Build a team 1995 Round 1: Writeups Due MIDNIGHT EST Sunday

[Snakebites]

To again reiterate what I said earlier and be more specific, I will allow two days (specifically till the end of Tuesday) for rebuttals to continue (and the last of the writeups to trickle in) before voting is allowed.

[SamBone]

Sambone is not as challenging as Cellar. My backcourt advantage coupled with the fact that Laettner and Thorpe can't defend McKey stepping out makes my opponent's frontcourt much less intimidating. Grant Hill's rookie defense on the seasoned old man Nique will be fun to watch. Hill is a good defender now, but he did not have that reputation earlier on in his career. Also, my bench can provide the edge that takes this balanced team past the first round into the final four.

If you think McKey’s .493 FG% is unguardable, how would the 6’9 SF McKey be able to defend the 6’11 Laettner who had the same range, or the ultra efficient Thorpe? Not to mention that McKey pulled in a stellar 4.9 rebounds a game and is starting at PF? My guys will own the glass. Plus the fact that a younger McKey (in 1995) was strictly a SF who usually guarded SG’s to help Reggie. They had Dale Davis at PF, and Smits at C with Antonio Davis, LaSalle Thompson and John Williams getting all the backup minutes. It wasn’t tell later in his career (when Smits retired) that he bucked up to his “Heavy D” nickname and moved to PF. Laettner and Thorpe will have a field day in this series!

Just because GHill was a rookie, didn’t mean he wasn’t a stellar defender. He was a great defender in college, as well as in his rookie season. Hill was looked at as the face of the NBA (In fact, Hill became the first rookie in all major sports to get the most votes for an All-Star game.) Hill will have no problem slowing down the old chucker stage of Nique’s career.

I also disagree with your opinion of your bench. You have a selfish PG that has never come off the bench ad took 15 shots a game. Lucious was a nice prospect46% shooter and only 55 3’s made), Chucker Person was a nice sharpe shooter but is only getting 8 min so not much harm from him. Popeye was a nice rebounding PF and not a bad 3rd BIG and Sharon Wright was a bust of a draft pick that shot 46% as a backup C. I would give the edge to my bench of good team players that fit well and play a role like Elliot Perry(spark plug, eff scorer and thief), Steve Smith(6th man and shooter), Bobby Phills(stopper), Otis Thorpe(rebounding vet 3rd BIG), and Big 7’7 Gheorghe Muresan (shot blocking backup C)

[BlackIce]

To again reiterate what I said earlier and be more specific, I will allow two days (specifically till the end of Tuesday) for rebuttals to continue (and the last of the writeups to trickle in) before voting is allowed.

Mine will be up by then.

[Snakebites]

Rebuttal:

Malone didn't "destroy" Ty Hill. That only appears to be so with a cursory two second look at career stats. Looking at that ignores the fact that Ty Hill was an undeveloped late blooming bench player during most of those matchups, and wouldn't have been guarding Malone most of the time. It is nice to see you know how to use the H2H finder though, even if you're actual analysis needs some work.

Taking a look at the incredible numbers Malone produced in Hill's days as a bench player in Golden State (several straight of well over 30) will tell one all they need to know about the scewed nature of that analysis. You're looking at players whose peaks were vastly different in length.

I am quite confident that the edge Robinson has over his counterparts is considerably larger than the one Malone has over Hill.

[SabasRevenge!]

Though Barros's outlier season is compelling to look at, it should be noted that the impressive volume numbers were achieved on a team that had nearly no other viable options to speak of, and while impressive the numbers were never even approached again in Barros's short career. We expect Barros to nonetheless be rather productive, but we fully expect Hardaway to do far more damage against him than vice versa.

We actually really love this Barros v. Hardaway matchup, especially with Augmon checking Tim. We think that Barros will get the best of Hardaway - by a good margin - and the numbers back us up. This challenge is about a single season - 1995 - so Barros can't simply be dismissed because this was his best year. Barros scored with excellent efficiency on a bad team. He also shared the ball. Hardaways team won 26 games in '95 and he shot far worse all around that Barros. Hardaway actually scored LESS on TWO MORE FGA with a half more TO per game!

BARROS V. HARDAWAY
FG% .490 - .427
3P% .468 - .378
FT% .899 - .760
FTA 4.7 - 4.6
PTS 20.6 - 20.1
REB 3.3 - 3.1
AST 7.5 - 9.3
STL 1.6 - 1.4
TO 3.0 - 3.5
PER 20.9 - 18.3
ORTG 124 - 112
DRTG 111 - 114
WS 12.7 - 5.1

The only category Hardaway comes out on ahead in is assists per game! In fact, Barros TS% is 82 points better than Hardaway's. I don't think there's much room to argue that Hardaway was better than Barros this year. Both were on poor teams, but at least Barros made his team much better.

The icing on the cake is the tall and versatile Toni Kukoc, a premier secondary option for the team.

Shrempf is primarily compelling because of his size, but this advantage is almost negated since our team starts the 6'10'' Toni Kukoc and 6'9'' Robert Horry.

Schrempf is compelling for many more reasons than his size. He's better than or equal to Kukoc in virtually every facet of the game, especially defense.

Lets compare them:
FG% .523 - .504
3P% .514 - .313
FT% .839 - .748
FTA 6.4 - 3.9
PTS 19.2 - 15.7
REB 6.2 - 5.4
AST 3.8 - 4.6
STL 1.1 - 1.3
TO 2.1 - 2.0
PER 20.3 - 19.8
ORTG 127 - 118
DRTG 108 - 105
WS 12.9 - 10.0

Schrempf outperforms Kukuc in almost every significant category and is a far better defender. This one is pretty cut and dried.

Rebuttal:

Malone didn't "destroy" Ty Hill. That only appears to be so with a cursory two second look at career stats. Looking at that ignores the fact that Ty Hill was an undeveloped late blooming bench player during most of those matchups, and wouldn't have been guarding Malone most of the time. It is nice to see you know how to use the H2H finder though, even if you're actual analysis needs some work.

Taking a look at the incredible numbers Malone produced in Hill's days as a bench player in Golden State (several straight of well over 30) will tell one all they need to know about the scewed nature of that analysis. You're looking at players whose peaks were vastly different in length.

I am quite confident that the edge Robinson has over his counterparts is considerably larger than the one Malone has over Hill.

Malone did quite a bit better against Hill than Robinson did against Davis. And that's even counting the time Smits, a worse defender, spent on him. This tool is obviously not perfect, but it can give us insight into these match ups, so you shouldn't totally discount it just because it works against your team in this situation. BTW, I've been a ball stat hobbyist for years now, using BBR tools and reading Dean Oliver's work time and time again, so it's not exactly a neat little tool that I just discovered. Just sayin'

Here's the H2H comparison of Hill v. Malone for anyone who's interested:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/h2h_finder.cgi?request=1&p1=hillty01&p2=malonka01

Hill didn't slow Malone down even in his prime.

Series like this are all about the key match ups. I believe that Malone will beat Hill/Horry/Tarpley more than Robinson will beat Davis/Campbell/West, especially because our secondary defensive options on our opponent's best player match up much better with him. Horry will get eaten alive inside by Malone.

Barros has a convincing advantage over Hardaway in '95. He outproduced him in virtually every way while being incomparably more efficient.

Schrempf also has a very significant advantage over Kukoc, especially considering Kukoc's allergy to defense and Schrempf's ability to take Toni off the dribble AND post him up... as well as shoot it over .200 better than him from distance (.514 v. .313).

Even if Robinson slightly outplays Malone as my opponent suggests, Barros and Kukoc will outplay their opponents by a significant margin. We win due to equal play by Malone/Robinson and better play from Schrempf/Barros v. Kukoc/Hardaway.

[Snakebites]

Detlef is better than Kukoc. Thats fine, I never suggested otherwise.

But Barros will outplay Hardaway?

I'll ask our voters to use their best judgment there. Barros had an outlier season on a team with no other legitimate options. Statistically impressive? Absolutely. Indicative that he's better than a career star like Tim even in this context? I would definitely argue not. Hardaway was legitimately top 5 in his position for an extended period and has a high calculated HOF probability. He finished 4th in MVP voting and formed part of a duo that lead a Heat team to one of the leagues best records only two years after this selected year. He averaged 20/9 with a 55% TS and rock solid 3 point range, and only a year later proved he could put up strong numbers in a completely different and winning system. The comparison isn't close, let alone favoring Barros.

[Snakebites]

K, once midnight EST hits voting on matchups is allowed.

People may continue to post writeups and rebuttals, but know that any votes posted before what you wrote are allowed and irreversible.

[SabasRevenge!]

Best of luck Snake and bryant, I'm looking forward to hearing opinions on our matches.

[penbeast0]

Black Magic

Penbeast has a solid team offensively, and it's the first time I've faced him. Should be good!

General Thoughts


-Passing/playmaking are two department's we dominant in this matchup I see a lot of scoring with Reggie/Green/Barkley/Smit's but who get's these guys their touches? Who finds them in their sweet spots? Smit's/Reggie were the cornerstone's of those IND teams throw in Barkley and I'm not sure this team is balanced enough

Dominant eh? LEt's look at this. Ice's primary playmaker is Penny, who despite having Shaq as a target only put up 6.8AST with 3.2TO per 36 minutes. Our starting PG is Nate McMillan who has 7.3 assists/36 and only 2.2 turnovers. So, Nate is a more prolific passer AND far less mistake prone. hmmmmmm.

What about the rest of the lineup. Reggie gets about twice the assists/36 as Eddie Jones (similar A/T), Smits about twice the assists/36 of Shawn Bradley (about TWICE the A/T), and Barkley gets more assists/36 than Majerle (though Majerle does avoid turnovers well . . . Barkley was relatively good at it, Dan was great). Only Chris Webber produces more assists/36 than AC Green in the starting lineups and he turns the ball over considerably more too. Putting the whole lineup together, SOBE creates more assists than the Magic . . . and with less turnovers per assist. So . . . the dominant playmaking lineup is, well, ours

-Marjerle (underrated I think, I took him over Smit's which tells you what I think of Thunder Dan) will absolutely kill Reggie and will give him hell on the other end.

Maferle will kill REggie? Reggie is one of the most efficient scorers ever and one of the few greats that has a history of upping his game in the playoffs. This year is not exception as Reggie upped his scoring to 25.5pt/g and his true shooting percentage to .632! "Thunder Dan" drizzled in at a weak 8.2ppg with his efficiency dropping to .509 (.370 fg%). This is not a matchup BlackIce should be boasting about

But even better than that. With Majerle on Reggie, that means EDDIE JONES IS DEFENDING CHARLES BARKLEY. Charles will absolutely kill him, taking him down low on the weak side where BlackIce's defenders would have to leave Reggie or Rik Smits to drop or come across the lane to defend. And both Reggie and Rik are high volume, high efficiency, tremendous offensive threats even without this. Barkley will either be able to score practically at will or they are going to have to leave our other primary threats alone since we have designed our offensive spacing to allow Charles room to operate. Just because it's fun, let me repeat this. Eddie Jones is going to defend Charles Barkley.

-Weak defensive and shot blocking front-court of Smits/Barkley/A.C Green, we'll get to the rim at will in this series, and Reggie is famously below average in this department. The only real player that can stop anyone in their starting lineup McMillan and even he won't be able to stop a Penny in his short but amazing prime.

And finally, one last myth by BlackIce to bust. Barkley is not a great defender; Phoenix, even with Majerle and A.C.Green, was not a good defensive team; but Indiana was. Indiana ranked 6th in the NBA in defense in 1995 while stating Reggie, Rik Smits (and equally maligned defender Mark Jackson). The only way that a team becomes one of the top defensive teams is if the stars, particularly the starting cetner, buy into the team defensive concept and in this year Reggie and Rik did just that. They weren't Hakeem and Payton but they worked at defense and put in sweat equity for Larry Brown. And it worked.

And, remember that BlackIce relies on Penny and Webber for scoring and they are facing All-Defensive team guard Nate McMillan who is one of the few PGs with the size and quicks to hang with Penny while WEbber is facing another top defender in A.C. Green (with Buck Williams and Mario Elie available off the bench).

FINALLY, As for Barkley, remember that he is guarding Dan Majerle (8.2ppg on a mediocre .506ts%) and fellow playoff bust Eddie Jones who also dropped to an anemic 8.7 ppg in the playoffs with an even worse efficiency (.487!) than Majerle. Compare to Barkley who upped his scoring in the playoffs to 25.7 ppg on a true shooting percentage of .580. That is the matchup that will dominate and decide this series as Barkley abuses the Magic's undersized swingmen. SOBE wins this matchup because our dominant players are playoff monsters facing a lineup that isn't built to handle them.

[BlackIce]

-Webber is guarding Barkley (that was always the case not sure why you think Jones will be on him) with Maferle on Green and Jones on Reggie or vice versa. Maferle averaged 16/5/4 in the regular season, and if he is being guarded by Barkley on the perimeter..that spells trouble.

-Nice trick with the per36 numbers, Penny averaged 7.2 APG and McMillian was at 5.3 APG

-Where does the dribble drive penatration come from? You pay a price for starting two PF's.

[penbeast0]

Quick response. . .

(a)OK, in that case the 3 inch taller AC Green will be baseline posting up whichever guard tries to guard him (or Buck Williams -- either way it is a gross mismatch) with Smits sliding up to the midpost on the strongside and Barkley will be doing the dribble drive penetration against the lazy and contact avoiding Webber on the weak side (Webber matured in Sacramento but in Washington, he didn't play much defense -- sort of like Barkley in Phoenix v. Barkley in Philly).

(b) These are playoffs. Majerle disappearing from in the playoffs (9.7 playoff PER) is one of the prime reasons Barkley couldn't get past Hakeem and the Rockets despite a great series by him and a comeback by the injured Kevin Johnson. The playoffs are a different environment. It is fair to say that Majerle will have an easier time shooting from the outside against Barkley than he did in his historic playoffs but the flip side of winners win is that choke artists choke . . . and while Majerle has been up and down, Eddie Jones has always disappeared in key situations his whole career.

(c) I used the PER 36 stats for the same reason people always use them to compare players . . . it's how well you perform when you are on the court. I listed the players' playoff minutes so readers will know what the maximum minutes our starters will play, but the fact is that our starting PG who you maligned as a weaker playmaker creates more for his teammates when on the court than Penny AND WITH LESS TURNOVERS TOO! Penny just plays more minutes. Per 36 stats are also much more useful when comparing reserves because the reserves won't be playing 30+ minutes like they might have done for their historic teams.

(d) Phoenix was the 3rd most efficient offense in the NBA with Barkley starting at SF. Barkley did a lot of drive penetration that year, and a lot of posting up weaker players like Webber (as a Wizard fan I can tell you he lit us up like a Christmas tree regularly) and Green would feast on SF's if they tried to start the PF on Barkley -- just as we are doing; only you listed Majerle as guarding Reggie which means you are starting a slender rookie SG defending a veteran PF with multiple rings.

btw, just in case Majerle does get going; the player that turned "Thunder Dan" into "Fizzle Dan" is Mario Elie, who can come in and shut him down again if needed.

[penbeast0]

I don't mind going first Snake . . . even if it makes me some enemies (Warspite still hasn't forgiven me for a couple of ATLs in the past ). I do think it's great that every got writeups up and that the draft went so smoothly and while I will start by pointing out things I disagree with in each writeup, that doesn't mean they weren't entertaining, informative, and persuasive.

That said . . .

Cellar Door v. SamBone v. Miller4Ever

Cellar Door: Radja was NOT a good defensive big; he was awful -- one of those guys who gave Euros the soft rep -- on the other hand, he was a pretty effective offensive player and Divac and Pippen are pretty nice coverage for the rest of the frontline. I was pretty shaky about Person at PG too; assume it's only when Pippen is in the game but still I'd have left Hornacek there since he's playing the minutes. Person and Hawkins isn't a good pairing.

Sambone: Similarly, Steve Smith was not one of those guys who D'd up; he was another offensive minded player who turned into a great 3 point shooter when they moved him to the wing. Calling Thorpe excellent is also pushing it; solid would be a better description and calling him a good passer is stretching the truth pretty hard. In 95, for example, he had only 1.9ast/36 according to B-R.com, with an A/T ratio below 1. Good player though.

Miller: Sharon Wright was hardly a sensation, Kenny Anderson had a pretty shaky year out there in the zoo that NJ turned into, and McKey isn’t going to dominate Otis Thorpe offensively.

That said . . . .

Much as I like Payton (4th best PG of all time) in one of his best years, Miller landed in a very tough group in terms of matchups for him. I don’t think his great guard play is going to be enough to beat his more balanced opps and would guess he’d finish 3rd in this division.

Sambone and CellarDoor have odd asymmetries. Sam has a team built around a harassing defensive PG and shotblocking center . . . against a team that runs through a point forward and has good size in the starting PG to shoot over Mookie plus Divac who will pull Zo out of the post and frustrate the young, somewhat hotheaded Mourning with his flopping and refusal to shower. Thus the matchup for Sam to win comes down to whether he can win the SF duel between Scottie Pippen and Grant Hill. I have to give it to Pippen here; and Cellar Door is good enough elsewhere to pull this out.

So, in this group,
CellarDoor and the Libertarians 2-0
Sambone and the Boned Samuels 1-1
Miller and the Unclever Team Name 0-2

[Snakebites]

So to be clear on how you voted:

You have Cellar winning against Sam Bone and Miller, and Sam Bone winning over Miller?

We're doing voting on individual matchups here.

[penbeast0]

Again, let me start with some comments

Warspite – Not sure Malik Sealy has what it takes to start in this league. He was a marginal rotation guy – great size for a 2 but weak shooting, mediocre handles, solid defense. And wouldn’t trust JR Rider; I’d play Rice more at two with Big Dog at 3 and live with the weak defense. Not fond of Strickland either but he could play when he chose to and Ewing is great. Chemistry with Rider and Strickland is questionable.

nba_addict – Elliot at the 2 and Houston at the 3 seems odd but if they are together, it’s basically semantics. Kemp’s numbers are nasty – I always felt he was overrated but he played big this year; not sure how well he does the pick and roll you are relying on – he didn’t always play smart. Would love to hear from other neutrals whether he’s a good pick and roll player.

Poopadoop – Good writeup; didn’t disagree with anything. I like using the Van Gundy offense – it works for Dwight Howard and Shaq is even nastier offensively. I was surprised to agree with you that Ceballos and Skiles could shoot 3’s; I don’t remember either of them as ranged shooters but the stats say they can go out if needed. I would worry about rebounding and the weak defense of Ceballos and Skiles but Shaq is a nasty load even as a rook.

War v. Addict: Addict has a good point about the somewhat inflated stats of guys who starred on weak teams but Baker is a good cover for Ewing and Kemp v. Vaught are two tough offensive big forwards (Never was impressed with either defensively though Kemp has a good rep). Adv. Inside goes to Warspite. Sealy is also a good pick to defense the SF playing SG Elliot while Rice v. Houston is just a shootout. Addict’s best bet is the Stock v. Strickland matchup where Stock might get inside Strickland’s strange little mind and dominate but I’d bet on War here unless Strickland and Rider turn his team into a problem zone. Pretty good matchup though and it could easily go the other way.

Addict v. Poop: Baker might hand with Ewing but he can’t handle Shaq. That will be ugly. Stockton should be better than Skiles but the real key is whether Stock can make his wings good enough to compensate for Shaq’s inside edge. Truth be told, I don’t know – without Stockton, I’d give the edge to Poop’s wings but Stockton was a terrific creator. Still, Stockton doesn’t dominate like Shaq dominates – even rookie Shaq so in another close, tough matchup, I have to give it to the Big Rookie and Zazu’s House of Pain.

Poop v. War: Inside play looks physical as hell though I still like Shaq’s game against Ewing. In terms of matchups – if Sealy gets going with his long 6-8 frame v. the fireplug 6’1 Skiles, that will get War some early cheap buckets. Again, War has some real chemistry problems with both certain players and certain roles. This is a really tough region. I was really hoping for more detailed writeup from Warspite; a team built around rookie Shaq should be vulnerable, he wasn’t that good a defender or passer yet. It’s almost flip a coin so I will go the best writeup and best player which is Poop/Shaq. The Big Pooper catches a break here and the House of Pain squeaks by.

Poopadoop 2-0
Warspite 1-1
nba-addict 0-2

Tough group to judge

[penbeast0]

This group contains some of the most talented teams and some of the biggest chemistry issues in the ATL. Chemistry first:

Sabas -- I had thought you were the one team without serious chemistry issues until you changed your lineup for the matchup. I know it's fantasy but I can't help but feel that drastically changing a team's rotation to face a particular opponent shows weakness, not strength. It's letting the other side dictate the terms of the engagement.

Bryant -- Derrick Coleman was a punk. Not only do you have him taking a signficant role in your offense but he's going to have problems in the locker room with Oakley and Grandmama who were both enforcer types. That and Grandmama is going to have big problems guarding SFs; after his injury he played much more PF and less SF using his strength to cover for the lost quickness. (Of course I have Barkley covering SFs too but while he had trouble covering them too that year; he can outscore pretty much anyone he faces and they can't handle him either)

Snakebite -- You have to hope Timmy steps up the way you think he's going to because David Robinson and Nick Anderson are both guys who step back in the playoffs. But even more, if the Admiral had a huge problem with Dennis Rodman and his attitude, he isn't going to do any better with a moron like Roy Tarpley (back for most of a season after being banned for life -- and couldn't stay clean the whole year) and might have problems with John Starks too, though Robinson did okay with Vern Maxwell.

Sabas v. Bryant -- I think Karl Malone, with the outside shooting of Schrempf and Barros (though Barros might come back to reality if he made the postseason) is going to be a bit too much for the stronger but slower Bryant's crew. I do think Bryant's rebounding edge will be real and he'll get some turnovers but Malone should be the key to this series.

Bryant v. Snakebite -- Similarly, the combination of David Robinson's big man game and the shooting of Snake's outside scorers will be enough to counter the inside scoring edge of Grandmama and Drexler.

Sabas v. Snakebite -- The two prime big men here, both of whom had playoff issues, should roughly balance out with David Robinson getting the edge because of his much greater defensive impact. Outside, I'm not sure where Sabas got the idea that Schrempf was a good defender -- he wasn't -- and the switchoff defensively I think hurts Sabas as Augman's length and toughness would be better used on one of SNake's wing scorers rather than trying to keep up with a waterbug like Tim Hardaway (to say nothing of Barros or Rauf tryiing to defend a 6-5+ wing and a potential ballhandling backcourt of Gill and Augmon. I have to give this to Snake though I thinkg Sabas had maybe the best writeup in the league and nearly convinced me otherwise.

So,
Snakebite 2-0
Sabas 1-1
Bryant 0-2

[SabasRevenge!]

finished all match ups but two this morning, will post them all by tomorrow afternoon

[CellarDoor]

Going to post my thoughts during work tomorrow. sorry i've been absent guys, finals were this week, just finished today.

[Miller4ever]

I'm going to need more time for writeups. Things don't settle down for another couple of days.

[Miller4ever]

By writeups I mean for judging. Although I would've liked to address more points for my team of second choices.

[poopdamoop]

Just for the record, Shaq isn't a rookie. He's in his 3rd season (I know it doesn't matter in terms of pen's vote, but just in case people are under that misconception.) So two years more experienced, and just as athletic and lethal.