2016 Scavenger Hunt Draft - ESAL/Gatz wins

[Diop]

My Vote

1st-Ian
2nd-Gatz
3rd-Coolio

Who asked you? Go **** yourself

[Diop]

On a related note, my wife has never heard of kareem

[JDR720]

My Vote

1st-Ian
2nd-Gatz
3rd-Coolio

Who asked you? Go **** yourself

your wife.

[Diop]

Why would you listen to her, she doesn't even who kareem is

[JDR720]

i'll be sure to tell her when i see her again

[Diop]

Awesome thanks, can you also discuss the brilliance of Gana Diop with her?

[JDR720]

gonna need to pay extra for that.

[Diop]

My best of the rest team.

C. Shawn Bradley
Pf. Gana Diop
Sf.Xavier McDaniel
Sg. Dog Face Ellis
Pg. Matt Dellavedova

Bench
Nate Jawai
Chris Anstey
Andrew Gaze
Ricky Grace
Todd Lichti
Darnell Mee
James Ennis the Menace

Might beat my selected team!

[James Gatz]

HM Gatz - Love all the shooting around Shaq, bench isn't the strongest (by this league standards) but there is enough there for the Coach keep talent on the floor for 48 minutes. Might need to play a fair bit of Iggy for defensive purposes.

I was originally giving Gatz the bronze but switched last minute to Fats. It was tough to choose.

Surprised to hear that comment about my bench.

Abdul-Rauf
Westbrook
Iggy
Tom Chambers
Okafor or Jokic

That's a starting 5 that complements each other fairly well and would allow Westbrook to go all out in his 25ish minutes a game while everyone else defends.

[James Gatz]

1) ESAL - The shooting on this team could win a game against any of these other super teams easiley
2) Coolio - Love Duncan.
3) Yosemite - Building a team around the talents on the 2nd best player ever is never a bad idea.

[EwingSweatsALot]

We can or can't vote for ourselves? First page I thought said can't. Your post says can. I would assume it's a typo.

David Robinson wants to know what he's done to be forced to play with Rodman again?

Can you please trade him for Will Perdue again.

But I have all three, does this mean I win?

[Diop]

HM Gatz - Love all the shooting around Shaq, bench isn't the strongest (by this league standards) but there is enough there for the Coach keep talent on the floor for 48 minutes. Might need to play a fair bit of Iggy for defensive purposes.

I was originally giving Gatz the bronze but switched last minute to Fats. It was tough to choose.

Surprised to hear that comment about my bench.

Abdul-Rauf
Westbrook
Iggy
Tom Chambers
Okafor or Jokic

That's a starting 5 that complements each other fairly well and would allow Westbrook to go all out in his 25ish minutes a game while everyone else defends.

Only because there are some ridiculous benches here. I do like your team.

[Diop]

1) ESAL - The shooting on this team could win a game against any of these other super teams easiley

Curry is good, but I think your team has the best overall shooting

[BatumtheGlue]

I'm not a big fan of more than 2 ball handlers on the starting lineup.

Fats (The most balanced team. Offense and defense)
Yosemite
Lamar

[James Gatz]

1) ESAL - The shooting on this team could win a game against any of these other super teams easiley

Curry is good, but I think your team has the best overall shooting

That was my goal. Surround Shaq with great spacing and shooting.

[fatlever]

Bats knows a good team when he sees one.

[SWedd523]

At first blush, my favorite team remains ESaL. But I'm doing nothing for the next couple of hours so I'll do some bballref research and see how stats affect my voting.


Looking at all starting+6th man units, It appears ESaL and Diop have the strongest. ESaL has the highest PER at the bookends in Curry and David Robinson, while Diop has the middle of the lineup on lock in Wade and Bird. Yosemite has the highest at PF in LeBron. Lamar has the best 6th man according to PER in McGrady. EDIT: No change when including Bats/Gatz

2 points for ESaL/Diop
1 point for Yosemite/Lamar
0 for everyone else


EDIT: Looking at starting units as a whole, Diop's team blows the competition out of the water with an average PER of 25.6. Every player in the starting unit posted great numbers. The weak point on that roster is actually rookie Paul, who "only" had a PER of 22.1.

ESaL and Flip were a close, yet distant second/third at 23.88 and 23.66 respectively. ESaL was hurt by Rodman, who was never really looked at favorably by a metric like PER. Flip was solid across the board, just lacking a few higher end guys. EDIT: Gatz joins the >23 unit thanks to Durant/Dirk. The backcourt being the limiting factor to his squad

2 points for Diop
1 point for ESaL/Flip/Gatz
0 for everyone else


EDIT: Eye test time. At first blush, every starting unit is very strong. There are some guys who stand out to me as "meh" players. Guys like the '12 version of Battier, Eaton vs most of these teams who will be faster paced, Mike Conley who, while solid, doesn't really belong (though is backed up by Westbrook), and Dave Cowens (difficult to tell how his game would work in this sort of environment).

I look at the starters and my favorite combos are:

--Curry and The Admiral with Kawhi/Rodman (seriously?) and young Pierce on the wings. That's just unfair and bordering on dream fit for me. So much athleticism with that defensive AND offensive potential is scary. When 01 Paul Pierce is your "weak link", you're doing something right.

--Magic and the Malone Bros. with perfect fits Ray Allen and Michael Cooper on the wings. Such an intelligently put together team with guys who make sense according to personality and leadership, not just play style. I'm personally just a huge fan of Rodman when compared to Cooper.

--Prime Wade/Bosh (who we know work well together) with Kareem, Bird and Paul. I wish you would've found a way to get a slightly older Paul (07/08 or his insane 08/09 year), but he won't be needed to do too much with that veteran team.

2 points for ESaL
1 point for Fats/Diop
0 for everyone else


EDIT: Things get a little murkier here. It's hard to judge bench vs bench when most teams have multiple all-stars or all-nba players in reserve. I prefer to look at how they continue the game plan for the starters and if guys simply should not have been picked (guys like Jaren Jackson and Primoz Brezec).

Fats looks to be in great shape with Prime Ginobili, young Grandmama, and Bogut. He even has guys like Birdsong, Murray, and George Hill. Literally the only guy I'm questionable on is Roberson, but he'd never see the floor...

Gatz also has a combo of Westbrook/Iguodala/Chambers that is very tough to beat. He even has a great coach on the roster in Carlisle... though I'm curious how well he'd do as the 87 version of himself and I'm nervous about the multiple rookies.

Bats brings in Lillard/Barry/Rambis/Bobby Jones/Walton. That 5 man unit would be fun to watch in it's own right. I just don't like Salmons, VladRad, or Jackson at all.


2 points for Fats
1 for Gatz/Bats


EDIT: Now for personal biases. Every team who has one of my favorite players gets a point, regardless of year drafted.

Bats-5 (Isiah, Richmond, Pippen, Barry, Walton)
Lamar-4 (Payton, Mullin, Hakeem, McGrady)
Ian-4 (Kidd, Jordan, Hornacek, Iverson)
Coolio-2 (McHale, Duncan)
ESaL-2 (Curry, Rodman)
Diop-2 (Bird, Crash)
Gats-1 (Shaq)
Fats-1 (Grandmama)


Total points at the end of SWedd's Whose Line is it Anyway? voting:

ESaL = 7
Diop = 7
Bats = 6
Lamar = 5
Fats = 4
Ian = 4
Gatz = 3
Coolio = 2
Flip = 1
Yosemite = 1


No bull and all things considered:

1st place - ESaL... by far my favorite starting unit that brings shooters, athleticism, beef, and plenty of white dudes off the bench. Besides, all James Jones does is win titles.

2nd place - Fats... top to bottom probably the strongest team. Easily the most depth and built like a team ready for an 82 game season as much as a 7 game series. I just think the relative strength of ESaL's starters narrowly takes it despite the weaker bench.

3rd place - Diop... it was a toss up between him, Coolio, and Lamar. I just looked at it as if they were to play a three-team round robin. There's too much talent and fire in that team to not succeed. Bringing bulldogs like Allen, Crash, and Wilkins off the bench just cemented things

Good job everyone

[Braggins]

Gold - Yosemiteben
Best combination of top tier superstar, balance, overall talent, and depth. I also think this is the best defensive squad. I might have a tad bit of a Lebron bias because he is the only player in my top tier who has experience playing with modern rules against zone defenses.

Silver - Diop
Top tier superstar (another borderline) + arguably the most overall talent and depth, but spacing/balance isn't ideal imo.

Bronze - Gatz
Most talented and balanced starting lineup imo, but no top tier superstar with Shaq being a rookie and Dirk/Durant not quite being on the level of guys like Lebron, Kareem, MJ, etc. Defense could also be a little better.

[James Gatz]

Updated with years + stats

Shaquille O'Neal - 1992-1993
23.4 ppg, 13.9 rpg, 1.9 apg, 3.5 bpg

Kevin Durant - 2009-2010
30.1 ppg, 7.6 rpg, 2.8 apg, 1.4 spg

Dirk Nowitzki 2006-2007
24.6 ppg, 8.9 rpg, 3.4 apg

Mike Conley - 2012-2013
14.6 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 5.1 apg 2.2 spg

Gordan Hayward 2014-2015
19.3 ppg, 4.9 rpg, 4.1 apg, 1.4 spg

Russell Westbrook 2015-2016
23.5 ppg, 7.8 rpg, 10.4 apg, 2 spg

Justice Winslow 2015-2016
6.4 ppg, 5.2 rpg, 1.5 apg, .9 spy

Andre Iguodala 2014-2015
7.8 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 3 apg, 1.2 spg

Emeka Okafor 2004-2005
15.1 ppg, 10.9 rpg, 1 apg, .8 spg, 1.7 bpg

Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf - Closer - 1995-1996
19.2 ppg, 2.4rpg, 6.8 apg, 1.1 spg

Nikola Jokic - 2015-2016
10 ppg, 7 rpg, 2.4 apg, 1 spg, .6 bpg

Tom Chambers - 1981-1982
17.2 ppg, 6.9 rpg, 1.8 apg,

Rick Carlsie 1987-1988
2.8 ppg, .5rpg 1.2 apg,

[fatlever]

speaks to the great job everyone did with their picks that we have so many different people getting votes.