Which Team is the Best?

[kdawg32086]

Merry Christmas everyone! A group of buddies and I got together a couple of days ago to do an NBA all-time draft (snake-style, 10 teams and 10 players per team) from a list we created of 100 of the greatest players of all time. We started with the 75 (76*) greatest list and added 24 more players to it to get to a total of 100 (but I can think of 3-5 more players at each position who could make a case for inclusion). I thought it would be fun to post the results here and see what everyone's thoughts are. Which team do you think is the best?

Team 1: The TriangBulls
PG- Gary Payton, Dennis Johnson
SG- Michael Jordan, Sidney Moncrief
SF- Scottie Pippen, Adrian Dantley
PF- Kevin Garnett, Dennis Rodman
C- George Mikan, Willis Reed

Team 2: The King's Court
PG- John Stockton, Tony Parker
SG- Ray Allen, Sam Jones
SF- LeBron James, Chris Mullin
PF- Karl Malone, Shawn Kemp
C- Patrick Ewing, Wes Unseld

Team 3: Tower from Power
PG- Jason Kidd, Lenny Wilkens
SG- Jerry West, Tracy McGrady
SF- Julius Erving, Vince Carter
PF- Elvin Hayes, Jerry Lucas
C- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Dave Cowens

Team 4: Green Machine
PG- Steve Nash, Damian Lillard
SG- Reggie Miller, Pete Maravich
SF- John Havlicek, Billy Cunningham
PF- Dirk Nowitzki, Dave DeBusschere
C- Bill Russell, Robert Parish

Team 5: Money Magic
PG- Magic Johnson, Kyrie Irving
SG- George Gervin, Earl Monroe
SF-Dominique Wilkins, Bernard King
PF- Charles Barkley, Chris Bosh
C- Moses Malone, Nate Thurmond

Team 6: Fundamentally Sound
PG- Chris Paul, Tiny Archibald
SG- Dwyane Wade, Manu Ginobili
SF- James Worthy, Paul Pierce
PF- Tim Duncan, Bobby Jones
C- David Robinson, Artis GIlmore

Team 7: Big Aristotle
PG- Steph Curry, Russell Westbrook
SG- Clyde Drexler, Hal Greer
SF- Elgin Baylor, Carmelo Anthony
PF- Pau Gasol, Chris Webber
C- Shaquille O'Neal, Dikembe Mutombo

Team 8: Droppin' 100's
PG- Oscar Robertson, Dave Bing
SG- Allen Iverson, David Thompson
SF- Rick Barry, Alex English
PF- Bob Pettit, Bob McAdoo
C- Wilt Chamberlain, Alonzo Mourning

Team 9: Dream Shake
PG- Isiah Thomas, Chauncey Billups
SG- James Harden, Joe Dumars
SF- Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard
PF- Giannis Antetokounmpo, Dolph Schayes
C- Hakeem Olajuwon, Bob Lanier

Team 10: Fly Like a Bird
PG- Bob Cousy, Walt Frazier
SG- Kobe Bryant, Bill Sharman
SF- Larry Bird, Paul Arizin
PF- Kevin McHale, Anthony Davis
C- Nikola Jokic, Bill Walton

[SNPA]

A team with Bird and Jokic, plus Walton and Cousy, is the best passing team of all time.

[penbeast0]

I think I favor team 6 in a first take. Team 9 and 10 are starting the wrong PGs though.

For team 9, either Billups or Dumars should be starting ahead of Isiah with Harden and Giannis both being ball dominant. If improves defense, size, and outside shooting either way and Isiah can come in and change the pace.

For team 10, not only is Frazier a better player than Cousy is every way except pure playmaking/dribbling, they don't need a ball dominant playmaker since they should run the offense through Jokic (as well as Bird or Walton).

[dygaction]

Team 10 putting Frazier and AD in the starting lineup.
Team 6 looks promising based on position strength but they have no needed range.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

I assume all peaks.

I like team 1 best.
I am biased against 1960s and early 1970s so I am playing KG at center. Mikan and Reed have 12 fouls to use on Shaq but KG is the main center.

What a defensive team they have.

Jordan against the world on offense. When Jordan sits it is Dantley against the world. You can send 3 guys to stop Dantley but Dantley will still get to the foul line.

There will not be much flow to this offense but they probably have the 2 best 1 on 1 scorers and the best defense with Rodman DJ, Mocreif Jordan and Pippen and KG.

Shaq presents a problem for them because Shaq will be a problem for KG.

I would like to trade Mikan for Jokic. Jokic would help the spacing and ball movement and be a beefy guy to throw at Shaq.

It irritates me that people think Bird was a small forward. Bird defended the power forwards. McHale and Maxwell defended the small forwards except in the 1986 finals. 1986 finals McHale defendered 7’ 4” Sampson and Bird defended McCray who had been a center in college and did not drive well enough to hurt Bird the way good driving small forwards foul exploit Bird. McHale was a power forward who had to play small forward out of position on defense to play with Bird.

[Dutchball97]

Team 4 jumped out at me initially as it has a very 'min-maxed' feel to it with it being built around Nash (arguable GOAT offensive impact, infamously bad defender) and Russell (undisputed best defender ever, average at best on offense). Havlicek is a perfect complementary piece with him providing plenty of value on both sides, while not needing too much usage/attention to be effective. After that it kind of falls apart imo because Russell is expected to do too much on defense. Nash, Reggie and Dirk as starters are going to give up a lot of points no matter who is at the rim. Lillard and Maravich as back up guards makes this guard rotation just about the worst possible on the defensive side. I think this approach has plenty of merit when team building regularly as there are only so many actually impactful players around but when literally everone are All-Stars this specialization tactic leaves a few too many openings imo.

Team 1 and 6 are the best constructed teams imo, at least if the rules were pre-modern because both are really lacking in spacing and would be almost claustrophic in modern times.

I'll vote team 9 as I think they have the best rotation to do well in just about every era. However, like others have said, there are many ways to make them work better than what the starting line-up looks like now. I'd personally go with a Harden/Dumars/Kawhi/KD/Hakeem starting 5 with Billups and Giannis running the bench. Probably weird not to start Giannis but I'd be worried about Hakeem and Giannis overlapping too much, maybe put him in over KD anyway when going up against other 2 big teams.