All-Time NBA Draft Round 1: White Chocolate vs. Eminence

[Elizah Huge]

Team White Chocolate:

PG - John Stockton / Bob Cousy
SG - Pete Maravich / Ron Artest
SF - Julius Erving / Elgin Baylor / Antoine Walker
PF - Amar'e Stoudemire / Wes Unseld / Rashard Lewis
C - Bill Walton / Willis Reed

Team Eminence:

PG - Chris Paul / Kevin Johnson
SG - Manu Ginobili / James Harden / Danny Green
SF - Grant Hill / Andrei Kirilenko
PF - Kevin Garnett / Bobby Jones
C - David Robinson / Dave Cowens / Bill Laimbeer



WC's Case:

Team White Chocolate

I would like to start out by looking at the match-ups.

John Stockton vs. Chris Paul

Stockton is clearly the better player here. Paul has never gotten his team out of the second round. Stockton is the all-time leader in assists and steals. He is the perfect point guard to run an offense. An unselfish player who can also shoot the rock and is a great defender. Can't beat that.

Pete Maravich vs. Manu Ginobili

Ginobili is the perfect sixth man on any team, but he is starting here. He is a little out of place and even worse he has to guard one of the best scorers and ball handlers of all time. Ginobili is great, but he doesn't compare to a prime Pistol Pete. We're talking about one of the best facilitators and scorers of all time.

Julius Erving vs. Grant Hill

I actually believe that Hill was an underrated player, pre-injury he was pretty damn good. With that being said, he doesn't match-up or compare to Dr. J. The NBA league MVP in 1980 and 3 x ABA MVP. Similar to the Stockton and Paul match-up it's close enough to talk about, but Erving is clearly the better player.

Amar'e Stoudemire vs. Kevin Garnett

Garnett is the better player here and I'm willing to admit that. He was the league MVP in 2004 and won DPOTY in 2008. That being said, a prime Stoudemire isn't a slouch. When he had a good facilitator in Nash, he was one of the best scorers in the league. Upgrade Nash to Stockton and the sky is the limit running the pick and roll.

Bill Walton vs. David Robinson

Contrary to popular belief, this match-up is a lot closer than people think. Walton was no joke in his prime, he was the league MVP in 1978 and lead his team to a championship that same year. He also made a couple of All-Defensive first teams so he is a great defender as well. You can say a lot of the same about Robinson and I think he wins this matchup, but it's very close.

One of the best passing big men of all-time.

The best statistical season for each of my starting-five:

John Stockton - 17.2 PPG, 14.5 APG, 2.7 SPG, 2.6 RPG, 41.6% from three.

Pete Maravich - 31.1 PPG, 5.4 APG, 5.1 RPG, 1.2 SPG, 84% from the line.

Julius Erving - 31.9 PPG, 12.2 RPG, 4.2 APG, 2.5 SPG, 1.8 BPG, 49.7% from field.

Amar'e Stoudemire - 25.2 PPG, 9.1 RPG, 2.1 BPG, 1.5 APG, 59% from field.

Bill Walton - 18.6 PPG, 14.4 RPG, 3.8 APG, 3.2 BPG, 52.8% from field.

If that's not some pretty monstrous stats from a starting line-up then I don't know what is. Plenty of scorers between Pistol Pete, Dr. J, and Stoudemire. Two defensive studs in Stockton and Walton. Stockton controls the pace and Walton controls the boards and defense.

I think the bench matchup isn't fair at all. I have probably the best 6th man in this whole thing with Elgin Baylor, a defensive player of the year in Ron Artest, and two-league MVP's in Wes Unseld and Willis Reed.

- My starters win 3-2
- My bench obliterates his bench
- Stockton and Stoudemire pick and roll would be sweet
- Pistol Pete and Dr. J running the floor together would be awesome
- Bill Walton manning the boards and defense
- Elgin Baylor off the bench is unbelievable
- Ron Artest can put the clamps on anyone if I need it.

Here is some cool tidbits and what I ultimately built my team off of..

From Dr. J's autobiography:

What nobody ever talks about with Pete Maravich is that he's a big guy. Not only is he tall, at over 6'5", but he is well-built, muscular, strong. At that stage of my career, I'm still wisp-skinny, so when we meet for the first time at Savannah College and we're sizing each other up, I have maybe an inch on him but Pete is actually broader than me. I've been hearing about Pete and watching him for years. He went pro a year before me, after scoring 44 points a game in college. I have to admit I had been a little dismissive of his college career. I always believed I could have scored a great deal more in college if my coach, Jack Leaman, had let me shoot as much as Pete. Pete was coached by his dad at LSU, so I figured he had every advantage in terms of scoring. He won every award out there and was a three time All-American. In some ways, Pete is the opposite of me. I've always been underestimated, forced to take the back door instead of being shown into the front, transferring to Roosevelt before my freshman year, going to UMass instead of a traditional hoops power, being an alternate on the Olympic Development squad, joining the ABA instead of the NBA. I've had to work for every break I've gotten, had to prove myself at each stage before I was recognized. And here I am, finally on the verge of the big stage, the NBA, and who do I find but the golden boy, the player whose name has always been up on the marquee.

It's part of my makeup that I believe I can play with anyone, anywhere. And I see Pete as no exception.

From the first day of training camp, Pete and I hit it off. He's a soft-spoken guy, sort of like me, and a little bit in his own world, but then sometimes I can seem that way too. I'm not aloof, but when I'm playing, I get so focused that I almost seem to lose intensity when I'm actually just totally into the game. Pete is the same way.

But when you're playing with Pete, you realize that his game, which on TV looks like a flashier version of what I was familiar with from watching the Globetrotters, is actually much faster than anyone who is doing that kind of dribble, cross-over, snap-pass, no-look stuff. Pete has all of the Globetrotters moves, but he can do them at unimaginable speeds. He's one of the fastest players I've ever played with.

Hawks coach Cotton Fitzsimmons knows what he has in Pete and me. He's telling me, "Doc, he'll find you. In traffic, in the air, you have to be ready. He'll find you." And he's right, I've always had fast hands, and I need them playing with Pete because he has this uncanny ability to get me the ball in good spots, through narrow windows in space and time so that I feel like I'm already in my move by the time the ball gets to me. Also, as Pete gets to know where I like the ball, he starts putting up these perfect lob passes, just right on my hands where I can dunk it. After I throw it down, when I'm looking for Pete to give him a nod or wink of thanks, he's already gone, running back down the floor. Fatty Taylor up in Virginia was a good point guard, but we never had the timing to do these alley-oop plays consistently—with Pete, after just a few days, we have a sort of telepathy between us. It takes some adjusting, and occasionally those passes are more flashy than good, but when they start working, I get a sense of what this season could be.

What is interesting, is that Pete's basketball sense has previously been so far beyond his teammates, he's not ready for anybody to be able hit him with the kind of passes that he usually dishes out. I grew up imitating the Globetrotters, but I haven't had much opportunity to try this stuff in practice, or on any other court except for Rucker—whenever I tried at UMass, Jack would practically cancel practice right then and there. So running with Pete is interesting in that I feel the freedom to throw some no-look and some behind-the-back passes as well, which can catch Pete off guard.

At one point, in practice, we have a two-on-one breakaway—I think George Trapp is the defender—and Pete dribbles between his legs and then hits me with a behind-the-back pass, then I dribble between my legs and hit him back with a behind-the-back pass. He is so surprised that he travels. None of his previous teammates has ever been able to match him move for move. But that establishes some kind of connection. As we were walking back down the court, he looks at me and nods. "OK, Doc, I get you."

What really draws us together, however, is our work ethic. On every team I've ever played on, I'm the last person to leave the gym. If I can, I find someone who will stay after practice and play one-on-one with me. With the Squires I could convince Fatty Taylor or Ray Scott to stick around, and with the Hawks, it is Pete who stays. He's always in the gym anyway, working on his crazy shots or a new dribble.

I always play one-on-one because it's the best way to work on certain moves or develop new moves against a live defender. I can see how a defender reacts to what I am doing, and so can better anticipate in the future how a complicated combination might play out in a game situation. Most nights, the difference in score can come down to my ability to beat my defender off the dribble, and the more times I go through that scenario in practice, the more ready I will be. Also, if you're playing against your own teammate, you get to understand his game in a way that is mutually beneficial when you take the floor on the same side. You know his strengths and weaknesses, his go-to moves, his spots.

Playing one-on-one with Pete is an experience. He's got the kind of shooting range that I've never seen before. He can shoot it consistently out to 35 feet, but if I'm going to go out there and defend that, then he'll cross-me up on the dribble and get a lay-up or dunk. Pete has some great ups, and while he's not known for getting to the rim, he throws some nice dunks down in our games, his red hair flapping in the hot Georgia air. One of the things that makes Pete so great is his hang time, and no one talks about that. He can leave the floor and sort of stay up there long enough to make a good pass out of the play, or fake one way and then pass another. That's something coaches have been discouraging me from doing my whole life. I can remember only one exception: During my rookie season in the ABA we played the Kentucky Colonels, and Adolph Rupp, the legendary coach who was working for the team as a special consultant, comes into our locker room after the game and says to me, "Young man, I've coached all my career and taught guys never to leave their feet and make decisions after they're airborne. I watched you do it tonight, and I'm changing my philosophy."

Well, Pete will make everyone change that philosophy.

We play some fierce games that summer, one-on-one battles that go for an hour after practice, and some of the guys even come out to watch after they've showered, even Coach Fitzsimmons. Pete can get anywhere on the floor with his dribble and I can't stop him. But he can't stop me from penetrating either. We play every day after practice and I think we split the bills for those dinners about in half.

Pete Maravich is the most skilled basketball player I've ever seen.

Bob Ryan from the Boston Globe:

Apropos my ranking of Shaquille O'Neal vying for the fourth spot on the all-time roster of NBA centers along with Moses Malone, and my assertion that no one could reasonably argue against Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar being the top three (in that order), a few people have asked about my well-known belief that Bill Walton was the greatest center we've ever had.
For those who don't know, here is my premise:

If Planet Earth were involved in a winner-take-all one-game basketball playoff against an alien invader, the loser to go into servitude for all eternity, my first pick of anyone who has ever played basketball in our known world would be a healthy Bill Walton. He was the most complete center ever, the perfect control tower through which to run both your offense and your defense.

But a career? Well, of course not. Injury prevented him from having the career he deserved. But for one game, I think he's the most important player who has ever laced up a sneaker.

So when I name the all-time centers I put him over on the side.

 

[Elizah Huge]

Eminence's Case:

Lineup

PG- CP3(36)/Manu(12)
SG- Manu(24)/Harden(24)
SF- Hill(36)/AK(12)
PF- KG(24)/Jones(18)/AK(6)
C- Robinson(36)/KG(12)

9th/10th Man: Green/Cowens depending if we need a big or wing. Both probably wind up getting a couple minutes most nights.

11th/12: Johnson will see time if CP3 dies. Laimbeer if we need somebody mugged.

Team Eminence Basic Philosophy:

-Defense first, we want to play everyone tough and man to man. The frontcourt is full of players: AK, Jones, KG, and Robinson who are all long/and or quick for their positions to provide excellent help defense anywhere inside the 3pt line(and when pulled beyond it by these new-fangled ‘stretch’ players). Harden is the only defender we’ll have to hide, will wind up on opposing teams weakest offensive perimeter player.

-Turn defense into offense, get out and run whenever possible. Have excellent passers throughout the lineup combined with great athletes/finishers, take advantage of that.

-The half-court offense is pick-and-roll based. Paul leading the way for approximately half the game(when Manu is in at SG) and Harden leading the way the rest of the time. KG and Robinson will be deadly as roll-men as they can either roll or pop highly effectively. Finding the open man is the key to the offense and all of these players are above average to great passers for their positions.

Manu vs Harden:

-Why Manu starting over Harden? – Manu will have a smaller burden whenever he is in than Harden will. Harden will be the primary offensive creator when he is in the game, while Manu will be the secondary or even tertiary ball-handler behind Paul (always) and Hill (matchup dependent). Because of this overall impact for the two should be at a similar level. This is also an attempt to minimize the time that Paul/Harden are on the court together as they will create a fairly weak defensive backcourt- Paul is a good defender, but limited by size, while Harden is just not great defensively.

Matchup vs White Chocolate:

-Don’t like going position by position, will try to look at how his team will defend each of my players and how we will defend each of his (for the primary offensive players, not going to go into how he’ll defend AK and what-not).

Eminence’s Team- Overall not super impressed with White Chocolate’s defense. Stockton/Artest/Walton/Reed are good defenders but the others not so much. Whenever Artest is in he should be able to effectively check one of my wing players. Walton/Reed are both solid defenders, but neither are extremely quick and will have troubles containing our pick-and-roll based offense. Overall outlook for the offense seems good.

Paul- Stockton is a tough defender, but not to the level to be able to shut-down Paul. The overall team help defense is not very impressive. Stockton should limit Paul from being able carry the scoring load, but Paul will still get some and create plenty of looks for others.

Manu- When Maravich is on him he should be able to carve him up, when Artest is in he’ll be limited to moving the ball on offense which he should be comfortable doing.

Harden- Artest is the only player who can cover him and will present serious problems. Because of this the offense will probably lean on others a little heavier than usual. If anyone other than Artest is on him he will feast.

Hill- Normally not a focal point of the offense, but whenever Artest is in and on Manu/Harden he will become the secondary ball-handler behind Paul. Great passer for a 3, will do fine.

KG- Will absolutely work Amare on the pick and roll with Paul. In certain instances we can give him the ball to iso Amare as well. Backup PF’s will also struggle to guard his length, none of them can bother his jumpshot.
Robinson- The key will be to beat Walton/Reed up and down the floor, which the Admiral should manage pretty easily. Forcing them to defend the pick-and-roll should also limit their effectiveness.

White Chocolate’s Team- Pair of great passing PGs, great shooter at SG, athletes at both forward positions, and a good passing more traditional low post big-man.

Stockton/Cousy- Both are great passers, but not elite scorers. Paul/Manu/Harden aren’t good enough defenders to stop them from getting others involved, but neither Stockton or Cousy will light us up.

Maravich- Great shooter, not always the best decision maker. Try to get the ball into his hands and out of the good-decision making PGs.

Erving(and Elgin in a lesser role)- Toughest one on one matchup on the team. Run a bevy of big/long defenders at him with Hill/AK/Jones. All should be reasonably effective, when Hill is in attack Dr.J’s defense to wear him down.

Amare- KG/Jones can handle him easily in the one on one. Both are also two of the most effective pick-and-roll defenders in the history of the NBA with their speed and length. I don’t expect Amare to have a major impact on this game even running the pick-and-roll with Stockton.

Walton- Will get some, but overall Robinson should be able to handle him. Walton will stay relevant with good passing though.

 

[Eminence]

Manu = Pete Maravich that learned how to actually play basketball and not just showboat

 

[Elizah Huge]

Manu = Pete Maravich that learned how to actually play basketball and not just showboat

Manu Ginobili's best year:

19.5 PPG, 4.5 APG, 4.8 RPG.

Pete Maravich's best year:

31.1 PPG, 5.4 APG, 5.1 RPG

 

[Eminence]

Manu Ginobili's best year:

19.5 PPG, 4.5 APG, 4.8 RPG.

Pete Maravich's best year:

31.1 PPG, 5.4 APG, 5.1 RPG

Looking at the wrong stats man (seriously though, the new vs old stats debate is always fun, both sides have arguments):

Pete's best year:

4.6 OBPM, -0.9 DBPM, 3.7 BPM (from the season before his 31.1 ppg, that year his defense went down the tubes- think Burke on defense)

Manu's best year:

6.1 OBPM, 1.9 DBPM, 8.1 BPM (don't ask me how bballreference rounds 6.1+1.9=8.1, who knew)

Manu plays winning basketball, Pete plays to entertain (plays is a loose definition of what he does on defense).

 

[Siro]

Eminence team is better. I love Harden off the bench, and I don't think WC's old-timers on the second unit have enough scoring or presence to win. I mean Unseld is a 6'7 center, and Reed isn't much bigger.

 

[Elizah Huge]

Eminence team is better. I love Harden off the bench, and I don't think WC's old-timers on the second unit have enough scoring or presence to win. I mean Unseld is a 6'7 center, and Reed isn't much bigger.

You mean Elgin Baylor can't score? The man who once scored 71 points in a 48 minute game while pulling down 25 rebounds?

 

[Elizah Huge]

Stop me when I'm wrong:

Stockton > Paul

Maravich > Ginobili

Erving > Hill

Stoudemire < Garnett

Walton < Robinson

I really think it's that easy to see.

 

[spycam1]

Stop me when I'm wrong:

Stockton > Paul

Maravich > Ginobili

Erving > Hill

Stoudemire < Garnett

Walton < Robinson

I really think it's that easy to see.

Not that deciding a winner is that simple, but yes.

 

[LogGrad98]

STOP!!!!!!!!



Oh it really doesn't work that way. Heh.

 

[Siro]

Stop me when I'm wrong:

Stockton > Paul

Maravich > Ginobili

Erving > Hill

Stoudemire < Garnett

Walton < Robinson

I really think it's that easy to see.

It's about team play. How does Erving and Amare feel about sitting back and watching Maravich chuck 30 shots a game?

 

[LogGrad98]

Personally I thought drafting KJ where he was was the steal of the entire draft. He is a top 10 PG of all time easily.

 

[LogGrad98]

It's about team play. How does Erving and Amare feel about sitting back and watching Maravich chuck 30 shots a game?

This.

The team has to be greater than the sum of the parts. Individual matchups don't mean much really. It is the team approach.

 

[Elizah Huge]

Not that deciding a winner is that simple, but yes.

I agree.. Now on to the bench:

Cousy > Johnson
Artest < Harden
Baylor > Kirilenko
Unseld > Jones
Reed = Cowens

So I have the 3-2 advantage in starters and 3-1 advantage in bench. Plus I think my team chemistry would be nice. Read the excerpt from Dr. J's biography plus you know Stockton and Walton would be great teammates.

 

[LogGrad98]

WC is underestimating older players. Wes Unseld is easily better than Amare, if only from the perspective of a will to win. I see Amare riding the bench in this one.

 

[Elizah Huge]

It's about team play. How does Erving and Amare feel about sitting back and watching Maravich chuck 30 shots a game?

This.

The team has to be greater than the sum of the parts. Individual matchups don't mean much really. It is the team approach.

Right, so you are telling me with the pass first point guard in Stockton out there and Walton who can score off of rebounding, that there isn't enough shots to go around between Dr. J and Maravich? Stoudemire can run the pick and roll with Stockton for easy buckets.

 

[Elizah Huge]

Eminence team is better. I love Harden off the bench, and I don't think WC's old-timers on the second unit have enough scoring or presence to win. I mean Unseld is a 6'7 center, and Reed isn't much bigger.

WC is underestimating older players. Wes Unseld is easily better than Amare, if only from the perspective of a will to win. I see Amare riding the bench in this one.

But, but, but he is 6'7!!!

 

[LogGrad98]

Gotta give this to WC. I think his starting 5 is stronger as a unit, and his bench is deeper. He would outlast and win in 6 games.

 

[Elizah Huge]

I take it you didn't read the excerpt from Dr. J's autobiography huh.. Him and Maravich loved each other and adding Stockton to the mix would just make things even better.

 

[Elizah Huge]

Gotta give this to WC. I think his starting 5 is stronger as a unit, and his bench is deeper. He would outlast and win in 6 games.

Thank you, if I am lucky enough to make the next round I will re-tool my rotation, but strictly for this one I though Stoudemire would match up with Garnett better than Unseld would.