Best 8 year trio?

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

Kareem, Magic, Worthy. Kareem and Worthy did not play 8 years together so pick two years before Worthy or 2 years after Kareem.
You get your trio or Duo plus 10 average NBA players from the 2015 througg 2022 seasons and your goal is to win as many championships as possible.

You don't get to choose LeBron, Bosh Wade and have years when they did not play with each other. They can't win more championships then years they played together by my rules. The years only count when 2 of the trio are playing together.

For Jordan Pippen Rodman, Jordan and Pippen Duo years can count but not Pippen alone years. For jordan we ignore his skipped years.and count 8 Jordan Pippen years in a row. Pick between Rodman and Grant as the 3rd member of the Trio.

Russell, Sam Jones, Satch Santers with 10 average players, 2 at each postion. I don't think they are good enough to win a championship.
Baylor West Chamberlain with Chamberlain missing for most years.

Duncan, Manu, Ginobili?

Bird, Parish, McHale, those guys played their prime together. Modern averge pkayers provide spacing while Bird, Parish and McHale provide inside dominance. This might be the strongest Trio for wining championships.

Dray, Klay and Curry, the guys that inspired this thread. They are not allowed to have Durant or Wiggins or Poole. Only average players but 10 deep in average players to support them. So these teams are deeper than normal because the 9th and 10th guys on an NBA team are usually below average.

These teams must face and beat the NBA teams from 2015 through 2022. I am not sure that any trio plus 10 average players is beating the 2016 Cavs or the 2016 Warriors or 2016 Thuder. The Best Harden Rockets team was also quite strong.

What is an average player? Take every point guard and average each part of their game. Average speed. avergae size. Average athletism. Average offensive moves. Averge defensive moves. Average Basketball IQ. Average experience. Average youth. Average catch and shoot shooting. Average shooting off the dribble. Average drives. Average passing. Average court vision. Average work ethic and personality. You get 2 of them and I stipulate that they never get injured. Do the same for the other 4 positions. Good luck as coach figuring out whether to play player X or his identical twin player Y.
What 8 year stretch of trios backed by 2 average players at each of the 5 poitions could win the most championships in the last 8 years?

[Owly]

Kareem, Magic, Worthy. Kareem and Worthy did not play 8 years together so pick two years before Worthy or 2 years after Kareem.

2 years?
I believe Kareem and Worthy played 7 years together so surely only one "other" year would be required.

For Jordan Pippen Rodman, Jordan and Pippen Duo years can count but not Pippen alone years. For jordan we ignore his skipped years.and count 8 Jordan Pippen years in a row. Pick between Rodman and Grant as the 3rd member of the Trio.

Okay so what exactly is the rule here (and why)?
Is it any 8 years together? (On one franchise overall? or just only you have to pick and choose when they're split?)
Any 8 "consecutive" years in which they play (but that would force you to accept '95 Jordan)?

What is an average player? Take every point guard ...

Okay but what is "every point guard". Do all the Covid-replacement players reduce my average level player's playoff performance level? How deep do we go in establishing the player pool (on roster? played minutes?)? Is the average minutes weighted (this isn't mentioned)? Or do I have an average 4th best player. average 5th best player etc (which certainly doesn't seem to be the framing but is another angle to minimize the mess of what an "average" player is).

How is time travel working?

Within era I might take Mikan, Pollard, Mikkelsen (with pre-Mikkelsen years). But we're tilting pro modern.

Depending somewhat on the questions especially what level "average" is I think you tilt modern and tilt 8 full years (so not replacing a very good player with what might be a little above replacement level - though I can see a case for two well aligned elite peaks. Without getting super into it (and especially before fully getting the rules) I'd tilt towards GSW's trio.

Do Warriors get an advantage in taking out the actual Warriors from that time frame? Or are we (accepting clones and) adding an expansion team in each conference and you're one of them (or replacing an average team, though that might junk up playoffs if one were imagining all else including matchups stay identical, though matchups can't stay exactly identical with a new team)?

[tsherkin]

How is time travel working?

Within era I might take Mikan, Pollard, Mikkelsen (with pre-Mikkelsen years). But we're tilting pro modern.

Well, he said they have to beat teams from 2015 and later. That implies modern rules, which makes it hard to look at Mikan as relevant. I wonder. Otherwise, you circle back to the "what would Mikan look like 60 years in the future with a totally different approach to the game than he actually had in his own time, and neutered defensive impact" type of stuff.

[Jaivl]

Don't understand the OP lol, but I take the Laker trio just to be different and cool.

West, Baylor and LaRusso, that is. With a bit of really **** optimistic time-travel that's as good as Curry, Durant and Draymond!

[Owly]

How is time travel working?

Within era I might take Mikan, Pollard, Mikkelsen (with pre-Mikkelsen years). But we're tilting pro modern.

Well, he said they have to beat teams from 2015 and later. That implies modern rules, which makes it hard to look at Mikan as relevant. I wonder. Otherwise, you circle back to the "what would Mikan look like 60 years in the future with a totally different approach to the game than he actually had in his own time, and neutered defensive impact" type of stuff.

To be absolutely clear ...

Paragraph 1 quoted is about, well, what it says. How is it working? People friendly to older eras may be inclined to look at dominance in their time, when doing "time travel" comps give large adjustment windows, give them superior coaching, nutrition, exercise etc from birth, note their dedication with lesser rewards and claim even greater motivation and dedication whereas people cynical on older eras may sneer at offseason professions, focus an a smaller talent pool, drop them immediately into an unfamiliar game. Time travel stuff, imo, is kind of a parlor game because of this, but one can at least generate a open discussion and avoid cross-purposes by giving "rules" grounding games based on this type of thing.

Paragraph 2 explicitly addresses that the choice to ground the "best 8 year trio" discussion in terms time travel to the modern game is already a "tilt pro modern", versus a "within era" dominance approach wherein the Minneapolis big 3 are noted as a very plausible choice ("but" not so much in this context).

So yes time travel already tilts against Mikan et al making them a less viable choice and yes it's hard to talk meaningfully about what a modern Mikan means. I still think Minneapolis warrant mentioning within the broader discussion and are on the shortlist for dominance (and perhaps the only dynastic team not mentioned, depending on definitions) and I still think clarification how "time travel" is to work in general (beyond the stated, to what point in time) would allow for better debate.

[tsherkin]

So yes time travel already tilts against Mikan et al making them a less viable choice and yes it's hard to talk meaningfully about what a modern Mikan means. I still think Minneapolis warrant mentioning within the broader discussion and are on the shortlist for dominance (and perhaps the only dynastic team not mentioned, depending on definitions) and I still think clarification how "time travel" is to work in general (beyond the stated, to what point in time) would allow for better debate.

Nothing wrong with mentioning it!

Just opening the discussion of it a bit. I agree that clarification is relevant.

[prolific passer]

I would take Parish, McHale, and Bird with an average 3 and D shooting guard and point guard.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

Kareem, Magic, Worthy. Kareem and Worthy did not play 8 years together so pick two years before Worthy or 2 years after Kareem.

2 years?
I believe Kareem and Worthy played 7 years together so surely only one "other" year would be required.

For Jordan Pippen Rodman, Jordan and Pippen Duo years can count but not Pippen alone years. For jordan we ignore his skipped years.and count 8 Jordan Pippen years in a row. Pick between Rodman and Grant as the 3rd member of the Trio.

Okay so what exactly is the rule here (and why)?
Is it any 8 years together? (On one franchise overall? or just only you have to pick and choose when they're split?)
Any 8 "consecutive" years in which they play (but that would force you to accept '95 Jordan)?

What is an average player? Take every point guard ...

Okay but what is "every point guard". Do all the Covid-replacement players reduce my average level player's playoff performance level? How deep do we go in establishing the player pool (on roster? played minutes?)? Is the average minutes weighted (this isn't mentioned)? Or do I have an average 4th best player. average 5th best player etc (which certainly doesn't seem to be the framing but is another angle to minimize the mess of what an "average" player is).

How is time travel working?

Within era I might take Mikan, Pollard, Mikkelsen (with pre-Mikkelsen years). But we're tilting pro modern.

Depending somewhat on the questions especially what level "average" is I think you tilt modern and tilt 8 full years (so not replacing a very good player with what might be a little above replacement level - though I can see a case for two well aligned elite peaks. Without getting super into it (and especially before fully getting the rules) I'd tilt towards GSW's trio.

Do Warriors get an advantage in taking out the actual Warriors from that time frame? Or are we (accepting clones and) adding an expansion team in each conference and you're one of them (or replacing an average team, though that might junk up playoffs if one were imagining all else including matchups stay identical, though matchups can't stay exactly identical with a new team)?

For my compostie average players I am dividing the league into 5 positions and taking the average of those 5 positions. I understand the objections to positions but am ignoring that.

I want 8 concecutive years of a trio but will accept duos but will not ket the duo use a replacement player for tgeir 3rd player. The duo just has to be handicapped by not having a third player if the trio did not pkay 8 years together. No Magic plus Kareem with the better of Wilkes and Worthy for a particular year. Choose between Wilkes and Worthy, you don't get to have both.

Jordan with his 2 years off is a fairly unique situation. Some guys lost a year to injury. I am making an exception for Jordan. You can take 5 years of Jordan and Pippen before the baseball retirement and then 3 years after the retirement and call them consecutive years. But you must choose between Grant and Rodman for the 3rd member of the trio.

Bird missed a year to injury. Played 6 games. With an injured player I am allowing you to skip an injury year and still call the years arround the injury consecutive years. In Bird's case although the year after the injury was a good year I think Bird has 8 better years before the injury.

Time Travel is insertion into the last 8 years with no preparion. The get a modern coach and 10 modern compsite average teamates but the old time players get the regular season to adjust to the new rules and players.

I don't think Mikan and Mikelson will be competitive. I am awarding nothing for dominating your own era. You must dominate the current era playing by the current era's rules.

If Jordan keeps forgetting that he is not allowed to handcheck so Jordan is racking up defensive fouls, that is Jordan's tough luck.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

Don't understand the OP lol, but I take the Laker trio just to be different and cool.

West, Baylor and LaRusso, that is. With a bit of really **** optimistic time-travel that's as good as Curry, Durant and Draymond!

I think I choose Klay over Durant by my rules because I am looking for as many rings as I can get and Durant only gets to appear on 3 teams leaving Curry and Draymond competing as a duo plus 10 average players vs other possible combinations having star trios plus 10 average movern players.

The average modern players provide good depth but the starting 5 depends on your duo or trio of stars to be a championship level starting 5.

[Colbinii]

Durant/Westbrook/Ibaka would be my pick.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

Chamberlain Greer, Chet Walker, but you only get 4 years of Chamberlain.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

How is time travel working?

Within era I might take Mikan, Pollard, Mikkelsen (with pre-Mikkelsen years). But we're tilting pro modern.

Well, he said they have to beat teams from 2015 and later. That implies modern rules, which makes it hard to look at Mikan as relevant. I wonder. Otherwise, you circle back to the "what would Mikan look like 60 years in the future with a totally different approach to the game than he actually had in his own time, and neutered defensive impact" type of stuff.

To be absolutely clear ...

Paragraph 1 quoted is about, well, what it says. How is it working? People friendly to older eras may be inclined to look at dominance in their time, when doing "time travel" comps give large adjustment windows, give them superior coaching, nutrition, exercise etc from birth, note their dedication with lesser rewards and claim even greater motivation and dedication whereas people cynical on older eras may sneer at offseason professions, focus an a smaller talent pool, drop them immediately into an unfamiliar game. Time travel stuff, imo, is kind of a parlor game because of this, but one can at least generate a open discussion and avoid cross-purposes by giving "rules" grounding games based on this type of thing.

Paragraph 2 explicitly addresses that the choice to ground the "best 8 year trio" discussion in terms time travel to the modern game is already a "tilt pro modern", versus a "within era" dominance approach wherein the Minneapolis big 3 are noted as a very plausible choice ("but" not so much in this context).

So yes time travel already tilts against Mikan et al making them a less viable choice and yes it's hard to talk meaningfully about what a modern Mikan means. I still think Minneapolis warrant mentioning within the broader discussion and are on the shortlist for dominance (and perhaps the only dynastic team not mentioned, depending on definitions) and I still think clarification how "time travel" is to work in general (beyond the stated, to what point in time) would allow for better debate.

Suppose we take Curry Klay and Draymond back to Mikan's era and of course 3s count for 2s so you don't shoot 3s but rather step in until the defense picks you up. Now most current players will probably have a difficult adjustment learning to dribble without traveling by 1960s rules. I am not clear on how 1950s traveling might have been different from 1960s traveling.

But if we make a special exception allowing Curry Klay and Draymond to be allowed to dribble by current rules while playing in the 1950s then the trio of Curry Klay and Draymond backed by average 1950s players will dominate the Mikan Lakers. If the Lakers do not overplay Klay and Curry thenKlay and Curry will shoot at a percentage that the Lakers can not match. If the Lakers do overplay Klay and Curry then they will dump the ball to Draymond and Draymond will pass the ball to an unguarded average 1950s player who will shoot for an shooting average that the Lakers can't match because the average 1950s player was unguarded.

Mikan was a great rebounder but so what. The shooting percentage disparity is too large to overcone.