Challenge: Build the best ‘cheap’ team around a superstar

[The-Power]

No idea if anyone's interested, but I'll throw it out here anyways because I thought it could be fun for basketball nerds.

The rules are as follows:

GOAL: Your task is to create the best possible roster with 10 players that will make up your rotation for this season (and this season only, nothing else matters).

1) Select any one current player you wish to build a team around (no restrictions)
2) You may select one other player who earns up to 25M this season
3) You fill out the rest of the roster with players that earn less than 10M this season

One important catch: you may NOT select any player on a Rookie deal for the season unless this is the player you choose to build around.

For an overview of the salaries this season, you can use basketball-reference's list (previously waived players only count for their current salary with the new team). Just sort the column for 2022-23.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/contracts/players.html

Bonus question: where does your team rank in the EC/WC, both in terms of RS standings and playoff chances (assume the players you select are duplicates of the original version and all existing teams therefore remain what they are)?

[Colbinii]

Monte Morris/Alex Caruso
Mikal Bridges/Seth Curry
Royce O'Neale/Joe Ingles
Maxi Kleber/Kyle Anderson
Giannis Antetokounmpo/Jakob Poeltl

WC: Could finish 1st given their depth but around 50 wins.

EC: Could finish 1st given their depth, ahead of Toronto.

[The-Power]

Monte Morris/Alex Caruso
Mikal Bridges/Seth Curry
Royce O'Neale/Joe Ingles
Maxi Kleber/Kyle Anderson
Giannis Antetokounmpo/Jakob Poeltl

WC: Could finish 1st given their depth but around 50 wins.

EC: Could finish 1st given their depth, ahead of Toronto.

Do you think this is a legitimate championship contender or rather a team that's better in the RS than the POs?

[Colbinii]

Monte Morris/Alex Caruso
Mikal Bridges/Seth Curry
Royce O'Neale/Joe Ingles
Maxi Kleber/Kyle Anderson
Giannis Antetokounmpo/Jakob Poeltl

WC: Could finish 1st given their depth but around 50 wins.

EC: Could finish 1st given their depth, ahead of Toronto.

Do you think this is a legitimate championship contender or rather a team that's better in the RS than the POs?

I dont think its possible to build a favorite championship contender with the given rules. I think the team I built is close though. Given the parameters, you need to build a defensive-1st team in order to win a champion [Perhaps swapping Giannis for Jokic makes some sense].

Caruso and GPII are two of the best on-ball, POA defenders in the league. There is plenty of spacing around Giannis here and secondary playmaking in Morris and Curry but--as I am writing this--simply not enough to win a hard-fought series. Yeah, I would actually swap Jokic for Giannis here given the constraints.

[eminence]

Solid amount of overlap with Colbinii.

Stephen Curry(max)/De'Anthony Melton (I'd have taken Ricky Rubio if healthy)
Victor Oladipo/Gary Payton II
Mikal Bridges(<25M)/Royce O'Neale
Otto Porter Jr/Kyle Anderson
Kevon Looney/Maxi Kleber

I may regret not taking Poeltl, but we've got a small ball focused squad here, with some proven fits around Steph. Bit of a gamble on Oladipo to try to get us a higher tier 2nd creator than is normally available, may not have picked him had Rubio been healthy.

[Colbinii]

Solid amount of overlap with Colbinii.

Stephen Curry(max)/De'Anthony Melton (I'd have taken Ricky Rubio if healthy)
Victor Oladipo/Gary Payton II
Mikal Bridges(<25M)/Royce O'Neale
Otto Porter Jr/Kyle Anderson
Kevon Looney/Maxi Kleber

I may regret not taking Poeltl, but we've got a small ball focused squad here, with some proven fits around Steph. Bit of a gamble on Oladipo to try to get us a higher tier 2nd creator than is normally available, may not have picked him had Rubio been healthy.

Looney is a good pick over Poeltl for a switch-heavy scheme. He was terrific against Dallas.

[The-Power]

Solid amount of overlap with Colbinii.

Stephen Curry(max)/De'Anthony Melton (I'd have taken Ricky Rubio if healthy)
Victor Oladipo/Gary Payton II
Mikal Bridges(<25M)/Royce O'Neale
Otto Porter Jr/Kyle Anderson
Kevon Looney/Maxi Kleber

Funnily enough, I was just about to post the roster I came up with around Curry when I saw your post; and safe to say that we either think quite alike or the reasonable options are actually fewer than I thought (or both).

Stephen Curry / John Wall
Victor Oladipo / Donte DiVincenzo
Mikal Bridges / Gary Payton II
Maxi Kleber / Larry Nance Jr.
Kevon Looney / Isaiah Hartenstein

That's 6/10 that we both came up with independently and honestly I may have just missed OPJ in the list for some reason. I thought about Melton but opted for the gamble with Wall as shot creation is difficult to come by under the rules and Wall at least has the potential to be pretty reliable here.

I think the biggest issue for my team is shooting with the second unit – that's going to be hit or miss (and probably more miss). And a playoff match-up with a big wing could be tough, but we could at least rely on a scrambling defense that applies a lot of pressure to disrupt match-up hunting. Shot creation, I think, is an issue for any team under these rules as reliable shot creators tend to be paid quite handsomely after their Rookie deals.

[AEnigma]

C: Jokic / Looney
PF: Larry Nance, Jr. / Otto Porter, Jr. / Thad Young
SF: Royce O’Neale / Oladipo
SG: Caruso / GP2 / Wes Matthews, Jr.
PG: VanVleet / Monk

Team design and intent is probably pretty obvious lol. Would have taken Giannis or Steph but not trying to repeat. Did not take Wall or Batum because their contract situation is a bit abnormal, although I suppose Wall at least would be unlikely to make $10 million regardless.