The first time around, I chose Isiah, Jordan, Pippen, Duncan and Shaq, with a dollar leftover. But I’m realizing that Jordan and Isiah would strangle each other, so I need to re-assess.
Oscar Robertson is one of the greatest players of all time. I’d say he’s right where he should be on this list. I can’t believe you never heard of him. He averaged a triple double one year.
Anyways here’s my list
PG. Oscar Robertson 4
SG. Michael Jordan 5
SF. Kevin Durant 2
PF. Dirk Nowitzki 2
C. Hakeem Olajuwon 1
I used 14 points. I doubt any team could beat this one.
-Hands down the best defensive team
-Best free throw shooting team
-Best 3pt shooting team
-Shoots over 50 percent field goals
-Every player knows how to pass well.
Not by a long shot. I’ll swap the 1, 3 and 4.
1 Stockton (All time steals leader)
2 Jordan
3 James (can guard all 5 positions)
4 Garnett (9x all NBA D, NBA Defensive POY, 2008)
5 Olajuwan
This is my team except I play Shaq instead of Olajuwon.
I think Duncan and Garnett should be the two most expensive PFs on the board, they’re the best 2-way PFs of all time. Garnett is probably the single best value out there.
Wilt Chamberlain is my all-time favorite player…but I can’t pass up Olajuwon for a buck here. So it comes down to “you have 9$ to pick three players to play with Jordan and Hakeem.”
I’ll pass on LeBron and take Scottie Pippen on the cheap; he and Michael play well enough together, and then I can spend $4 on Oscar Robertson to pick up the rest of the scoring needs. I’ll round it out with Tim Duncan, and have a buck left over.
Firstly, I merely chose my 5 to refute your claim of your 5 being “hands down the best defensively”
Secondly, here is no way in the world that Durant is “much more efficient” than LBJ. James has been the MOST efficient player in the league 6 out of the last 7 years. This season he finished 0.5 behind Durant, who led the league for the first time in his career. Cite
I got curious and wrote up a spreadsheet to maximize career win shares per 48 minutes. That was the top lineup.
Next was Stockton, West (who nobody’s picked yet), James, Nowitzki, and Chamberlain. My lineup (also FoieGrasIsEvil’s and G0sp3l’s) was 24th, but it’s the best one with Olajuwon in it. If anyone’s curious, here’s the raw data I used (“Value” is career WS/48 times 10,000, since I was too lazy to type decimal points):[spoiler]
ID Value First Last Salary Position
25 2505 Michael Jordan $5 2
53 2480 Wilt Chamberlain $3 5
35 2431 LeBron James $5 3
55 2284 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar $5 5
15 2249 Magic Johnson $5 1
44 2163 Charles Barkley $4 4
23 2134 Jerry West $3 2
43 2109 Tim Duncan $3 4
12 2087 John Stockton $2 1
42 2082 Dirk Nowitzki $2 4
52 2081 Shaquille O’Neal $2 5
14 2069 Oscar Robertson $4 1
32 2053 Kevin Durant $2 3
45 2053 Karl Malone $5 4
34 2032 Larry Bird $4 3
54 1927 Bill Russell $4 5
33 1922 Julius Erving $3 3
21 1921 Dwyane Wade $1 2
41 1849 Kevin Garnett $1 4
24 1822 Kobe Bryant $4 2
51 1767 Hakeem Olajuwon $1 5
11 1760 Walt Frazier $1 1
22 1734 Clyde Drexler $2 2
31 1462 Scottie Pippen $1 3
13 1090 Isiah Thomas $3 1
[/spoiler]Here’s a list of how many times each person appeared in the top 25:
PG: Stockton 14, Frazier 6, Johnson 3, Robertson* 2
SG: Jordan 13, West 6, Wade 6
SF: James 12, Durant 11, Erving* 1, Bird* 1
PF: Nowitzki 9, Garnett 7, Barkley 5, Duncan 4
C: Chamberlain 22, O’Neal 2, Olajuwon 1
Robertson could be replaced by Stockton, who had better WS/48 for less salary
** Erving and Bird could both be replaced by Durant, who has better WS/48 for less salary
Robertson in 14 seasons had 189 WS, Stockton in 19 seasons had 204 WS. I’m going by like a 10 year peak. I would take Robertson over Stockton very easily.
Magic Johnson had 155 WS in 13 seasons.
I like Duncan or Nowitzki..either one could play on my team but I prefer Nowitzki because of his 3 pointers and free throws. Rarely will you get a power forward who excels in those categorys.
Career WS and WS/48 were the best, easiest stats I could access. I chose WS/48 in order to punish players like Stockton; I just didn’t realize he played 10 minutes per game fewer than Robertson.
Two hours later, I’ve entered in the 10 best years of win shares for each of those listed players. The hardest thing to deal with is what to do with Durant – his WS for his 7-year career going backwards are 19.2, 18.9, 12.2, 12.0, 16.1, 7.9, and 2.3. Should I add 3 more seasons of 19 WS? Or maybe the average of his last 5 years (15.7)? What about those first two seasons of his – should I pretend like it’s 2019 and he’s been awesome for the last half-decade? Too many questions to answer this “late” (I can’t believe it’s 5:45 in the morning).
Anyway, adding 37.1 WS to Durant’s career total to estimate a 10-year peak for him results in the trios of Robertson/Durant/Garnett and Stockton/Erving/Nowitzki both being worth 415.1 WS and $7 salary. Add Michael and Wilt for 389.1 WS and $8 to make your best team.
Lebron and Bird provide incredible ball-handling, Bird and Durant will shoot the lights out, Lebron and Pippen would be an incredible perimeter defensive duo, Olajuwon protecting the rim and providing low post scoring.
Really? How soon we forget that Shaq was the best player in the league for about 5 years there. He was unstoppable. He also got pretty adept at passing out of double teams. His defense was not spectacular, but I don’t see that being a real area of need with Garnett, LeBron, Jordan, and Stockton on the floor.