A little surprised that Ryne Sandberg isn’t getting some love at 2B.
I disagree. Shaq had great footwork, control, and amazing soft-touch hands. Even an equal-sized freak of nature couldn’t have stopped him in the post.
[Which is why, to me, it was so frustrating that the refs let him just push people over and dunk it, but that’s not this thread…]
Again, I think Shaq would be less useful/important in today’s game, since he’d ruin spacing on offense and on defense give up a lot of threes to a modern center. But he was a real talented athlete, not just an unskilled giant.
I never said the man had no skills. There is no question he was a talented player, but there’s also no denying his greatest single advantage was being 7’1", 325, and quick. Would he have been as dominant as he was if he were a mere 6’10", 260? Maybe, but I doubt it.
There is/was no center that can effectively cover Shaq. Sure, they might make a few 3 pointers and pull him out of the paint on defense but they are going to be beat to hell by the 3rd quarter and Shaq is going to feast…until they start the hack-a-shaq…
PG - Magic, Stockton
SG - Jordan, Kobe
SF - Bird, Pippen
PF - Rodman, Duncan
C - Shaq, Kareem
Jordan, Pippen, Rodman, Duncan and Shaq can control the middle and lock down the best wing scorers on the defensive end of the court.
Rodman, Shaq, Duncan and Magic are gonna grab ALL the rebounds.
Magic, Bird and Stockton can control the game while taking no more than 5-8 shots apiece which leaves plenty of shots for Jordan, Kobe, Kareem and Shaq to split amongst themselves.
I don’t have any 3 point experts but I think I can get by
Hey no fair - Trout and Joe D weren’t DH’s! Plus although Bonds was great, I’m not sure he’s great enough to be on both rosters. 
But I do see almost all of my third choices on your roster. Leaving Rickey! off was probably my hardest decision…
No doubt Koufax had a great peak, but…
I’d argue that Pedro 1997-2000 was a better four year peak; probably The Big Unit’s 1999-2002 as well. And both had way more of a rest of a career then Koufax.
In retrospect maybe I should drop Satchel Paige and use Pedro Martinez as my backup RHP.
Are these ‘greatest’ teams competing against each other? Because if you need someone who can pitch against an All-Star team, you probably can’t go wrong with '99 Pedro.
He just doesn’t measure up to the top guys - old timers like Hornsby and Collins, but also Morgan and even Rod Carew, who is another guy who hasn’t been mentioned yet. He’s on the next tier down with guys like Biggio and Alomar (both of whom are great).
Sandy Koufax was a great pitcher but as amazing as his numbers look he was NOT as great at his peak as some guys. I agree Pedro and the Big Unit were at least as good and maybe better, and would argue Grove, Clemens, Walter Johnson, and a few other guys are as good or better.
Koufax was a Hall of Famer all the way but if you account for him pitching in a low scoring time and in a very low scoring ballpark he isn’t quite Pedro, Randy, or Grove. Or maybe he is - but you can’t definitely say he was better. And if he definitively wasn’t better at his peak, he sure as hell isn’t catching up to them on longetivity.
That’s no insult, just as it’s no insult to say Ryne Sandberg wasn’t as great as Joe Morgan (or that, say, Phil Esposito wasn’t as great as Wayne Gretzky, or that Shaq wasn’t quite Kareem, or that Brett Favre isn’t quit Tom Brady.) Hall of Famer isn’t the standard here. GREATEST is the standard.
Soccer, lets say a 4-3-3.
GK - Buffon (Zoff)
LB - Maldini (Roberto Carlos?)
CB - Baresi (Nesta)
CB - Beckenbauer (Moore)
RB - Cafu (Lahm)
CM - Lothar Matthaus (Rijkaard)
AM - Zidane (Xavi)
AM - Platini (Maradona)
LW - Christiano Ronaldo (not a great #2 at this position. Ronaldinho or Zoltan Czibor?)
CF - Pele (van Basten)
RW - Messi (Cruyff)
Koufax was the only guy I know of who won the baseball pitching triple crown three times. I think a lot of people get it wrong when they compare stats across eras. The real test is how they were relative to the competition of their time. Sandy Koufax was indisputably the best pitcher, the most dominant pitcher relative to his competition. He did it three times. Something no other pitcher in the 6 decades before and nearly 6 decades since has done.
It’s hard to argue with these. Brady seems like the obvious pick, but I also think that Brady (like Montana) benefited from being in a great organization. Marino had a great coach and an okay organization. Marino had to do more with less. Seriously the guy had midget receivers and no running backs, and Miami was no longer known for its defense by the time he came around.
Bill Belichick is the greatest coach in football history - at pretty much any level.
Because there are a limited number of shots and a single ball, I tried to base my picks on that. Also, defence matters, at least to me.
PG: Magic Johnson, Jason Kidd
SG: Michael Jordan, Ray Allen
SF: Lebron James, Scottie Pippen
PF: Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki
C: Kareen Abdul-Jabbar, Hakeem Olajuwon
Coach: Gregg Popovich
GM: Jerry West
I love the idea of being able to put out 5 lock down defenders who can score. Not every one on the list is a great defender but there is at least one at every position. I like the balance in scoring, as well. I’m not forgetting about Kobe…I know he exists.
Not to mention modern rules that outlaw pass defense. 
Maybe. But my guys didn’t do too badly, either. 
Both Walter Johnson and Grover Cleveland Alexander did this.
I mean, it’s a cool accomplishment, don’t get me wrong, but it’s juuuuust a bit of a cherry pick; why is strikeouts a more important stat than fewest walks, or most complete games, or whatever?
Lefty Grove “only” did this twice; in 1928, he led the league in wins and strikeouts but missed the ERA crown by 0.07 to a guy named Garland Braxton. Was Lefty Grove not the best pitcher in the AL in 1928? Hell, of course he was. He was a way better pitcher than Garland Braxton. Grove was the best pitcher in his league year after year, at least six or seven times in all; you don’t have to win the PTC to be the best pitcher in the league. Similar points can be made for Roger Clemens - again, he “only” did this twice in 1997 and 1998, but really, you can’t seriously argue he wasn’t the best pitcher in his league in a lot of other years. Randy Johnson was the best pitcher in his league four or five times. So was Greg Maddux, who never led the league in strikeouts.
Again, this isn’t a shot at Koufax, who wasn’t called “The Left Arm of God” for nothing, and whose World Series performances were otherworldly.
Of course, what makes him such an odd case is that unlike anyone else I have mentioned, he just stopped mid-career. This wasn’t any sort of a small matter - he might well have lost the use of his arm if he’d kept on going. It was amazing he lasted as long as he did. Anyway, in 1966 he was the best pitcher in the major leagues, and just 30 years old, and that was it; as I am sure you know, that made him the youngest player ever elected to the Hall of Fame. He walked away when he was arguably the most dominant player in baseball. I cannot think of any comparable example of a pitcher that young and that great just stopping. (JR Richard’s career also ended at 30 but he wasn’t in that class at all.) Had Koufax remained healthy, who knows what might have been?
Now that I’ve thought about it some more, probably Puskas or Gerd Muller over van Basten. Cannavaro over Nesta and Carlos Alberto over Lahm at RB are probably good flips too. Rijkaard could definitely be knocked out at the DM/CM slot, but no strong feelings on who would be the replacement.
Same.
STARTING LINEUP
LF Ty Cobb
SS-UT Honus Wagner
DH Ted Williams
RF Babe Ruth
CF Willie Mays
1B Albert Pujols
2B Eddie Collins
3B Mike Schmidt
C Johnny Bench
BENCH
PH-1B Lou Gehrig
PH-C Josh Gibson
OF Hank Aaron
IF-PR Ozzie Smith
UT-PR Jackie Robinson
C Yogi Berra
STARTING ROTATION
RHP Satchel Paige
LHP Sandy Koufax
RHP Walter Johnson
LHP Randy Johnson
RHP Tom Seaver
BULLPEN
CLOSER Mariano Rivera
LHP Lefty Grove
RHP Bob Gibson
RHP Greg Maddux
RHP Grover Cleveland Alexander
Manager Joe McCarthy
If you want to play by the rules, my starters would be Satchel Paige and Sandy Koufax. My relievers would be Mariano Rivera, Lefty Grove, and Walter Johnson. If you fault me for using Teddy Ballgame at DH, that’s your prerogative.
ETA: I emphasized defense here, hence Pujols over Gehrig, Bench over Gibson, and Collins over Hornsby.
NBA
FORWARDS
Larry Bird
LeBron James
Karl Malone
Tim Duncan
CENTERS
Wilt Chamberlain
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Hakeem Olajuwon
GUARDS
Michael Jordan
Steph Curry
Magic Johnson
John Stockton
Oscar Robertson
Coach: Phil Jackson
ETA: Tough to pick a starting lineup. I’d want to start both Bird and LeBron, which is a little problematic but not impossible. I’d definitely start Wilt and Jordan. Point guard is hardest, which is mostly what kept me from naming starters. Pick one of four, I guess.
I don’t think there’s a way to pick a “wrong” starting lineup out of that roster. You can easily go traditional, “small ball,” Magic allows you to really go “big,” or anything in between.
Thanks. The problem is that Curry, possibly the greatest scoring threat of the modern game, doesn’t fit the “quarterback” model of Magic, Robertson, or Stockton.
Also, it’s difficult for me to reconcile the “Bird, Magic, Michael” orthodoxy of the Dream Team era with the obvious changes in the game since. If the game has come that far in 30 years, those three shouldn’t still be starters on an All-Time team-- except that Jordan obviously WAS that good, and I still have a hard time comprehending that anyone has ever had more mastery of more facets of the game than Larry Bird. Per the comments above about superior conditioning of today’s athletes in defending the center position, how can one say that about a guy who AVERAGED 48 minutes a game like Wilt did?
So many great players…
But to hell with Kobe Bryant.