High Quality Sports

What’s your all time starting 5? What’s your dream pick up team? Who do you want against the aliens? Build a team to go 82-0. The wine-cellar team. There’s been many iterations of this question and many more barbershop conversations about it. This is my attempt at assembling the Avengers: making the greatest team possible.

Parameters: 

Injuries that happened in the year selected will also happen so picking 2019 Durant is not smart as he is out before they make the finals. 

Both Regular season and postseason performance are considered – This generally doesn’t matter as a player in their prime performs well in both, but 2016 steph (GOAT reg season with generally underwhelming PS) or 1994 Hakeem (generally considered his best season due to title/accolades but was clearly a better player for 93 reg season) are up for debate and which trade off you want to make. It’s also important to consider that a player’s defensive prime will carry over to any team whereas their offensive prime or most ppg, apg, etc will probably be reduced due to the amount of star power you have on an all time team. Some players get more efficient when put into a secondary/tertiary scoring role, but most don’t, so think about this when constructing your roster. 

12 player roster with the understanding that the starters play most and spots 10-12 will probably get DNPs or minimal minutes – I dont think Iverson or Carmelo will be in too many of your teams but you need to consider which players are ok with this and which ones aren’t

Only NBA seasons considered, no ABA or foreign seasons

Goal is to create the best team for one 82 game season and 1 post season

Overall strategy/philosophy: The 2009 Cavs had an offensive rating of 112.4, 4.1 pts/100 better than the league. The 2011 Heat had an offensive rating of 4.4 pts/100 better than league average. Both teams had a prime LeBron James. Now let’s look at the supporting cast: Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Mike Bibby, Chalmers, Haslem and Mike Miller vs Mo Williams, Delonte West, Varejao, Ilgauskas and titty Gibson…. Pretty clear which team had the “better” supporting cast, so how did they have essentially an equally good offense? Quite simply, most of the value that Bosh and Wade bring to the court is when they have the ball. And if they have the ball that means that LeBron doesn’t. They also were not good at shooting, which clogs the court not just for LeBron but for the team in general. When the Heat put together a “superteam” on paper – it actually was just a really really good team because of their insane Big 3 talent (4 Finals in a row is nothing to sneeze at) but they didn’t become a transcendent/all time team. Compare this to the Warriors who went 73-9 and then added Kevin Durant. Clearly when you add KD to any team you would expect to get better, but the offense got amplified with him in it not just because of the quality of the supporting cast (a 73 win team) but the type of supporting cast (movement, shooting). I think the point of this exercise is to not make the 2011 heat and to make the 2017 warriors. Any team with 5 top 20 players is going to be awesome on paper, but the point is to have the players amplify the team offense and defense and compliment the skillsets of their teammates in order to make a super duper omega chad squad that could crush anyone else. Let’s begin. 

SG and SF: Michael Jordan 1991 and LeBron James 2013

I’m starting with the players who, to me, clearly have the two highest peaks in NBA history. You can read any number of poorly thought out, biased, angry, unoriginal posts on who is better or should be higher on your all time list, or you can turn on your TV and listen to old men in their 50s, angry at life due to needing cialis these last few years to get their overweight wife to hop on once a month yell at the camera that MJs “killer instinct” transcended the human race and that alone made him better, or you can load up Tik Tok on your phone and listen to a zoomer tell you MJ played against plumbers. Regardless, I’m starting my team with these two. Their games aren’t perfectly complementary as both need the ball and neither was a lights out 3 point shooter, but generally you’ve got the best scorer ever and probably the 3rd best scorer ever together with insane athleticism, rim pressure, fantastic passing and if nothing else some of the best wing defenders in league history. Jordan moved plenty off-ball after Phil Jackson took over and LeBron would love diming up MJ for easy buckets when he’s not dunking it himself. The only debate for these players is which year should be selected. LeBron was the most physically intimidating in his later years in Miami and he still had his insane speed and hops – see dunks (Terry, Lucas III) and blocks (Splitter, Duncan). He also had some of the best playoff scoring in league history averaging 30.5 pts/75 on +9.3 opponent adjusted true shooting from 2012-2014. MJ still had his high motor on D in ‘91 (I think it faded a bit in 92 and more than a bit in 93), any of the 2nd 3 peat years weren’t athletic enough for me so I went with 91 after getting Phil which made him a better player. 2009, 12, 14, 16, 17 LeBron are also reasonable choices and 89, 90 Jordan are also reasonable but these are the years I went with. 

The rest of the team is really about complementing these core two players. They will be doing the most scoring, they will have the ball the most, we need to add pieces to support them, not people to compete with them for touches(Melo and AI won’t be making this team, but they can help us promote it on FanDuel). Since we have a little breathing room on defense due to having a wrecking crew on the wings, we don’t have to worry about that quite as much so I’m going to go with the player who adds the most value requiring the least amount of touches in league history: Stephen Curry. Jordan and LeBron obviously benefit from shooting and while the team won’t be centered around Curry like his warriors teams have been, Curry running around for 36 minutes always a threat to catch fire will help the offense and prevent teams from doubling MJ or LeBron too much as they need to keep an eye on Steph running around. His year is pretty tough due to his injury and poor postseason play in 2016 so I’m going to go with 2017. Leading the best team ever and hitting 29.6 pts/75 on a whopping +12% efficiency in the postseason in a 16-1 title run. I don’t need him to carry the weight he did in 2016 so I’ll take the 2017 Vintage of the Baby Faced Assassin, even if his beard at the time still looked like pubes. 

I think Magic’s ball dominance and complete lack of shooting means Steph is a better pick for this exercise although I do have Magic above Steph in my overall GOAT list. 

Now is where it gets tough. What do we do with the 4 and the 5? Do we have a twin towers Shaq/Duncan type deal? Do we run LeBron at the 4 and have another guard or another SF? Do we want an offensively dominant Center (Kareem, Wilt, Shaq) or do we want a paint protector (KG, Duncan, Robinson, Hakeem, Russell?) 

I think with the great defense of MJ/LeBron, and LeBron being a very good defensive rebounder and generally a huge dude, we can afford to give up a little size and not get killed if we run into a bigger team – so at the 4 we are going with Larry Bird. Bird provides more elite shooting, spacing the floor and other than Curry is one of the all time players who doesn’t need many shots to affect the game. He could have 12 points on 3 for 4 shooting, hit all of his FTs, have some steals, 8 assists, 2 cigarettes at half time and provide even more trash talk next to MJ. His outlet passing and touch passing will help fling the ball around to our great scorers and Bird was no slouch at scoring himself. He was also a great rebounder so I don’t think we’re going to get killed on the glass and if we go against a 2 big lineup we’ve got Bird on the perimeter along with LeBron (not exactly easy to stay in front of) in his best 3 point shooting seasons so I think the massive amplification of offense will make up for the give on the defensive end. I went with 86 Bird as I think it’s his best overall season – his 84 playoffs have 4 of his best 7 playoff games ever in my estimation, and he was probably a better defender in 84 but 86 he was better from 3 and a good bit better in terms of efficiency. 84 and 87 are acceptable picks too, but I like 86. 

Now with Bird and LeBron as the forwards, I think we have to go with a defensive big. Shaq catching lobs from LeBron, PnR with MJ and the Dual Gravity of Shaq inside/Curry outside is extremely tempting, but I think we need to go defense at least for our starter. Wilt was a pretty awesome defender but he’s immediately out as he couldn’t handle being the 5th best player (or anything but 1st best player) on the team. He also has basically the biggest drop off in post season scoring of any great player ever. Wilt can have seats in the Aylo box and enjoy the show.  Duncan, KG, Robinson, Russell and Hakeem are probably the 5 best defensive players ever. Robinson also had too big of a playoff drop off for me, although I do think he’s generally quite underrated. Robinson has the best 3 year playoff plus/minus data ever in the late 90s. And although his playoff scoring drops off much more than I would like, I do think this is an important piece of data. He’s not going to be the number one offensive option on this team either and everything else he brings to the floor when he’s not scoring yielded some fantastic results. KG is the most modern type of defender who could fit to the most defensive schemes and he was clearly the best shooter and passer of the names listed so that’s appealing. His one flaw is he was a bit slender guarding the biggest of the big dogs. And for this team we really need someone who can handle the big guys since we went smaller at the 4. That leaves Timmy, Bill, and Dream. I think Russell and Timmy wouldn’t mind in the slightest if they had 0 fga in a game and just rebounded and played D, but Hakeem would be the best lob threat of the three and was also an all-time playoff scorer while the others were good with their scoring but nothing special. Pretty tough decision but I’m going with #34. Hakeem swept Shaq, neutered DRob and made Patrick Ewing less efficient than Westbrook in the finals all in a 2 year span. I think he’s the best post merger defender – he was big enough to guard the huge guys but also nimble enough to defend in a modern scheme. 93 was to me a better defensive year but better passing in 94. Ill take 93 (where he was better than Barkley and MJ in the reg season) because I need defense with my smaller lineup but 94 would be fine too. 

So there’s the starting 5: 17 Curry, 91 MJ, 13 Bron, 86 Bird, 93 Olajuwon

Now for the bench: With so many great bigs, and with traditional bigs being less and less valuable in the modern game, it’s a real conundrum for who to go at the PF/C spots, and how many of those guys you want on the 12 man roster. 

The other thing to consider is how many “glue” guys you want on the team. We’ve got plenty of star power, would the team be better adding more and more stars or do we add guys who aren’t necessarily as “good” but provide specific value without touching the ball and amplify the existing team as opposed to changing the team dynamic. The Andre Iguodala type players.  One final piece to consider is the minutes/shots dynamic. Generally, you would like to think this team would be like the 92 dream team where no one really cared who scored, it was just about blowing everyone out by 50 but personality is at least a small piece to consider when stacking this many stars and even with just the first two players, there’s plenty of ego to go around. 

3/4/5 candidates: Duncan, Shaq, Kareem, Robinson, Russell, Jokic, KG, Giannis, Draymond, Rodman, Pippen, KD, Kawhi, Dr. J

We want at least 2 other guards so that leaves 5 of the above guys left. Kareem and Shaq are the 2 best individually, but I honestly think they are the worst fits on the team. Throwing it in the post and having them score one on one is probably not going to yield the best team offense, even though on an individual level, those are the best guys ever to have one on one in the post. It’s hard to not think that I’m getting too cute or just totally overthinking it if I leave both of those guys off. As for Pippen, Draymond and Rodman: personally, I’m not as high on Rodman as most and while he was part of some great teams and needs 0 shots, I think he’s too much of a 0 on offense as well as a head case. We want to go 82-0 and Dennis taking the rest of the team on a coke filled party bus to downtown Miami after the first 50-0 start to a season doesn’t seem like a great plan. Pippen could be 3, 4 or in small ball a 5 and such a great point forward while providing the best perimeter defense of all time. A proven winner and I love his “glue guy” skills. Draymond is maybe the 2nd most versatile defender of all time (behind KG) with all time instincts, and being a fantastic passer who could push the ball in transition. I think his passing skills, his offensive and defensive reads, and the fact that he and Steph have the highest on/off of all time make him a strong candidate. They are BOTH why the warriors are a dynasty. I don’t care if he gets a triple single every game, Draymond adds huge winning value to teams and I think he deserves consideration; few players can guard Jokic, LeBron and Damian Lillard in the playoffs. Considering all of this, I think the first slot, 6th man, is going to be KG. Best defensive instincts in history, god-tier reaction time, 7 footer with pterodactyl arms who can teleport across the court, protect the rim and guard Kobe at the 3 point line. He was also a fantastic passer, great overall decision maker, one of, if not the best motor in history, and his only knock is that he could only average 24 pts/75 on +2.4 efficiency in the playoffs during his 3 year peak. Well, good thing we’ve got an assortment of playoff scoring gods that will make his job easier, as well as 4 guys who can throw him a lob better than anything he saw from Sam Cassell or Wally Szczerbiak during his T wolves years. I guess the question now is how much do we want to go for style vs versatility. If we want interchangeable, switchable, modern type defenders, we might want to add Giannis, Draymond, or even AD, but I think that would be too much overlap. I think 04 KG is better than Giannis’ best year but if you want to take him I would understand – you still have a huge crazy-limbed athlete that can fly across the court and eliminate shot attempts. Giannis was a better scorer and KG was a better passer, shooter and FT shooter so I’ll take Garnett. I’m also going to eliminate Draymond now as I have KG and both of those guys would be too much hype, too much talking, too much adrenaline, etc. But I do think Draymond warrants serious consideration in these exercises. 

You can sort the remaining players into 3 categories: the scoring centers (Shaq, Kareem) The great teammate, doesn’t care if he gets any shots, all time defenders (Robinson, Russell, Duncan) and the Small Forwards: KD, Kawhi, Pippen. I don’t think we want more than 4 Centers, there’s no sense in 5 of a 12 man roster playing the same position. So let’s take 1 of each category. We already have Garnett and Olajuwon locking down the paint so lets grab a scorer. Both Kareem and Shaq would probably struggle against modern teams on defense but they would cook anyone guarding them. Ultimately I’m going with DJ Diesel. I think his gravity, athleticism, as well as being an all time lob threat gels with the rest of the team a bit better. I feel terrible leaving Kareem off (I have him number 2 on my GOAT list) but I think in terms of a cohesive team his play style doesn’t quite fit as well as everyone else. There’s also no way you would play him next to Shaq whereas the other bigs can all be at the 4 next to him. One last big man to go. To me, Duncan and Russell are both ultimate winners – I’ll take Russell. He shut down Wilt, he had the drive to win 11 titles in 13 years without needing to retire in the middle, and he really didn’t care about points. I think the team might think of Duncan as a good enough scorer that maybe he takes too many of those bank shots (that weren’t nearly as efficient as you’d think). These guys are basically even to me, but I’m going with big Bill. 10-0 in game 7s, but if you prefer Duncan I don’t have any issue. Most years are fine, but I’m taking younger Russell to ensure he’s at his peak athletically. 

Now let’s take stock: Steph, MJ, Bron, Bird, KG, Hakeem, Shaq and Bill Russell. We’ve got plenty of defense, we need some more shooting. I think KD proved that he perfectly slots into a great team and can be on the sidelines and just be a shooter in the corner, or he can dominate a finals and average 35 a game. Good defender and passer ( not great at either) but a top 2 scorer, an all time mismatch and another 7 footer on the team, KD seems like an easy add to the squad.  That brings us to 9 guys. We have 3 spots left. 

Guards: Magic, Oscar, CP3, Jerry West, Nash, Reggie Miller, D Wade, Kobe

Ok, starting out Isiah Thomas (although a great playoff performer) was not a good enough shooter and too inefficient of a scorer but I think deserves a mention here. Stockton gets way overrated and while I’m mentioning him, I just want to let you know I don’t think he’s even in the discussion. Just because he has unbreakable steal and assist records does not mean he had high end playoff value that the aforementioned players did. Kidd, Clyde Frazier, or Payton in for defense only is worth a thought, but it’s not like we have a bad defensive team and Steph is still a positive defender, he’s just not great. Nash was too bad on defense and too ball dominant but would be really fun with all this talent around him. 

Thinking about KG, Shaq and KD on the bench, I want Magic. Best PG of all time, best passer. Love the idea of him running the floor with KD. He can’t shoot or guard a traffic cone but his leadership, control of the pace, and passing combined with his really underrated efficiency – he’s gotta be on this team. 

Now the last two spots are quite dicey. With Magic and Steph at PG there’s an argument for a defensive guard, and you can never have enough shooting. Kobe and Wade can add more rim pressure and we’ve seen both of them work well with Dr O’Neal. And Reggie Miller is the most efficient 2 guard ever in the playoffs and an all time sniper. 

Thinking about Oscar vs Paul, I think Paul would be a better fit on this team due to his defense and his great shooting. I know he would also be fine with 2fga and 20 assists. He’s also one of the best at not turning the ball over. This in addition to his superior outside shooting and better lob passes eliminate Oscar. Paul has always been very ball dominant but he is a great decision maker and Magic and Steph aren’t great for locking down a PG – maybe I can put MJ on the PG but not sure if that’s the goal. We’ll put Paul on the shelf for now and see if we want to keep him.

Kobe vs Wade vs Reggie vs West: I think Kobe would just want to take too many shots. There isn’t much evidence that he would be fine taking on a much smaller load shooting wise and just taking more efficient shots. He also was a good defender, but not an all time elite on that end. Wade was stronger defensively, we would have the 2 best shot blocking guards ever (Wade, MJ) and was a great cutter and fine with taking a step back evidenced from his later Miami years. However, he was a bad 3 pt shooter and mediocre from the line. Both seem to be imperfect fits on the team. Reggie Miller deserves serious consideration here. He averaged 30.4 pts/75 on +10.6 rTS in the playoffs from 93-95 which is basically as good as it gets in league history. He also hit over .700TS on the olympic team – showing he can provide huge per shot value on a team with tons of other stars. His movement will pair so well with Steph – the defenses won’t know where to go and you still have to cover Shaq in the middle. Offensively, he’s a perfect fit, the problem is his defense which was tolerable at best. Jerry West seems like Goldilocks’ “just right” porridge but I’m still not totally sold. He was always an excellent defender, huge wingspan, quick hands. He made all defense the first few years it was invented which was at the end of his career so its’ likely he was an all D caliber player most of his time in the league. He was also an excellent shooter, even before the 3 point line you can see he had plenty of range. He was a good passer and could play the 1 or the 2 and also was fine stepping up to score or taking on a lesser role. Anyone who won a title with Wilt Chamberlain would have to be compatible with other huge egos in the room. He’s not as athletically imposing as Kobe or Wade and not the shooter Reggie was but I feel ok slotting him in the 4th guard spot for now. 

Ok so we’ve got

Guards: Steph, MJ, Magic, West

Forwards: Bron, Bird, KD

Bigs: Dream, KG, Shaq, Russell

Last spot could go a million ways. A big part of me wants Paul. Magic is the only traditional set up type of PG we have and he can’t shoot or guard. CP isn’t quite as transcendent on offense as Magic, but he’s a very efficient scorer, can set the table, play defense and honestly with these players you don’t have to make crazy plays to set them up well. CP will get them the ball without turning it over. However, his health is an issue. He never really put together a 3 year peak where he was healthy in the playoffs and we already have plenty of ball handlers. Wade and Reggie also appeal to me and there’s a not so quiet voice in my head asking how the hell I don’t have Kareem on an all time 12 man roster. Kawhi Leonard is very appealing as well. Although I consider him to be one of the most overrated players because people just pretend his peak on defense (2014) and his peak on offense (2020) were merged into one player but he can shoot and guard the hell out of anyone. Too quiet to make any noise in the locker room which is needed next to Bird, MJ and Garnett. I also love Scottie Pippen in the last spot, a pure winner. Could pass, play point forward, rebound, and the best wing defender in history. 5 out shooting lineups centered around MJ or Bron getting to the rim would suggest Reggie, but switchable defensive multiposition guys would suggest Wade, Pippen or Kawhi. I think I’m going to go with Scottie. We have a pretty good amount of shooting with Steph, West, Bron, Bird, and KD. KG could space out as well, and I like being able to put him on anyone and I know he doesn’t care about shot attempts as long as we don’t have Kukoc on the roster. While CP might be the hardest to leave off, MJ and LeBron will bring the ball up often anyways when Magic and Steph don’t and this gives me the option of rolling out a MJ, LeBron, Pippen, KG, Hakeem defensive lineup that will ensure the other team shit’s their pants, even if they don’t have Paul Pierce. 

Final Team: 

Starters: 17 Curry, 91 MJ, 13 Bron, 86 Bird, 93 Olajuwon 

Bench (in order of estimated minutes): 04 KG, 17 KD, 00 Shaq, 87 Magic, 66 West, 92 Pippen, 62 Russell

Possible lineups: 

LeBron, MJ, Pippen, KG, Hakeem – could have a defensive rating of 3

Steph, West, KD, Bird, Shaq – 4 out shooters with Shaq fouling out the other team’s center – really scary offense here 

Magic, MJ, LeBron, Bird, KD – no real center here but I see this as the ultimate showtime, imagine this squad in transition! Could swap Bird for Pippen or KG for more defense if you want. 

Coach: Only a few real options here. 

Option A: Bill Russell as a player coach. He’ll probably have more respect than any other guy and this team probably doesn’t need too much in terms of Xs and Os

Option B, C, D: Reilly, Phil, or Popp. Reilly might be too tough and too hard and clash too much with all the star power but a worthy consideration, the guy has won at every level. Phil vs Popp is tough, I’m actually going with Popp for his military background. He let the players be themselves but also definitely not afraid to yell at anyone or bench someone who is acting like a chode. If MJ won’t pass or LeBron gets lazy on defense or Steph gets careless with the ball I think Popp will put them in line. He also has proven to be very flexible. The Spurs style from 99-14 changed so many times, he proved he can adapt to his roster instead of forcing them to fit the mold. Phil is the master of ego management so maybe he’s the best option here but if the triangle isn’t the offense we run then maybe he’s not the best in terms of Xs and Os. I also don’t like the smell of sage. 

With Greg vs Bill, I think I’ll go with Popp. We need some kind of ATOs and schematics to unify us so I’m giving him the edge over Russell but any of those (along with Steve Kerr or Spoelstra) are totally fine picks. 

I think there are many different ways to approach making the best team ever, and honestly a team with none of my players could be just as formidable (Oscar, CP3, Wade, Kobe, Reggie, Dr J, Kawhi, Giannis, Draymond, Duncan, Kareem, Jokic is not bad) . The final spot I really struggled with going back and forth between Reggie, Paul, West and Pippen but I think I have enough shooting and a ton of defense with plenty of creation. 

Below is the data for the players discussed

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