penbeast0 wrote:SilentA wrote:Close call. But I voted others.
MJ and Lebron are up there as GOAT candidates for a reason, and there are so many top tier bigs that you can survive ceding 2 drafts at the center position. But the PG, SF, and PF positions are a different story. There's a clear dropoff after KG/Duncan and Curry/Magic, and while Lebron wins SF, Bird/KD are close behind and also can space the floor. With volume 3 point shooting being relatively modern, the pool of "all-time" candidates who can space the floor well is pretty thin, creating more limitations. Until we get through a couple more decades of normalized 3 point shooting, players who can space the floor well on the ATG list will continue to be rare.
Others (W)
Curry/Magic
Kobe/Reggie Miller
Bird/Durant
KG/Duncan
Kareem/Hakeem
MJ/LBJ (L in triple overtime)
Jerry West/Stockton
MJ/DWade
Lebron/Paul Pierce
Dirk/Karl Malone
Bill Russell/Shaq
If I'm going all time for the modern game, Bird plays almost all his minutes at PF backing up Garnett and Duncan probably mainly at center if I choose him. Durant faces LeBron with someone like Kawhi backing him up (since Kawhi will be minutes limited de factor anyway). At guard I have Curry, Magic, and West with a 4th guard (Oscar, Wade, Moncrief, etc.). Center is as always the toughest, since I have so much scoring, I probably take Russell backed by Duncan (slightly over Hakeem) as there is less need for Kareem or Wilt's scoring whereas Russell's mobility, shotblocking, and rebounding are more valuable and his passing is at least passable).
Magic/Oscar
West/Curry
Durant/Kawhi
Garnett/Bird
Russell/Duncan
My big weakness is vs. LeBron at SF since Durant/Kawhi is the least impressive combination on the team but it is the only one (other than Curry) to play the modern 3 point spamming game where everyone else scales up their 3 point shooting with some degree of uncertainty, even Bird and West. I think LeBron is the biggest difference maker in a modern team with his positional versatility, I think Jordan is significantly less advantageous in a situation where you have high ego 1st options everywhere.
This is easily the best team I've seen in this thread to take on LeBron/MJ.
Against you're team, I'd probably go:
LeBron (2016) / CP3 (2015)
Jordan (1991) / Kobe (2008)
Erving (1976) / Pippen (1995)
Dirk (2011) / Giannis (2020)
Robinson (1992) / Jokic (2023)
I probably like your team better, but this is the best I could do.
