Build the worst team around Jordan/Lebron that wins Finals

[tonyreyes123]

You get 91 Jordan & 09 LeBron for the 2025-2026 season

No other players can be all-stars and your bench are all G-league level guys.

You can use current or past players

[Rich Michmond]

Trying to avoid bordeline All-Stars or guys who made an All-NBA team but have no ASG berth (so no guys like Strickland, Bogut or Paul Pressey)


Derek Fisher
Michael Jordan
LeBron James
Robert Horry
Daniel Gafford

Fisher + Horry both shoot reliably from 3. Fisher played next to Kobe so he should know how to play with MJ. Houston Horry could do a little bit of everything and was a capable defender. Gafford is a rim-running lob threat, solid shot-blocker, runs the floor very well. Does not require post touches and has been a starter on a finals team with a star wing that monopolizes the ball. Could replace D-Fish with Derek Harper, but he seems too close to an All-Star level. Fisher might be a weak link at 6'1, but I'd trust his 259 playoff games.

Any bench consisting of G-League level guys would be dreadful. Without giving it much thought:

Craig Porter Jr.
Scotty Pippen Jr.
Justin Champagnie
Mouhamed Gueye
Neemias Queta

I suppose with heavy staggering that bench could survive.

[Amare_1_Knicks]

Scotty Pippen Jr.
Derrick White
Jordan
LeBron
Myles Turner


Could’ve went with more talent at the one (Jamal Murray, Quickley, etc., but thought it was overkill).

Tre Jones
Mac Mcclung
TJ Warren
Drew Timme
Ariel Hukporti

[lessthanjake]

I’d think of this in terms of impact.

Without trying to arbitrate which one is actually better, let’s say LeBron and Jordan are both capable of about +9 or +10 RAPM impact. But let’s say that their impact is cannibalized a bit by each other since there’s only one ball. So let’s give them each about +8 when playing together. And let’s also say that they only play 40 MPG (i.e. about 83% of minutes). That would yield +13.3 total impact between them. I’d say that in order to win the Finals, we’d probably want our team to be a +7 net rating team. That doesn’t guarantee a Finals win, but it makes them a top-tier contender with a good chance. Mathematically, we get to that if the entire rest of the team is filled with -2 impact players. So fill up a team with those sorts of guys—which include players like Joel Anthony, Antoine Walker, JaMychal Green, Kelly Oubre, etc. Pick those types of players that actually seem like they might fit well with LeBron and Jordan.

EDIT: Just saw that the bench is stipulated to be all G-League-level players. That’s probably more like -3 players. So the other three starters could probably be -1 players instead, in order to make the supporting cast still about -2 players overall. So perhaps the other starters should be roughly -1 impact guys like Christian Wood, Georges Niang, Jordan Farmar, Delonte West, or Harrison Barnes. Again, we’d want to pick guys of this level that fit well with LeBron and Jordan.

[Jaivl]

I’d think of this in terms of impact.

Without trying to arbitrate which one is actually better, let’s say LeBron and Jordan are both capable of about +9 or +10 RAPM impact. But let’s say that their impact is cannibalized a bit by each other since there’s only one ball. So let’s give them each about +8 when playing together. And let’s also say that they only play 40 MPG (i.e. about 83% of minutes). That would yield +13.3 total impact between them. I’d say that in order to win the Finals, we’d probably want our team to be a +7 net rating team. That doesn’t guarantee a Finals win, but it makes them a top-tier contender with a good chance. Mathematically, we get to that if the entire rest of the team is filled with -2 impact players.

Doesn't work that way for a few reasons, but probably the fastest way to discard line of thought is that RAPM is not to scale ("Regularized").

[lessthanjake]

I’d think of this in terms of impact.

Without trying to arbitrate which one is actually better, let’s say LeBron and Jordan are both capable of about +9 or +10 RAPM impact. But let’s say that their impact is cannibalized a bit by each other since there’s only one ball. So let’s give them each about +8 when playing together. And let’s also say that they only play 40 MPG (i.e. about 83% of minutes). That would yield +13.3 total impact between them. I’d say that in order to win the Finals, we’d probably want our team to be a +7 net rating team. That doesn’t guarantee a Finals win, but it makes them a top-tier contender with a good chance. Mathematically, we get to that if the entire rest of the team is filled with -2 impact players.

Doesn't work that way for a few reasons, but probably the fastest way to discard line of thought is that RAPM is not to scale ("Regularized").

Yeah, I get that. Some RAPM sources are scaled in a way where this back-of-the-napkin math would be manifestly nonsensical. For instance, TheBasketballDatabase RAPM has really low values, so there’d be no way to put together a realistic set of players that would lead to an overall +7. That RAPM source is just completely divorced from team net rating. I was thinking about it in terms of using the output of RAPM sources that spit out values that are pretty consistent with a stat like BPM (which is scaled such that every team’s BPM nets out essentially equal to its overall net rating). I find that the NBArapm RAPM measure is pretty consistent with that, so that’s the one I was thinking about. But there’s an element there of me just picking a RAPM source that feels right to me personally, in terms of spitting out numbers closest to actual individual impact per 100 possessions. And that feeling might be off such that I’d be overshooting or undershooting the overall impact I’m hoping to get here. In a sense, I’m not *that* concerned about that, since it’s all just back-of-the-napkin anyways, and I’m only aiming for a general target (i.e. a +7 overall net rating is not a precise number we’d need the team to get to, but rather just a fairly arbitrary target that could be overshot or undershot a bit and still get us to roughly the right spot here). That said, perhaps a different way of doing something similar would be to do the same exercise but to use BPM instead of RAPM. In that case, we would be using something that actually is specifically scaled such that the output matches team net ratings. Of course, it’s all still very back-of-the-napkin either way, because player impact is significantly dependent on the situation the player is in and the hypothetical places these players in a new situation. But this sort of thing feels like a pretty good place to start in terms of identifying the ballpark of the level of player we should be looking for.

[Ol Roy]

Hard to build a bad team and guarantee a title, even with two amazing players. I'll just surround them with shot-making role players who have legitimate championship credentials.

Derek Fisher
Michael Jordan
Shane Battier
LeBron James
Robert Horry

[tonyreyes123]

Fisher
Jordan
MPJ
LeBron
Capela

[Joao Saraiva]

I don't like 91 MJ with 09 Bron, I'd like to have a PF version of LeBron. With these 2 I see too much overlap, but on the break it would be insane.

Mario Chalmers
Michael Jordan
LeBron James
Dorian Finney-Smith
Neemias Queta

I believe there is enough for them to make a run at the finals, altough facing teams with very good Cs might make it difficult cause Queta fouls a lot despite being a very good defender. Finney is there for spacing, cause his defense is suspicious to say least.

Chalmers is just there cause he played with Bron and was a good enough shooter - any PG who can shoot would be OK in the lineup.

[jojo4341]

Hard to build a bad team and guarantee a title, even with two amazing players. I'll just surround them with shot-making role players who have legitimate championship credentials.

Derek Fisher
Michael Jordan
Shane Battier
LeBron James
Robert Horry

That's a really solid team. But I think we could do "worse" with:

Steve Kerr
Michael Jordan
LeBron James
Robert Horry
Javale McGee

Less 3PT shooting and perimeter defense, but more size. It gives them more balance while being less talented overall.

[Wigginstime]

This seems pretty easy actually

The 2020 Lakers won with a starting lineup of

KCP
Green
Lebron
Davis
McGee

I think i can just as easily win with
KCP
Jordan
Green
Lebron
McGee