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In that specific year, not if everyone was at peak or anything.

Probably one of the celtics teams from 57-63.

I would start with 2007 Spurs.

Manu Ginobili
Brent Barry
Michael Finley
Fabrizio Oberto/Francisco Elson
Robert Horry

2014 Spurs

Manu
Green
Diaw
Mills
West
Belineli
Baynes
Bonner
Joseph

13 spurs
manu gee,boris,cojo,red rocket,patty mills,gary neal,captain jack,nando and big banger

14 spurs
manu,boris,belinelli,red rocket,big banger,cojo,patty mills

both insane cohesiveness imo.very fun teams

07 spurs already mentioned
they knew how to build teams

Manu is greatest 6th man of all time so any team in his prime is certainly in contention. I was thinking Showtime Lakers or 86 Celtics off the top of my head. Anyone have a sortable database that can do VORP for benches ranking or the equivalent as a place to find the teams to start thinking about (and the surprises that you wouldn't think of)?

penbeast0 wrote:Manu is greatest 6th man of all time so any team in his prime is certainly in contention. I was thinking Showtime Lakers or 86 Celtics off the top of my head. Anyone have a sortable database that can do VORP for benches ranking or the equivalent as a place to find the teams to start thinking about (and the surprises that you wouldn't think of)?

These 3 teams all came to mind to me, but here's another one:

The Sonic bench of the mid-90s led by Nate McMillan, who actually led the league in +/- from the bench.

Ones coming to mind.

Already mentioned:
Some earlyish Celtics dynasty - maybe
'94 or '93 Sonics - '94 has McMillan and iirc Pierce with monster impact numbers, then one of Cage (42 starts) or preferably Perkins (41 starts), Askew and Ervin Johnson at the fringe. '93 version has Pierce as a starter (where Gill starts in '94) but they gain Eddie Johnson and Barros (who they traded for Gill) otherwise broadly the same (some in season trades, didn't have Ervin Johnson yet).


'89 Pistons (Rodman, Salley, Johnson, Edwards)

'04 Mavs? Jamison has a career best productivity year with mildly positive impact indicators. They only really have only really have 4 regular starters their old "big 3" and Walker. After Jamison there's Howard, a productive if poor impact looking Marquis Daniels, Fortson, Bradley, Best, Najera.

Late 90s to early 2000s Trail Blazers and then early 2000s Sacramento were regarded as pretty deep.

'98 Suns? Seems like the on off is better for the likes of Manning (6MoY), Nash, Hot Rod and KJ than the starters.

Circa '04 and '05 Memphis seemed to go with 10 deep rotations that made up of guys were guys you'd be alright to have in your rotation

I'm sure there's modern teams that won big in the RS with depth that I'm missing.

Just wanna give a shoot out to 2008 Celtics.

PJ Brown
Leon Powe
Big baby
Posey
Tony Allen
Eddie House

penbeast0 wrote:Manu is greatest 6th man of all time so any team in his prime is certainly in contention. I was thinking Showtime Lakers or 86 Celtics off the top of my head. Anyone have a sortable database that can do VORP for benches ranking or the equivalent as a place to find the teams to start thinking about (and the surprises that you wouldn't think of)?

'86 Celtics?
McHale's a starter in '86 so the bench is Walton then ... Wedman (who had been a decent player), Sichting (top bench player in minutes), Carlisle, Kite ...
Honestly I'd imagine that would be one of the greater/greatest starter versus bench imbalances (admittedly partly because the starters are so good).

I don't know about greatest but the 2007 Warriors had depth with Al Harrington, M. Pietrus, A. Biedrins, and then sometimes Monta Ellis off the bench

Doctor MJ wrote:

penbeast0 wrote:Manu is greatest 6th man of all time so any team in his prime is certainly in contention. I was thinking Showtime Lakers or 86 Celtics off the top of my head. Anyone have a sortable database that can do VORP for benches ranking or the equivalent as a place to find the teams to start thinking about (and the surprises that you wouldn't think of)?

These 3 teams all came to mind to me, but here's another one:

The Sonic bench of the mid-90s led by Nate McMillan, who actually led the league in +/- from the bench.

Nate Mcmillan and mookie blaylock are fascinating players to think about

they seem like they may have been as good or better defenders than gary payton but without the same offense (specially nate)

the curious phenomena of non scoring defensive players receiving less attention for their defense than scorers

98 Lakers had either Fisher or Van Exel, and then Elden Campbell and Kobe off the bench. That's pretty solid.

SHAQ32 wrote:I don't know about greatest but the 2007 Warriors had depth with Al Harrington, M. Pietrus, A. Biedrins, and then sometimes Monta Ellis off the bench

Depends on how you frame it.
You note Ellis is only "sometimes" (53 of 77 games started, over 2/3s)
but
Harrington starts each of the 42 games he plays for them after arriving.
Biedrins starts more games (raw total) than any other Warrior with 63 of 82.
Fwiw, Pietrus is probably fringe-y in terms of eligibility starting slightly over half the games he plays (38 of 72).
I guess maybe the idea of full health like in the playoffs they're kinda 9 deep (though more 8 man rotation - Azubuike not featured in the playoffs and not that great) and some of those guys are coming off the bench a bit more (though Biedrins starting 8 of 11 only moves fractionally and Harrington still gets 5 starts).

06 Heat with Payton, Mourning and Posey in the playoffs (Antoine in the regular season) is pretty nice

The Clippers one with Lou Williams and Harrell has to be up there, I never saw a situation like that before where they have 2 of their 3 best players coming off the bench?

Otherwise - Spurs in 13/14 or one of Manu peak seasons, Bad Boys, Celtics in 86 or one of McHale off the bench ones/early 60s when Havlicek was coming off the bench, early 80s Lakers with McAdoo and Cooper, 2000 Blazers, 2015 Warriors, 2018 Raptors

Actually 2nd 3peat Bulls should probably be getting more love, Kukoc and Kerr is great for 6th and 7th man

No mention of 15 Warriors?

Iggy - was the best player on a 57 win, 5.37 Srs Denver team just 2 seasons before. Won Fmvp off bench
Livingston
Lee
Speights
Barbosa

00 Blazers

Greg
Bonzi
Schrempf
Grant
Jo

Overall tho its b/w 12-14 Spurs and 88-90 Pistons IMO and then everyone else

I feel like the answer has to be the 14 Spurs. The worst rotation player on that team was still a starter.

Yinwest wrote:Just wanna give a shoot out to 2008 Celtics.

PJ Brown
Leon Powe
Big baby
Posey
Tony Allen
Eddie House

You left out Sam Cassell.

GSP wrote:No mention of 15 Warriors?

Iggy - was the best player on a 57 win, 5.37 Srs Denver team just 2 seasons before. Won Fmvp off bench
Livingston
Lee
Speights
Barbosa

Yea - probably not the best bench ever but one of the greatest benches I might say in the last 20 years - a Finals MVP off the bench, and you essentially had a balanced bench instead of a bench that might be a little unbalanced across positions. Pretty much everyone was a veteran who could still play but had that veteran savvy and thirst to win a championship. David Lee was a guy who put up 18 and 9 a season ago but had injury.