No shooters? Chris Mullin was the best shooter in the NBA in 92. Averaged 25 a game, almost all on jumpers.
He would have no problem knocking down all the outside shots against the 2012 team, when they went to double Ewing or Robinson inside.

I think people are assuming all perimeter players have ~equal quickness and since CP3 would blow by Malone so would a 260 pound LeBron.

But yeah, Pippen either way. Sorry '12'ers!

Edit -- I was original pretty much glossing over Pippen b/c of the weight and strength disadvantage. That's why I went to Malone. But then I realized a 33 year old Shawn Marion and 38 year old Jason Kidd shut LeBron down, and LeBron doesn't really know how to use that bulk to his advantage. So Malone's strength is probably unnecessary and Pippen could do a much better job shutting LeBron down than I was originally thinking.

He still wouldn't destroy Malone the way many of you are thinking (Malone was quicker than Duncan. Congrats on picking a 7' center to make some weird point. Not all post players are equal quickness just like not all perimeter players are equal quickness), but it doesn't really matter I guess.

This comparison is so comical it's almost not even worth talking about.

Most people think the 12 team has the big edge at point guard. REALLY??
Question? who is CP3 going to guard? Jordan? Magic at 6'9'?
If he is on the floor, the 92 team has a huge advantage.
There best chance would be with Westbrook at point, but then he would just turn the ball over every time. Or perhaps get rejected at the rim went he put his head down and plowed forward.

The 12 team would get dominated on the glass and in the post. I mean tyson chandler won't even be in the game. Not that it would matter anyway.
Robinson and Ewing were both dominant on defense, and 20+ a game scorers.

Kobe would eventually get into a shooting contest with Jordan, (and lose). He would probably shoot them out of it, like he used to do for the Lakers after ShaQ left.

Kevin Durant, Carmello Anthony, and Kevin Love are all terrible defenders. So whoever they are on, is going to score at will.

The only chance the 12 team would have to even keep this game close is to let Lebron run the point, and hope he is on fire.
He is really the only player that can attack the big guys inside, and play defense on the other end.
Unfortunatly, he can't guard 5 guys.

Watching this game would be like watching poor Lebron in Cleveland. He does his best, but with no help, gets beat down.

According to their pages. Duncan is 2 inches taller than Malone. My "weird" point isn't perfect, but it's not that far off either. Yes, labron is super quick for his size. He's not as quick as CP3, but it's still better to guard him with a small than a big (and it's not close).

Cmon fellas, I thought this discussion was over?

So now the excuse is that the international game is so much tougher? lbj, cp3, hgh, bosh, wade and melo (for brevity, from now on referred to as “the dribblers”) didn’t just lose to the Greek team – they played several other highly competitive games against teams with ridiculously lower levels of talent.

The whole “well, the international game is tougher now” doesn’t work if you are beating teams led by marco bellinelli and barbosa by only single digits.

For starters, here is the list of players on the Greece team that the dribblers lost to – not one nba player that I recognize !!!! http://www.usabasketball.com/mens/na..._mwc_box8.html

Greek team:

9 Antonios Fotsis
10 N. Chatzivrettas
13 D. Diamantidis
14 L. Papadopoulos
15 Michail Kakiouzis
4 T. Papaloukas
5 S. Schortsanitis
7 Vasileios Spanoulis
8 P. Vassilopoulos
11 D. Ntikoudis
12 K. Tsartsaris

Here is the Brazil roster that the dribblers barely beat 90-86 (http://www.usabasketball.com/mens/na...on_box3.html):

12 Guilherme Giovannoni
15 Tiago Splitter
11 Anderson Varejao
4 Marcelinho Machado
8 Leaonardo Barbosa (what an awesome perennial nba all-star like the dribblers… oh wait..)
10 Alex Garcia
5 Welington dos Santos
6 Murilo Becker
7 Jose Estevan
9 Marcelinho Huertas

Then they played a highly competitive game with Puerto Rico (as shown by the quarter by quarter scores), and only won by 11! It’s frieking PR guys! http://www.usabasketball.com/mens/na..._mwc_box1.html

Puerto Rico roster:

11 Antonio Latimer
14 Carmelo Antrone Lee
15 Daniel Santiago
10 Elias Ayuso (oh wait, this guy’s a boss.. I take it all back )
7 Carlos Arroyo (PR best player, but couldn’t make the Heat team in 2010)
12 Filiberto Rivera
13 Manuel Narvaez
4 Peter John Ramos
5 Angelo Reyes
6 Roberto Hatton
8 Rick Apodaca
9 Chrisitan Dalmau

Then the dribblers were down at halftime to the Italy team below and only won by 9 – notice the team and minutes leader of the Italian team in bold (http://www.usabasketball.com/mens/na...wc_box4.html):

Italy team:

4 Marco Belinelli (I was actually high on him at one point. I think he dominated summer league one year)
7 Matteo Soragna
9 Marco Mordente
12 Richard Mason Rocca
15 Angelo Gigli
5 Gianluca Basile
6 Stefano Mancinelli
8 Denis Marconato
10 Andrea Pecile
11 Andrea Michelori
13 Fabio DiBella
14 Luca Garri

Cmon youngsters... you’re just in denial about it.

Clearly there is something wrong with the modern style of play for them to be playing competitive games with these teams led by marco bellinilli and Vasileios Spanoulis (I know !! Who the f is that !!).

Cliffs: as you can see, the whole "well, the international game is so much tougher now" holds no water. if the dribblers were having trouble with teams led by bellinelli, barbosa and spanoulis, and losing to a no-name greece team, they can't beat the dream team. period.

"DT would win because of TEAMWORK and INTANGIBLES" -> "look at theses rosters, none of these guys are famous in the us"

If DT goes small it is still crushing 2012. Barkley in his prime holds LBJ to under 20 a game, every game. Scotty is a horrible match up for Durant. Magic>>>CP3, MJ=Kobe (only on D) and DR or Ewing are raping Chandler.

uh, obviously no. on each of those teams that the dribblers struggled against, the best player on the team was essentially a no-name NBA player compared to any of the dribblers.

and they don't JUST win because of teamwork, smarts and intangibles - they also win because of great athleticism and great players.

8pm ESPN2 vs Brazil tonight lets see how 2012 looks.

Bass got torched, son. He was singing "help, I need somebody"

One team has MJ and one team doesn't, and IT'S THE ONLY ARGUMENT I NEED SHAWN.

Seriously though, I think the advantages at the 2, 4, 5 and depth for the 92 team would win out. Way more interesting debate if 2012 has its optimal team, but it's not like 92 had the optimal team for that year either.

T. Papaloukas tho

If you mean this because it's a 40 minute game, there's a ton of offense on both teams and even MJ only average 14 PPG during the Olympics, then OK, but if you think Barkley's actually a good defensive matchup on LeBron, you're crazy. Bron averages 30+ a game in the NBA with Barkley guarding him.

Also, prime Chris Paul is already better than prime Magic, trying to say Magic >>> CP3 after missing an entire season due to AIDS is just trolling pure and simple.

good god

FWIW, prime Chris Paul as the best PG of all-time was accepted by like 80% of 2+2 back when he was actually in his prime, and then quickly forgotten after the knee surgery that he never fully recovered from. Obviously, he didn't lose as much from the knee surgery as Magic lost not playing ball for a year while fighting HIV though.

oh, well if 2+2 crunched the #'s and came up with this conclusion then it must be true. when was his prime though? i'd like to look. Spring of 08 or something like that?

http://www.basketball-reference.com/.../paulch01.html

His 2008-2009 year is absurd

Paul really doesn't get enough love for his AST/TOV ratio. That **** is insane.

Chris Paul 2008-09:
30.0 PER, 22.8 ppg, 11.0 AST, 5.5 RB, .503 FG%, .364 3PT%, .868 FT%, 2.8 STL, 0.1 BLK, 3.0 turnovers

Magic Johnson 1986-87:
27.0 PER, 23.9 ppg, 12.2 AST,, 6.3 RB, .522 FG%, .205 3PT%, .848 FT%, 1.7 STL, 0.5 BLK, 3.8 turnovers

Does anyone know how to breakdown the individuals terms in PER to figure out why Chris Paul's PER in '08-09 was so much higher than Magic's in '86-87. I see there are a lot of team and league terms in the equation, but I'm not about to begin to figure out what they all mean and I'm definitely not buying the book.

Looking at the base stats it looks a little crazy to me to claim that Chris Paul was ~11.1% more "productive" overall than Magic in both their peak seasons. Given how many of you guys use PER to rate players I'm hoping someone can shed some light on this.

(Not sure if I agree peak Chris Paul is better than peak Magic, but I do think it's close.)

As much as I love Paul, I think it would be easier to build an elite offense around Magic at PG.

If the DT really wanted to **** around with things with LeBron at PF, they could put D-Rob on him. That would be fascinating.

"well, let's see, his PER was higher, so he is better, uh huh huh, uh huh huh.." gimme a break.

if it was all about stats, then why didn't david robinson destroy hakeem? instead, it was the other way around. why can't carlos boozer play in the playoffs anywhere near the level he plays in the regular season? why don't we just take the guy with the highest PER in college and have him be the number 1 pick every year? why is it that lebron with the highest PER since MJ was capable of shrinking to 18ppg in the Finals?

these questions are not even close to being explained by stats. the game of every player changes as the competition keeps getting ratcheted up and as different scenarios arise. some can withstand the increase in comp or changes in scenario, some can't.

chris paul has a higher PER so he's better. whatever. the fact that he's a shrimp compared to magic and magic could play 5 positions LEGITIMATELY (it's not some sort of stretch at any position) means nothing.

the fact that magic's game would excel even more now in the age of point forwards and stretch 4's means nothing.

heck, with that PER, i guess chris paul is as good as lebron to then. gtfo with the tunnel vision on the stats. they only tell a fraction of the story. the game isn't played on paper.

I'd always heard that the Magic playing center game was pretty much a gimmick. He did the center jump, then had a couple of possessions playing where Kareem normally played, but then went back to playing PG. That game was before my time, so I've never seen it.

You do realize that Lebron has been to 3 finals before MJ went to 1, right?

Hook shot tho

Looking at a Youtube of highlights of that game, seems like the offense was still running through Magic. On defense, he guarded Henry Bibby (PG) or Bobby Jones (SF).