rrravenred wrote:In this match-up between the stolid professionals and the wild-eyed maniacs, who would win?
All-Dull Team]
PG John "Toss to Malone. Two dribbles, score" Stockton
SG Mitch "22ppg and no one cares, 22ppg and no one cares" Ritchmond
SF Chris "Small change from Midrange" Mullin
PF Tim "Wonderful <yawn> fundamentals" Duncan
C Kareem "I'm so glad Magic does the media" Abdul Jabbar
All-Zany Team]
PG Stephon "Best PG in the NBA" Marbury
SG Latrell "Feed my family or I choke you" Sprewell
SF Denis Rodman (he really needs no additional info, reall)
PF Charles "I love New York City; I've got a gun." Barkley
C Bill "Flower Child" Walton
The Dull team would crush this team.
For mine, the Zany team has a slight edge in Talent, although Timmy would absolutely destroy Charles defensively.
This is the first problem; there is no talent advantage for the Zany team.
But let's get into the teeth of this thing.
Matchups:
Point Guard
John Stockton and Stephon Marbury
Marbury's a weak defender and has always been over-reliant on isolation dribble penetration to do his thing. He wouldn't have a Payton-like strength/size advantage over Stockton and John was an outstanding defender. Marbz's jumper wasn't anything to write home about, not a liability but certainly something Stockton would force preferentially over the drive. Marbury also has never proven to be a terribly efficient scorer, either, he's just about average and again, nothing special.
Stockton, however, is a dangerous perimeter shooter, a good defender and a very, very skilled pick-and-roll point guard.
This one's Stockton by a large margin; Marbury has some impressive stats but frankly, he's never been that good a player. Great Rucker Park type, but not all that valuable to an NBA team, at least not in comparison to a guy like Stockton.
Shooting Guard
Mitch Richmond vs. Latrell Sprewell
As dumb as he is, Sprewell has generally been a good defender. Never a very good scorer, though. Solid, but really unspectacular and an inconsistent shooter, at that. This is sort of a running theme with this team, they don't really have an outside presence.
Richmond was an inside/out guy, who could score from the post and nail threes and Sprewell was more of a slasher with a nasty mid-range J.
Richmond's perimeter presence would be a big problem for the Zany team and Spree did a fair bit of his career scoring with the benefit of much more talented scorers around him (Ewing/Houston, Garnett, Mullin/Hardaway, Webber/Mullin) or on crappy Golden State teams.
He's fairly unimpressive.
Small Forward
Chris Mullin versus Dennis Rodman.
Rodman has a fairly well-documented history of struggling against guys who could hit the three because he liked to stay close to the rim to get boards and Mullin was one of the nastiest mid-range and perimeter shooters in the game. Rodman's defense is of primary value against isolation scorers, which is why even though he could exert an effect on guys like Mullin and Bird, it wasn't as strong as you'd think.
The ability to curl around a screen for a quick J largely negates the bulk of Rodman's defensive impact and Mullin's J was just too nasty.
If you switch Rodman on Duncan, then you put Barkley on Mullin, which is not a wise move.
So now you've added a third player who is a merciless perimeter sniper to this team and you have now put an offensive liability on the floor for the Zanys.
OK, not a total liability but a guy who won't make his counterpart work hard on defense. Rodman had little range and little interest in involving himself in the offense.
Power Forward
This one is no contest; Duncan would crush Barkley.
Pick your era; if you're talking about the era where Barkley was allowed to dribble for more than 5 seconds in a post-up from the three-point line, you're in trouble. If not then, he incurs a series of violations as Duncan stalls him in the mid-range. You want to take Duncan outside and shoot jumpers on him or try to slash? Be my guest. His J wasn't THAT nice and Kareem's waiting for him inside. Barkley was good, great, amazing, but Duncan's presence would be of considerably higher value because of his defensive presence. He and Kareem would shut down the paint.
Center
Bill Walton was never, at any point in his career, better than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
He was, at his peak, a superior defender but he was never a better player.
He wasn't a better rebounder, he wasn't a better passer, he was considerably worse at the foul line and he didn't even approach Kareem's scoring talent. Remember, Walton was basically Kareem with less offensive responsibility (and skill), a product of John Wooden's UCLA system that Kareem had dominated so thoroughly while Walton was a youngin'.
Understand, Walton could never guard Kareem. In their first matchup, Kareem put 50 on Walton's face and merrily averaged 24 and 10 on their regular season matchups even though this included a period in Kareem's career while his scoring and rebounding averages were dropping dramatically because he was aging and then playing alongside Magic and Worthy. You'll note that he averaged 26 and 11 against Walton in the postseason.
Walton would be a very nice defensive presence to aid the Zany team against OTHER guys but not so much against Kareem, most especially a prime Kareem.
Walton winning the MVP award in '78 was a travesty, an insult to the sport of basketball. He is the only player in the history of the game to win the MVP award and to play less than 64 games except for Malone in the 50-game lockout season, having played 58 games.
It was freaking ridiculous.
Yeah, Portland had the league's best record at 58 wins but the man missed two dozen games and was noticeably out-played by Kareem. That one was one of those "WTF?!?!?" moments in basketball history.
But even if it's not the case, even if that wasn't the most ridiculous MVP awarded in NBA history (which it may well have been), then it still wouldn't matter because Walton wasn't capable of limiting Jabbar enough to really make a difference and Kareem matched him in rebounding (at worst) and passing (the difference in averages comes from sample size and differing offensive involvement as a scorer) and was vastly superior as a scorer.
Period.
Kareem >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Walton.
