Wow. I am shocked by all of this.


This is much better.

This team would be a title contender. Man, Webber with a worse supporting cast than this was the centerpiece of arguably the best team since 1990 to not win a title. This team is better than that, and I'm not at all convinced either Boston or LA this year are better than the Lakers teams that stopped Webber's kings. Top 5 for sure at the very least imo.

You're building a franchise, not a one year team. If you had the option to take your players at any age(which I have admitted that I wish I gave you) why would you ever take a player late in his career and miss so many years from him?

NO WAY is this team better than those Kings. Such a beast offensively, and they were v underrated on defense.

We are just in the starting lineup though. I love those Kings but his team has a better starting lineup. The Bench of the Kings with sick nasty though in the hey dey and why they were so good. Let's see the bench but the starting lineup is no doubt better.

Like I said, I might be underrating them, and AC's team might do better against some of the current teams I named, but no way is it better than the 02 Kings. That team was amazing.

There were a ton of players who only dropped because we would get them at 24 and not earlier. Guys who maybe got hurt around their late 20s but entered the league at say 19. Getting them for 8 years is a lot different than getting them for 3 years only, so changing their value this drastically would be unfair.

what??!!!

You're logic sucks because you're assuming that having 3 out of 5 better players makes a team better than another.

Example:

Team A
Chris Paul
Michael Jordan
Scottie Pippen
Tim Duncan
Assani Fisher

Team B
Deron Williams
Kobe Bryant
Grant Hill
Kevin Garnett
Shaq


Assume no benches, and starters play every minute(no foul outs either). Which team is better?

No, I don't see the problem when every player in the league is 24. I also don't think you realize that we're building franchises, not one year teams.

it sucks to not check this for almost 2 days and only have a few picks, but its expected because of it being the weekend. natt has been my BPA for a long time (i think since bobbo picked TB).

picking deron williams in the first 50 picks after one year doesn't make sense to me, but whatever.

if anyone drafts a 5-man team that's worse than the top 5 in the current nba, it's a fail imo.

Yeah they were good benches, but I'm still not buying that this team is better (or really even close). All those Kings players have been drafted so this is actually a good discussion.

We have the constant that both teams had Webber. Then up front, it's Divac vs. Smits. Divac is better at pretty much everything (especially defense and rebounding). Not just that, but the Webber-Divac teamup was awesome because they both passed the ball so well and just drove that offense. Then you have Peja! Peja was awesome there because he got so many good looks because everyone on that team passed the ball so well. Howard with Smits and Webber works because they both can spread the floor to allow for Howard to get some work done, but that's not nearly as good offensively as the Peja-Webber-Divac offense was. Then you had Christie, who although not nearly as good offensively, is so much better on defense than Blackman. And that Kings team didn't need Christie offensively, so it didn't really matter. Blackman's a great scorer yeah, but not having good defense is not good. At point is the big difference, but Dumars wasn't that much better at 24 than Bibby was (at 23 on that Kings team). Also, Bibby, like Christie, didn't really need to do anything other than step up and hit a shot once in awhile (although he wasn't that great at it that year).

Also, as for the "constant," of Chris Webber, Webber was WAY better that year with the Kings than he was for the Bullets at 24. He didn't jack up any 3's, had learned how to shoot FTs (55% to 70%), shot more FTs, and was a better passer and defender.

So like I said, there is NO WAY that this team is better than the Kings team that Clark mentioned before

How is that not fair?

I think that the first starting 5 would be among the best, if not the best in the NBA. The easiest way to do these comparisons is to take the star player and look at a good team he used to be on:


Bibby
Christie
Peja
Webber
Vlade

That team was for all intents are purposes a championship calibre squad.

Dumars
Blackman
Howard
Webber
Smits


That seems just as good if not better imo.

This is flawed, because fanmail never said that "3 out of 5" had to be better, and as would be implied by him using multiple "</>" at times, he was taking degree into effect.

Fanmail's argument was flawed because it failed to acknowledge the team dynamic of basketball, as does this.

I have already admitted that I wish I didn't pick age 24 but let everyone choose. However, the rule has influenced the order in which players are drafted already.

I don't know how good player 5 is.

No seriously, I already addressed it above. 5 players who we don't know what style they will play vs some current team in the top 10 isn't the easiest comparison, I just threw out a rough idea. Got a better assessment?

Assani,

see above. It's not even close.

2001 Kings offense >> AC-Cobra's offense
2001 Kings defense >>> AC-Cobra's defense

yup

nope, i think its about equal.

You are dramatically underrating Rolando and Smits imo, and giving Bibby too much credit. Like, somehow Christie's defense relative to Rolando is a big deal, but you just ignore Peja's D vs. Josh Howard? I'm the first to acknowledge the awesomeness that was Peja at any time other than the last minute of a game, but this is like such a perfect team for Howard. Blackman and Josh > Peja and Christie imo. I'm pretty sure we agree that Dumars > Bibby. I think you underestimate Smits personally.

Worst case the teams are very similar and to me I'd rather have the hypothetical team.

level? I mean, really?

Do you really think AC-Cobra's team defensively is good? I think it's mediocre at best. Smits just never was that strong defensively and I think Josh Howard is a bit overrated. Never saw Blackman play but his numbers are brutal. And I don't think Dumars is quick enough to guard a lot of PGs.

Clark, Assani, et al

Just to be clear, we've been debating only counting AC's team as 24 year olds. I think in their primes, they are so much better, but not all those guys were at their best yet at 24.

The Kings that year were good defensively but not elite, only 6th in defensive efficiency. So, unless you think that AC's team would be much worse on defense than an average NBA team, I don't see how it can be much worse than that Kings team.

Agree that its good discussion. Lets go one point at a time. Just to be clear, we're talking about the 01-02 Kings, who went 7 games in the WCF, correct?

agreed.

Divac was very inefficient at this point in his career. He shot only 51.3 TS% and he proved it wasn't a fluke by shooting 51.9, 51.1, and 41.9 the next 3 years. I think you're remembering him from years past. He was also a step slower defensively by this time, as his steals/blocks were way down from his prime. Plus lets keep in mind, not just with Divac/Smits but with all of these comparisons, that these Kings played at the fastest pace in the league which inflated all of their stats.

See, I very much disagree with this here. I think it actually negated each other somewhat. You only need to have one big man who can come up to the top of the key or the high post and be a good passer. The other big man can just stay down low, work the post, or crash the boards. To have two post men who can do this really doesn't help any because you only can use one of them at one time. I guess you could run the play to either side, so thats an advantage, but its really a minimal one imo.

Howard is obviously a much different type of player than Peja and can create his own shot more. I agree with you that Peja works well with a good passing big man for sure, but I don't think its a kiwis to kiwis comparison.

agreed

I think this is a pretty weak argument. Could I say that this team has other good defenders, so they don't ned Blackman's defense?

Ummm...ok.

LOL...you just got done telling us how much not having good defense hurts you and how good defense helps so much, and now you're completely glossing over one of the best defensive players of the 80s.

I'm really not understanding this "well his team didn't need it, so its ok" argument that you're using here. AND YOU ONLY SEEM TO BE USING IT FOR THE KINGS WHILE NEVER USING IT FOR THE OTHER TEAM...VERY UNFAIR IMO.

That Wizards roster had one player that has been drafted so far- an aging Rod Strickland. I think its pretty unfair to say that Webber wasn't as good when he had such worse teamates.
So like I said, there is NO WAY that this team is better than the Kings team that Clark mentioned before

defense?