All-Time Fantasy Draft With FGA Limit - Meta Thread

[ronnymac2]

These are the guys I had in mind:

george t johnson
anthony mason
kenny smith
Jason terry
derek harper
dana barros
blaylock
pj brown
debusschere
sikma
2005 joe johnson
tay prince
Elton brand
2005 damon jones
rubio
tony allen
reddick
mo lucas
david west
97 webber

Love these players when building 5-man units.

Overall my favorite pick was Nate McMillan. Dude is a per-minute monster with 3-point shooting (spacing), distribution, rebounding from the PG position, super steals, good defense, and good playmaking. He's like the perfect backup PG.

Great job to everybody though. Build some awesome teams. Excited to read about the matchups.

[theonlyclutch]

Have a bit of spare time, so charted out the players chosen on each team by decreasing FGA

[lilroddyb]

.

Waiting for you guys to specify seasons of your players, and then we can get this show on the road.

Chris Paul 14-15 14,3 fga
Tracy Mcgrady 02-03 24,2 fga
Kawhi Leonard 15-16 15.1 fga
Robert Horry 01-02 5.7 fga
Ben Wallace 02-03 6 fga

Bench

Rudy Gobert 14-15 5.2 fga
Nick Collison 11-12 3.2 fga
George Hill 15-16 10 fga

total fga: 83,7

[Doctor MJ]

For someone that didn't pay much attention to FGAs you still managed to get nearly peak Zo and West. The Bird and Dumars picks aren't as good looking back on it (Bird and Dumars are great where you picked them but not 80 Bird in the first and 97 Dumars in the 4th iirc).

Missed this before.

I'm actually quite happy with '80 Bird. Here's the thing: Bird was probably the GOAT rookie precisely because he came in with astonishing portability. The Celtics didn't implement some new system running everything through Bird, he simply augmented everything they did because of his awareness, motor, and shooting.

Now, in terms of his actual NBA peak, he got better. A lot of what that meant though was the Celtics over time focusing their offense around him while his motor fell off. The more talent you have on your squad, the less benefit you get from making that transition. While I'll acknowledge that if we didn't have the 85 FGA thing going I wouldn't have said that I was using rookie Bird, what I absolutely intended to emphasize from the beginning was his GOAT portability that he had early in his career, and as a result when I actually was allocated FGAs, it seemed actually most "honest" to present him at his absolute freshest, which is why I "sacrificed" his FGA primacy rather than other players of lesser importance.

Dumars was tougher and again I tried to ask myself what I thought was most honest. The FGA cap between '88 Dumars and '97 Dumars is negligible, so I could have gone with '88. I suppose if Q would let me, and others urged me, maybe I'd change my mind and go with '88.

The problem with older Dumars is that he doesn't have the agility of youth, and thus showcasing him as my primary perimeter man defender isn't nearly as sexy as it would have been when he was younger.

On the other hand, it my intention to assert that Dumars is a great 3-point shooter, and while it's fair I think to say that with modern rules he'd have been a great shooter sooner, that really is something he developed as he went further in his career. Additionally, Dumars post-Isiah really became a great leader and mentor. You can go and find articles talking about Grant Hill metaphorically sitting at Dumars feet as Dumars would explain seemingly every detail of every situation. Older Dumars had old man tricks in spades which would allow him to be excellent in any team scenario where he didn't have to do everything himself. You wouldn't use him to iso on offense or guard an iso on defense at this point, but with defensive rules being what they are, and the intelligent front court I have behind him, he'd be very, very effective even against this level of competition.

Still, I wonder if I"m shooting myself in the foot by going the 'honest' route here. Maybe it would be better if I just used a young Dumars and asserted that he'd grown up practicing 3's since the ATFD version of Dumars exists to play in the modern era.

One other thing I'll add:

Millsap is my semi-regret pick. He's playing the role I wanted him to play when I drafted him, but as with Bird I didn't intend to proclaim he was actually a rookie until I really accepted the 85 FGA thing, and unlike Bird, while he was a great rookie, he wasn't a star at that point.

Once I had drafted Unseld I felt better about where I was with Millsap though, because had I thought along these lines I could've have drafted Unseld in the 5th round and felt fine drafting Millsap in the 6th. The only awkwardness then comes from the fact that I drafted Millsap before Unseld but when I do my writeup, Unseld will be more prominent than Millsap.

Also ftr, where my drafting is notably flawed is in how I tend to get tunnel-vision after the first few picks. I didn't, in fact, even consider Unseld because after Zo I wasn't looking for another 4/5 until my 6th pick. Hence, I'm fortunate that with my 6th pick I was able to get a guy whose non-scoring focus allowed him to play a role that fit a more critical need than you would typically ask a 6th pick to play.

[penbeast0]

These are the guys I had in mind:

george t johnson
anthony mason
kenny smith
Jason terry
derek harper
dana barros
blaylock
pj brown
debusschere
sikma
2005 joe johnson
tay prince
Elton brand
2005 damon jones
rubio
tony allen
reddick
mo lucas
david west
97 webber

Love these players when building 5-man units.

Overall my favorite pick was Nate McMillan. Dude is a per-minute monster with 3-point shooting (spacing), distribution, rebounding from the PG position, super steals, good defense, and good playmaking. He's like the perfect backup PG.

Great job to everybody though. Build some awesome teams. Excited to read about the matchups.

George T Johnson is a player I like too; but not for 5 man units. He was basically a reserve (or starter where reserves played more minutes) his whole career except for a 3 year stretch in NJ where his teams were the worst offensive teams in the league (22/22 2 years, 21/22 the third). Not a guy I'd want as a starter but one of the best reserve centers.

[MisterHibachi]

Spoiler:

Have a bit of spare time, so charted out the players chosen on each team by decreasing FGA

So I'm the only GM with two guys above 20 FGA.

[E-Balla]

Oh don't worry there's nothing negative about any of this. We're arguing 2 ATG bigs here so either was a great pick.

I'd say Zo's teams were built around him just like Pat's. He was lower volume than Ewing but young Ewing was part of some more balanced offensive teams and he was better for it. Remember this is your dream team and if you can argue increased effectiveness in a reduced role it's all you. Personally I would've argued Ewing could reduce his volume and do everything Zo did offensively but better.

Perhaps, but it's not like Ewing in his later years had surprising offensive impact as his primacy decreased like you'd expect from someone who was really, really smart.

In general, Zo played a role that to me is just plain smarter for someone his size than Ewing for most of Ewing's career, and while that had everything to do with what coaches told the players to do, and I"m basically okay with saying Ewing would be Zo's equal on this front, I wouldn't feel comfortable giving Ewing an actual edge playing in a way he didn't actually play.

Well who was Ewing's next best offensive player before he got old? John Starks? Mark Jackson? Zo had LJ, Tim, and even Dell if we are talking about guys better than Starks offensively. Ewing definitely wasn't playing in his ideal role but on a team like this he could.

Yeah I'm not going to lie I think your team is a little too small. But that's why we get to argue and rebute. Actually size is goign to be a major thing here and that's why I'm happy I got McHale who was a legit PF that could guard SFs all game and anchor any small ball sets I have. Still I personally would've taken a post defender. With guys like Shaq, Kareem, and Wilt out here in the tournament having a post defender is crucial.

Well I do have strong guys on the interior, but I would certainly agree that outside of Zo I don't have anyone who says "big man stopper". I think though when you actually get specific, the reasoning makes sense:

Shaq? If Mutombo couldn't stop Shaq, clearly the only way to contain him is by smart, proactive defense as a team...which was a lot harder to actually do legally back then. Lucky for the rest of us, we're playing with modern rules and strategies.

Kareem? To really do his thing he needs space & time, which he wouldn't get in modern basketball. This isn't to say he wouldn't be a great player today, but finesse on the interior really works best if you can rely on clear single or double teams. A constant noise of fast-moving defense won't let you get into a rhythm.

Wilt? His volume scoring never actually worked. He'll be a fantastic force in terms of fastbreaks, putbacks, etc, but take all the issues from before and amplify them unless you can convince the judges that this version of Wilt spent years finely honing his rapid decision making prowess near the hoop in a way he never did when he actually played.

Well that's a double edged sword because Shaq now has more spacing around him than he did back then - same for Wilt and Kareem. Dwight made the 1 in 4 out strategy work pretty well so I'm sure these guys can. Double teaming Shaq sounds good but he has shooters, Kareem would have space because of his shooters, and Wilt could finally properly utilise his passing.

I'd say a young Ewing (even with the knee problems) is at least as mobile as Zo. I remember me and trex had a conversation about 90 Ewing vs AD and in the middle of it he went back to watch some late 80s/early 90s and the first thing he said about it was that Ewing was very mobile and more mobile than he remembered. Personally out of the big 3 90s bigs I think he was the most mobile of the bunch defensively (Robinson was faster but Ewing was probably quicker IMO). Zo's great and he takes up less FGAs so it's a tough choice.

Okay, let's compare '90 Ewing with '99 Mourning.

Ewing
Block %: 5.9
OReb%: 8.5

Mourning
Block %: 7.7
OReb%: 12.3

What about in college? We don't have as much data, but working with what we got per 40 minutes:
Ewing
Block 4.8
Reb: 12.0

Mourning
Block 6.1
Reb: 13.1

There's more to this stuff than a couple data points of course, but the data doesn't back up the idea that Ewing had extreme motor that we've forgotten about because of what we saw in old age. It was better when he was younger of course, but it's still not up there with the most impressive bigs on that front.

Few things here:
1. Pat shot more so it makes sense Zo had better OREB numbers.
2. I was saying Pat was more mobile not that he had a better motor. I couldn't name 2 guys with Zo's motor fwiw but in the modern NBA Pat's mobility seems more useful.
3. To support that we can easily look at steal numbers where Pat basically doubled Zo both in the league and in college.
4. Pat is actually one of 8 players (iirc) to have a 2 stl% and 6 blk% in the same season (I think it was in 89 - he averaged 1.5 steals per 36 from 87-89) along with AK47, Camby, Ben Wallace, Anthony Davis, Josh Smith, Hakeem, and David Robinson. He's the only one in that group who ever had their mobility questioned when compared to guys like Zo.

Here's where I'll also add: I have 1 modern player (Millsap) and 1 player in Zo who arguably won't be as good as in his own era, every other player I chose, I chose specifically because I think they were better suited to this era than his own.

4) To elaborate more on offense: My attack, like basically every excellent modern attack, is perimeter-oriented. Zo will certainly score as a finisher on fast breaks, as a guy getting rebounds, and as a result of cracks in the defense which allow attacking passes to the interior (pick & roll, etc). He's a scary threat to any defense that doesn't take him seriously, but he's not Bird and he's not West. He won't be my lead offensive player.

Booo. Too narrow minded Doc. I'm going full Princeton implementation. Let's get all of my players a lot of touches and use their passing to my advantage.

Ah, that goes toward my point as well. You don't use the Princeton to let your big man volume score. Rapid passes are designed for rapid attacks. The tend to improve shooting balance in general, but where they allow volume it tends to rely on perimeter players either to shoot from the perimeter or make outstanding passes from the perimeter.

Well neither of us have amazing low post guys. McHale wasn't a good enough passer and Zo not a good enough passer or scorer. Walton fell to me so at that point a 1 in 4 out offense didn't look like the best build. I'll still use his passing a ton though. With Ewing and Nash though I'd probably have a different style offense. I get what you mean here though and you are right.

Note that those possibilities DO allow for a hub & spoke model that Hakeem pioneered, but defenses do have more options today to confront that which means he can't do his Dream Shake stuff the same way today.

Also, note that that was true even before we factor in that 3's are worth more than 2's and that teams now realize that and prioritize the 3's more than they used to.

Are you saying they'll single cover Hakeem and prioritise shooters then? That's BBQ chicken. He and Moses to me were the most scary players because of their abilities to destroy opposing bigs one on one and in Hakeem's case his ability to pass and in Moses' case his ability to dominate off offensive boards (basically negating the strategy of shading him off ball).

As I say all this, I'll also say that you could think of the offense I'm running in Princeton terms too. I'm not really big on using official labels for the same reason that it's painful to watch Kurt Rambis try to fit a triangle into a round hole, but I've chosen a team with phenomenal passing and decision making because with such a team the offense tends not to be based around a carefully crafted set of complicated plays and focuses more on just letting the players read the floor and make the right play.

On that note, the problem with the triangle in general is that it's typically quite hard to find enough smart players to make it work. On an NBA level team it's absolutely wonderful to have Steve Nash out there, because he can think for everyone else. He's still great in this league of course, but the smarter your players in general, the less you have to spell out exactly what they are supposed to do.

I do agree with this part and I still like your team and think your offense is great. Still I think Ewing would've been better for more modern teams ignoring the FGAs for a second. His shooting was undervalued back then and I think in the modern era it'd give him an edge he didn't have in 89.

[eminence]

Spoiler:

Have a bit of spare time, so charted out the players chosen on each team by decreasing FGA

Got the right team at the top already I see

[E-Balla]

Mmmh dat balance.

[lilroddyb]

Some fun matchups: jordan vs Lebron, Wilt vs Shaq etc.. . I'm really looking forward to the writeups. So many strong teams, hard to figure out which one is the best.

[theonlyclutch]

Mmmh dat balance.

You're like the only guy whose team where no one exceeds 15FGA

[wojoaderge]

FG% for each of my players:

McAdoo 78 .520
Dantley 78 .512
Moncrief 82 .523
Taylor 75 .513
Sabonis 00 .505
Brown 83 .520
Jones 85 .538
Smith 91 .487

Darn it, Mr. Mean! Oh well, he only takes 3 shots a game . . .

Here is a video which features highlights and examples of each of my players from in and around the seasons I chose for them. The highlights of Sabonis, Dantley, Moncrief, Smith, and Jones are from the same exact seasons. McAdoo's were for 76-77 as well as 77-78, Taylor's were from 75-76 (the year after) and Brown's were from 81-82 (the year before).

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnQ-Lt4aTTM&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

[E-Balla]

Mmmh dat balance.

You're like the only guy whose team where no one exceeds 15FGA

Also the only team with 5 guys over 10 FGAs.

[Dr Spaceman]

Mmmh dat balance.

You're like the only guy whose team where no one exceeds 15FGA

Also the only team with 5 guys over 10 FGAs.

I can assure you that's not true.

[Doctor MJ]

Mmmh dat balance.

Yup. That's pretty cool. Fun team to watch.

[Doctor MJ]

So I'm the only GM with two guys above 20 FGA.

Ordinarily I'd advise against such a set up, but I think the Shaq/Kobe/Gasol Laker trio is going to really resonate.

[Doctor MJ]

Well who was Ewing's next best offensive player before he got old? John Starks? Mark Jackson? Zo had LJ, Tim, and even Dell if we are talking about guys better than Starks offensively. Ewing definitely wasn't playing in his ideal role but on a team like this he could.

Top BBIQ players adapt with age as they lose their physicality.

Well that's a double edged sword because Shaq now has more spacing around him than he did back then - same for Wilt and Kareem. Dwight made the 1 in 4 out strategy work pretty well so I'm sure these guys can. Double teaming Shaq sounds good but he has shooters, Kareem would have space because of his shooters, and Wilt could finally properly utilise his passing.

Howard's teams won with defense and their absolute peak on offense came in '09-10 with Howard shooting 10.2 FGA per game while 3 other guys shot more FGA than him. So no, I doubt see the evidence for it being 6 of one, half a dozen of the other. In one era you had plenty of big man volume scorers, and now it basically doesn't exist.

But hey, that's the debate I figured people would have. I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but I do expect anyone seriously trying to use a big man to volume score should have focused first and foremost on explaining to us how they'll plan to deal with the changes that scare the actual NBA form using this approach nowadays.

Few things here:
1. Pat shot more so it makes sense Zo had better OREB numbers.
2. I was saying Pat was more mobile not that he had a better motor. I couldn't name 2 guys with Zo's motor fwiw but in the modern NBA Pat's mobility seems more useful.
3. To support that we can easily look at steal numbers where Pat basically doubled Zo both in the league and in college.
4. Pat is actually one of 8 players (iirc) to have a 2 stl% and 6 blk% in the same season (I think it was in 89 - he averaged 1.5 steals per 36 from 87-89) along with AK47, Camby, Ben Wallace, Anthony Davis, Josh Smith, Hakeem, and David Robinson. He's the only one in that group who ever had their mobility questioned when compared to guys like Zo.

1. I wasn't aware that it was considered normal for alpha scoring big men to have weak rebounding numbers.
2. Fair enough, and really I'm glad you put it like that because I feel like I'm getting more chippy than I want. Ewing's great and could easily have been drafted early here for good reason.
3 & 4. Interesting.

Well neither of us have amazing low post guys. McHale wasn't a good enough passer and Zo not a good enough passer or scorer. Walton fell to me so at that point a 1 in 4 out offense didn't look like the best build. I'll still use his passing a ton though. With Ewing and Nash though I'd probably have a different style offense. I get what you mean here though and you are right.

Yeah nobody's got a perfect team. I do like yours though quite a bit.

Are you saying they'll single cover Hakeem and prioritise shooters then? That's BBQ chicken. He and Moses to me were the most scary players because of their abilities to destroy opposing bigs one on one and in Hakeem's case his ability to pass and in Moses' case his ability to dominate off offensive boards (basically negating the strategy of shading him off ball).

What I'm saying is that the whole thing with modern defense is that you don't have to choose between clear singles and clear doubles. Yes with a passer like Hakeem you can still exploit the compromises you force if you've got good enough 3-point shooters, but it's critical not to look at these matchups as if anyone wins any of the head-to-heads 100% of the time. Hakeem will do his thing, but there are things in play that will make it a bit harder than back when he played. One can argue about things making it easier for him as well, but really what I'm saying is that you cannot simply equate something from 20+ years ago into today's rules & strategies transferred into a super-NBA level of competition. We've seen nothing in the modern NBA that indicates such things work easily, and so that's some major work for the GM to do in convincing people - or at least, i think it should be.

As I say all this, I'll also say that you could think of the offense I'm running in Princeton terms too. I'm not really big on using official labels for the same reason that it's painful to watch Kurt Rambis try to fit a triangle into a round hole, but I've chosen a team with phenomenal passing and decision making because with such a team the offense tends not to be based around a carefully crafted set of complicated plays and focuses more on just letting the players read the floor and make the right play.

On that note, the problem with the triangle in general is that it's typically quite hard to find enough smart players to make it work. On an NBA level team it's absolutely wonderful to have Steve Nash out there, because he can think for everyone else. He's still great in this league of course, but the smarter your players in general, the less you have to spell out exactly what they are supposed to do.

I do agree with this part and I still like your team and think your offense is great. Still I think Ewing would've been better for more modern teams ignoring the FGAs for a second. His shooting was undervalued back then and I think in the modern era it'd give him an edge he didn't have in 89.

Fair enough.

[E-Balla]

Top BBIQ players adapt with age as they lose their physicality.

So was he supposed to defer to Allan Houston when he was better than him? Even in 99 when Ewing was a 49 TS guy Allan was only a 51.5 TS guy and Ward/LJ were the only guys over league average TS% (and neither can create much of anything consistently - yes Pat couldn't either at that point). The offensive talent he was surrounded with in his career was abysmal.

Howard's teams won with defense and their absolute peak on offense came in '09-10 with Howard shooting 10.2 FGA per game while 3 other guys shot more FGA than him. So no, I doubt see the evidence for it being 6 of one, half a dozen of the other. In one era you had plenty of big man volume scorers, and now it basically doesn't exist.

But hey, that's the debate I figured people would have. I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but I do expect anyone seriously trying to use a big man to volume score should have focused first and foremost on explaining to us how they'll plan to deal with the changes that scare the actual NBA form using this approach nowadays.

Well Howard still lead the team in TSA (he averaged 10 FTA a game too) but I get your point. To that all I have to say is that if Dwight Howard did that with his mediocre (at best) back to basket game and his bad (at best) passing ability imagine what someone with the actual ability to post up could do. The reason we've gone away from that style of offense is that no big is good enough to command touches liek that consistently and the ones that are shoot too much (looking at you Boogie). It's a fundamental difference in how people see the sport but when I look at the league today the number 3 offense in the league is San Antonio and they're also the most post happy team in the league. It can work you just need the right hub (Portland made it work too).

1. I wasn't aware that it was considered normal for alpha scoring big men to have weak rebounding numbers.
2. Fair enough, and really I'm glad you put it like that because I feel like I'm getting more chippy than I want. Ewing's great and could easily have been drafted early here for good reason.
3 & 4. Interesting.

1. It's not really considered normal because bigs usually don't shoot that much but look at Sabonis, KAT, or Dirk's OREB numbers. Pat shot the ball a lot compared to all other alpha Cs before KAT. Also Zo was a weaker rebounder than Pat was.

What I'm saying is that the whole thing with modern defense is that you don't have to choose between clear singles and clear doubles. Yes with a passer like Hakeem you can still exploit the compromises you force if you've got good enough 3-point shooters, but it's critical not to look at these matchups as if anyone wins any of the head-to-heads 100% of the time. Hakeem will do his thing, but there are things in play that will make it a bit harder than back when he played. One can argue about things making it easier for him as well, but really what I'm saying is that you cannot simply equate something from 20+ years ago into today's rules & strategies transferred into a super-NBA level of competition. We've seen nothing in the modern NBA that indicates such things work easily, and so that's some major work for the GM to do in convincing people - or at least, i think it should be.

But I wouldn't say we haven't seen it in 20 years. We saw variations of it plenty of times in the last 10 years. None as effective as Hakeem but none lead by players as good as Hakeem either. Personally seeing Dwight able to lead a good offense with PNRs and postups despite his limited game is enough for me. I definitely agree that with plenty of posters it's a sell and I agree not focusing on one player works best.

[Doctor MJ]

Top BBIQ players adapt with age as they lose their physicality.

So was he supposed to defer to Allan Houston when he was better than him? Even in 99 when Ewing was a 49 TS guy Allan was only a 51.5 TS guy and Ward/LJ were the only guys over league average TS% (and neither can create much of anything consistently - yes Pat couldn't either at that point). The offensive talent he was surrounded with in his career was abysmal.

What I'm saying is that I'd feel better about Ewing if that abysmal offensive talent around him didn't seem to be able to do fine without him. Defer or don't defer, but find away to be valuable.

Of course he WAS certainly valuable on defense all through that time, but I don't see an argument to say his lack of offensive impact came because of his deference.

Howard's teams won with defense and their absolute peak on offense came in '09-10 with Howard shooting 10.2 FGA per game while 3 other guys shot more FGA than him. So no, I doubt see the evidence for it being 6 of one, half a dozen of the other. In one era you had plenty of big man volume scorers, and now it basically doesn't exist.

But hey, that's the debate I figured people would have. I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but I do expect anyone seriously trying to use a big man to volume score should have focused first and foremost on explaining to us how they'll plan to deal with the changes that scare the actual NBA form using this approach nowadays.

Well Howard still lead the team in TSA (he averaged 10 FTA a game too) but I get your point. To that all I have to say is that if Dwight Howard did that with his mediocre (at best) back to basket game and his bad (at best) passing ability imagine what someone with the actual ability to post up could do. The reason we've gone away from that style of offense is that no big is good enough to command touches liek that consistently and the ones that are shoot too much (looking at you Boogie). It's a fundamental difference in how people see the sport but when I look at the league today the number 3 offense in the league is San Antonio and they're also the most post happy team in the league. It can work you just need the right hub (Portland made it work too).

Good point on the TSA, but regardless this quite clearly isn't volume scoring.

Your point about "imagine if he could post up", let me make the following analogy:

In olden days doctors do it all themselves.
Nowadays we have much more success with doctors who are limited specialists because of existing knowledge and technology.
Can you imagine if you could combine those two things? Wouldn't be wonderful to have a doctor whose hands went straight from the morgue to the wombs of pregnant woman while having great modern knowledge of disease transmission?

Not saying it's a perfect analogy, but I think people need to consider whether had the success he had despite his limit skillset precisely because the skills he have are the ones that translate best to the current era.

1. I wasn't aware that it was considered normal for alpha scoring big men to have weak rebounding numbers.
2. Fair enough, and really I'm glad you put it like that because I feel like I'm getting more chippy than I want. Ewing's great and could easily have been drafted early here for good reason.
3 & 4. Interesting.

1. It's not really considered normal because bigs usually don't shoot that much but look at Sabonis, KAT, or Dirk's OREB numbers. Pat shot the ball a lot compared to all other alpha Cs before KAT. Also Zo was a weaker rebounder than Pat was.

Could you elaborate on why you say Zo is a worse rebounder than Ewing after I showed rebounding numbers giving Zo an edge?

Not saying those numbers should have clinched the argument, but I figure you have reasoning you could share.

But I wouldn't say we haven't seen it in 20 years. We saw variations of it plenty of times in the last 10 years. None as effective as Hakeem but none lead by players as good as Hakeem either. Personally seeing Dwight able to lead a good offense with PNRs and postups despite his limited game is enough for me. I definitely agree that with plenty of posters it's a sell and I agree not focusing on one player works best.

I'm less interesting in examples as effective as Hakeem - because we know Hakeem is special - and more interested in examples that were seriously committed to running the same type of scheme. Regardless of quality:

When was the last great offense to use a big man who volume scored with post up moves?
When was the last great offense that used a true hub & spoke model like Houston as the basis for their scheme?

Obviously we still have guys post up and we still have guys post up and kick it out to a 3, but if it isn't done so often in games that it can truly be claimed to be the team's scheme the way we describe Rudy T's scheme around Hakeem, then what are we debating?

[Dr Spaceman]

I'm less interesting in examples as effective as Hakeem - because we know Hakeem is special - and more interested in examples that were seriously committed to running the same type of scheme. Regardless of quality:

When was the last great offense to use a big man who volume scored with post up moves?
When was the last great offense that used a true hub & spoke model like Houston as the basis for their scheme?

Obviously we still have guys post up and we still have guys post up and kick it out to a 3, but if it isn't done so often in games that it can truly be claimed to be the team's scheme the way we describe Rudy T's scheme around Hakeem, then what are we debating?

I think the Dallas Mavs under Rick Carlisle were quite clearly built that way.

Not saying this changes anything regarding Ewing, as Dirk is the far superior talent- but it does exist and has succeeded in modern defensive times. You could argue Miami adopted a similar scheme after Bosh went down in 2012 and they moved James to the 4 (I actually started using the term "orbit" to describe that offense and still do to some degree today although it changed in 13 and 14)