakeem

Post-Jordan:
Jordan
Kobe
Lebron
Barkley
Karl Malone
Dirk
KG
Duncan
Drob
Shaq


I'll start off with one I would have loved to see in action: Jerry West/David Robinson.
It's kind of a cliche, but this would be two extremely hard-working/high-character guys pairing up. I think they'd get along great on and off the court. David always needed some scoring help for when the playoffs rolled around, and I'm not sure there was a better perimeter based scorer than West until Jordan came along. Inside-out combos make the most sense to me, and these guys would be a terror on defense, while complementing each other well on offense.

[KobesScarf]

How is Hakeem pre Jordan and Barkley post Jordan when they were drafted the same year?

Anyway I think Magic and Karl Malone would be a lot of fun

[Prez]

Russell and KG for that god tier defense.

Magic and Durant would be so damn fun to watch. Durant is pretty much the perfect complement to Magic...athletic as hell, sniper from all ranges, can post up mismatches, can run the floor, can move without the ball, catch and shoot, can isolate, etc. Passing genius meets scoring machine.

[cjx]

Billy Cunningham aka the Kangaroo Kid and Tracy McGrady

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

Why? 2 athletic, versatile, and gifted players who, individually, can carry a team into the playoffs. When you put them together, you have a wrecking crew!

[trex_8063]

Magic and Mailman would have been fun to watch: the best [arguably] transition running/finishing PF of all-time with the GOAT transition passer. Fun times!
Excellent dynasty duo, too. Magic compensates for all of Malone's post-season short-comings; he can pick up the scoring slack and has that killer confidence.

[Joao Saraiva]

LeBron + Hakeem. The best all arround game from a perimeter player and an inside player. They can absorb so much that literallly all the other 3 guys need to do is space the floor and be at least average on D.

[Quotatious]

Magic and Mailman would have been fun to watch: the best [arguably] transition running/finishing PF of all-time with the GOAT transition passer. Fun times!
Excellent dynasty duo, too. Magic compensates for all of Malone's post-season short-comings; he can pick up the scoring slack and has that killer confidence.

Eh, Magic and Karl are hardly "cross-era". Four of their superstar caliber seasons (1988-91) happened at the same time, Earvin was only 4 years older than Karl, they were roughly contemporaries.

[Bklynborn682]

Shaq and Magic, I think it would be similar to Shaq and Penny but as long as they can win 1 championship before Shaq's contract ends I would expect they'd stick together especially considering magic would propably do anything and everything in his power to keep Shaq happy while keeping the team winning his ultimate priority.
The main reason though I think Shaq at worst keeps magic the same but potentially makes him even better considering all the space and floor warping Shaq would create for him.
And there's no doubt in my mind Shaq would be even better than he was because he would feel psychologically like he was the man, which would make him play harder or D, and he would receive more touches in transition and even off of magics penetration and post ups so his offensive numbers would be better as well.

[trex_8063]

Magic and Mailman would have been fun to watch: the best [arguably] transition running/finishing PF of all-time with the GOAT transition passer. Fun times!
Excellent dynasty duo, too. Magic compensates for all of Malone's post-season short-comings; he can pick up the scoring slack and has that killer confidence.

Eh, Magic and Karl are hardly "cross-era". Four of their superstar caliber seasons (1988-91) happened at the same time, Earvin was only 4 years older than Karl, they were roughly contemporaries.

Read OP.

[Quotatious]

Read OP.

I saw that, but it doesn't make any sense if Hakeem is considered pre-Jordan and Barkley post-Jordan, if Olajuwon, Jordan and Barkley were all drafted in the same year. No idea how eminence came up with that.

I think for us to make proper cross-era pairs, there should be a rule that the two guys we're taking, could not have played in the NBA at the same time, at any point of their careers. So for example, Jordan retired after 2002-03 season, LeBron entered the league in 2003-04 season, so that's a potentially valid pairing, but not Jordan/Kobe or LeBron/Kobe or anything like that, you know what I'm saying.

[Colbinii]

Read OP.

I saw that, but it doesn't make any sense if Hakeem is considered pre-Jordan and Barkley post-Jordan, if Olajuwon, Jordan and Barkley were all drafted in the same year. No idea how eminence came up with that.

I think for us to make proper cross-era pairs, there should be a rule that the two guys we're taking, could not have played in the NBA at the same time, at any point of their careers. So for example, Jordan retired after 2002-03 season, LeBron entered the league in 2003-04 season, so that's a potentially valid pairing, but not Jordan/Kobe or LeBron/Kobe or anything like that, you know what I'm saying.

Well, there goes my KG/Hakeem pairing.

[Quotatious]

Well, there goes my KG/Hakeem pairing.

To be honest, I would stretch that even more - when I think of "cross era", I think of something like a 60s/70s player combined with 90s/00s player.

[Colbinii]

Well, there goes my KG/Hakeem pairing.

To be honest, I would stretch that even more - when I think of "cross era", I think of something like a 60s/70s player combined with 90s/00s player.

So 80's can't be used?

[Quotatious]

So 80's can't be used?

Sure it can, what I mean is that there should be a big separation between the two eras, time-wise. Like for example the Cunningham/McGrady pair which cjx mentioned, you know what I mean. Anyway, I think the rule that I talked about - one guy not playing in the league during the career span of another player, would be a good option here.

[trex_8063]

Read OP.

I saw that, but it doesn't make any sense if Hakeem is considered pre-Jordan and Barkley post-Jordan, if Olajuwon, Jordan and Barkley were all drafted in the same year. No idea how eminence came up with that.

I think for us to make proper cross-era pairs, there should be a rule that the two guys we're taking, could not have played in the NBA at the same time, at any point of their careers. So for example, Jordan retired after 2002-03 season, LeBron entered the league in 2003-04 season, so that's a potentially valid pairing, but not Jordan/Kobe or LeBron/Kobe or anything like that, you know what I'm saying.

eminence kinda implied he was taking liberties with Hakeem/Barkley to make it work so that there were 10 guys in each group. fwiw, I agree it doesn't exactly work for what it's been defined as ("Cross-era"), but really that's just semantics. If the semantics bother you, just mentally remove the "Cross-era" wording, and replace it with "taking one player from each group, which duo would you have liked to see play together?" or similar.
Or encourage eminence to change the parameters of his exercise in the OP.

I was merely following the method he set forth. And Magic/Mailman would have been fun to watch .