Create the best possible lineup from Magic players, past and present in their primes

[Captain Hi-Top 791]

quote:

Originally posted by jecMagicMan:

Why does everyone have Dwight over Shaq?

 

Shaq in his prime is a player you dream to build your team around. He is a legend. It's arguable that Dwight may be better defensively, but you could throw just one of these wing players in their prime (T-Mac, VC, Penny, Grant) with Shaq in his prime and compose the rest of the roster with mediocre talent if you wanted and guarantee titles.

 

Dwight hasn't earned a spot over Shaq, or Ewing for that matter, on a Magic All Time team.

 

Dwight has not reached his prime, but it isn't just about which player is/was/will be better. It's also about how each of those pieces fit together. I think Dwight fits better with the other people I picked in his squad, and Shaq better with his group, though I might swap Kemp and Grant.

[Penny Hardaway's Ghost 260]

forget fit

 

I'll take 30/14/3 from the center position please...

[Rob 0]

Starters

 

Hardaway PG

McGrady SG

Theus SF

Grant PF

Oneal C

 

Bench

 

Francis PG

Anderson SG

Turkoglu SF

Outlaw PF

Howard C

[PNuT1423 0]

i agree with almost everything, but chauncy billups gets the call over all of our point guards, except for penny based on height and athletic ability. chauncy is a killer and championship worthy on basically every level of his PG game, number one with no question, penny is second, jameer is 3rd.

[Kramer 0]

Penny

T-Mac

Grant Hill

Horace Grant

Dwight

 

Yeah, Dwight is clearly the better option because if there is one thing that line-up doesn't need, it's offense. Dwight will be a better defender and more dominant rebounder in his prime than Shaq was and that fills the need of almost every line-up featured in this thread.

[MagicNoles 0]

How Scott smiles wasn't mentioned on the 1sT page is beyond me

[PNuT1423 0]

quote:

Originally posted by MagicNoles:

How Scott smiles wasn't mentioned on the 1sT page is beyond me

 

he mentioned about about a year ago, but someone deleted the thread on christmas day.

[UBBALLER8 248]

Can we use Webber in here too?

[TheRevTy 6]

I explained my decision for Dwight over Shaq. The thinking is that if you are building a franchise, and you can add guys like Penny, Vince, and T-Mac, you have to go for the more complimentary personality. Sure, you can pair Shaq with any of those guys and win, but for how long before one of them starts to whine and you are forced to make tough decisions.

 

In terms of production, Shaq over Dwight is a no brainer. But the gap in their physical abilities is smaller than the gap in their attitudes.

[Give Me Redick All Day 109]

PG - Mark Price

SG - Mark Price

SF - Mark Price

PF - Shawn Kemp (my fave as a kid)

C - Mark Price

 

Championships, anyone?

[Secretly Space Jesus 670]

Alright. Now that I can actually focus on this at home, with some music on, lets kick it old school style.

 

So for our starting lineup, the general consensus amongst you seems to be to cram as much scoring onto the team as possible, specifically slashers. A team full of slashers is the same as a team full of shooters in terms of effectiveness, possibly less so if you consider zone defenses. You need precious things like "passing" and "shooting", which may sound weird when talking about basketball. "Defense" doesn't hurt either. So lets go at this.

 

The question of "Is Shaq on the team?" is really "What year Shaq do you want on the team?" For me, the answer is going to be '01-02 Shaq. He was down slightly statistically from the previous 2 years, but it was easily the best defensive season Shaq EVER had, and given that this team will have more scorers than it knows what to do with, having a decent defending Shaq will be hugely beneficial to the team.

 

So let's build a team around that Shaq. Penny is an obvious choice at the point, but this isn't a team that needs a lot of scoring from the point, at least at the starting position, so I'm going to go to with '90-91 Mark Price as my starting point. Price averaged 13.125 per 48 minutes that year, while also averaging 17ppg and amassing 2.6stls.

 

So now we've covered the two ends. So let's get some wing scoring. The idea that there could be any possible team in this criteria that isn't starting '92-93 Dominique Wilkins at the 2 or the 3 is mystifying to me. We're talking about a player who put up 29.9/6.8/3.2 on .468/.380/.828 that season.

 

At the other wing, it pretty clearly comes down to Hill/Carter/McGrady. McGrady's prime was very short, but he was probably the best of the 3 at the time. However, Hill was the more complete of the 3 at the time, so I'm going to go with him. Hill's best year IMO was his 3rd year, so we're using that one.

 

That gives us Price('92)/Wilkins('93)/Hill('97)/?/Shaq('02).

 

We just need a 4. As it stands, our defense will be something less than great, but probably not terrible. 'Nique and Price can hit from the outside, Hill has a great midrange game, and Shaq can dominate inside. I'd really like someone who can play defense and shoot well enough to keep defenses...screw it, you already know I'm putting Horace Grant here, so I'll just pick a year and we'll move on. I choose '91-92.

 

So that gives us:

That gives us Price('92)/Wilkins('93)/Hill('97)/HoGrant('92)/Shaq('02).

 

Ok, so we're off to a good start, but that SL does lack somewhat in defensive power. So let's start off our second unit by adding in a couple strong defensive players to bolster the front court.

 

The first is obvious. Ben Wallace was a 4x DPOY(even though he really only deserved 2 of them, plus 1 he didn't win, but should've), and for the year, I'm actually going to choose the year he didn't win that was smack in the middle of the 4 he did. Ben Wallace's absolute best year as a defensive player was the '03-04 season. He actually posted the lowest Drtg ever that year. Seriously.

 

My second defensive specialist is a little weird. As great as Wallace was, he did struggle with bigger centers. So, while we could put Wallace at center from time to time, I'd much rather have a true center, and a true defensive center to spell Shaq. So why not a guy who actually did spell Shaq. Yep, I'm going there:

 

Tree Rollins('82-83). Much like Wallace, Rollins is borderline useless on offense. His career high ppg was <9. However, also like Wallace, Rollins was an absolute beast on defense, and in '83, he averaged 9.8rebs and 4.3 blks in just 30.9mpg. That's 10.9 and 5 per36 respectively while finishing 5th in the league in Drtg. Just what you want from a defensive backup.

 

So now our 2nd unit needs scoring. I have some ideas about that:

Penny('95-96), T-mac('02-03) and Vince Carter('00-'01) step in at the 1, 2 and 3 respectively to fill out the second unit, giving us 3 absolutely wicked scorers and 2 defensively dominant players to spell our respective starters, giving all kinds of matchup advantages.

 

That brings up the 3rd unit. I'm not going to explain the choices for this one(it's the 3rd unit!), but I'm going with Billups('05-06), Nick Anderson('92-93), Doug Christie('97-98), Shawn Kemp('94-95), Patrick Ewing('89-90)

 

So our total team is:

 

pg: Price('91)/Hardaway('96)/Billups('06)

sg: Wilkins('93)/Tmac('03)/Anderson('93)

sf: Hill('97)/Carter('01)/Christie('98)

pf: Grant('92)/Wallace('04)/Kemp('95)

C: Shaq('02)/Rollins('83)/Ewing('90)

 

Wow. I think we've got a pretty good mix of all kinds of offense here, to go along with some great passing, and a couple defensive studs in the front court on the bench if we need them.

 

Also, not only did I include Tree Rollins AND Doug Christie, but I also didn't include a single current player. I couldn't be prouder.

[TheRevTy 6]

Ewing as third string? Kemp riding the bench behind Ben Wallace? Doug Christie's wife?! I hope you have a team psychiatrist on hand 24/7.