Best Team since Jordan?

[Diesel]

Just hearing people talk... starting wondering...

What is the best team since Jordan?

[NBASupes]

Regular season, that Warriors before Durant was special 

[Diesel]

5 hours ago, NBASupes said:

Regular season, that Warriors before Durant was special 

Yeah, I was trying to think about either iteration of the Warriors vs:

1.  Kobe/Shaq

2.  Detroit's defense.

 

Against Kobe/Shaq...  The Warriors would be special on offense... but could they stop Shaq?   What happens when Kobe takes it personal and say he's going to "D" up Curry all game?  The 2000-2001 Lakers rolled through the playoffs undefeated. They beat the Duncan/Robinson Spurs in 4.   Their only loss was to Philadelphia in a 4-1 series.   They Beat Webber, Williams, Peja, Vlade, Hedo in 4.  This was in Webber's Prime.   Webber put up 26/12 for the series and it was never close.   Kobe scored 48/16 in the final game. (Mamba Mentality). 

The Detroit Pistons...   Didn't have as Dominant a run as the Lakers but they Beat the Lakers in 5.   My contention is that they would have the players to defend the Warriors.   Sheed, Ben, and Tayshun are dominating the front court defense.  It allows Billups and Halmilton to play loose in the Backcourt.  Can Draymond run the offense with Sheed all over him?  It would be interesting. 

 

 

[NBASupes]

4 minutes ago, Diesel said:

Yeah, I was trying to think about either iteration of the Warriors vs:

1.  Kobe/Shaq

2.  Detroit's defense.

 

Against Kobe/Shaq...  The Warriors would be special on offense... but could they stop Shaq?   What happens when Kobe takes it personal and say he's going to "D" up Curry all game?  The 2000-2001 Lakers rolled through the playoffs undefeated. They beat the Duncan/Robinson Spurs in 4.   Their only loss was to Philadelphia in a 4-1 series.   They Beat Webber, Williams, Peja, Vlade, Hedo in 4.  This was in Webber's Prime.   Webber put up 26/12 for the series and it was never close.   Kobe scored 48/16 in the final game. (Mamba Mentality). 

The Detroit Pistons...   Didn't have as Dominant a run as the Lakers but they Beat the Lakers in 5.   My contention is that they would have the players to defend the Warriors.   Sheed, Ben, and Tayshun are dominating the front court defense.  It allows Billups and Halmilton to play loose in the Backcourt.  Can Draymond run the offense with Sheed all over him?  It would be interesting. 

 

 

It's not about stopping Shaq and they had Bogut in that iteration. So they would be able to throw bodies. They can throw multiple defenders like Klay, Iggy, and Barnes at Kobe. Fisher can't guard Steph, nor can Kobe and GS execution was flawless in the half court with their screens. It won't be a cake walk in a series but GS would win in 5. 

 

Those Kings weren't the shooters or defenders much less the depth of that GS team. Not even close. There was a massive gap with the Warriors being better. No team in the last 50 years is as good as the Warriors pre Durant and no team can beat the Durant Warriors when they are healthy. It's a cheat code team that should have never existed and it ruined the NBA. 

Edited February 23 by NBASupes

[macdaddy]

You left out Spurs of Duncan, Kawhi.  They cooked the Lebron Heat. 

[warcore]

42 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

They cooked the Lebron Heat. 

they did???

[macdaddy]

2 minutes ago, warcore said:

they did???

didn't they.   don't tell me i'm confused again.  it's possible. 

[Diesel]

2 hours ago, NBASupes said:

Fisher can't guard Steph, nor can Kobe and GS execution was flawless in the half court with their screens.

I have to disagree here.  

This was the 2015 Warriors vs. the Lakers on Dec 23.

Notice who played...

 

Yeah, this was the Kobe and the misfit years and Kobe didn't even play??

This is their March 16 game of the same year...

Again, no Kobe...

I'm just saying, in this championship year.. they lose to the misfits.  I don't know if they will beat Shaq Kobe surrounded by plenty of Vets. 

[Diesel]

1 hour ago, macdaddy said:

You left out Spurs of Duncan, Kawhi.  They cooked the Lebron Heat. 

You are right. 

That Spurs team is one of the best and probably deserves the 10th spot instead of other. 

Here's the strength of those Warriors:

They can stop the 1/4 and 1/5 PNR.  Having Draymond be able to step out on any guard and disrupt both the drive and the passing lane... is a cheat code.  But Bogut, Ezeli, and Speights is not stopping Shaq in his prime.  

The strength of that Laker team is that they had shooters in Fisher and Horry.  They had the most Dominant Big man to ever play the game..  and they had Kobe who was one of the best 2 way players in History.   Defensively would be the only place that that Laker team would have had problems...  the problem would be if Klay made himself a problem.   Remember they played Iverson in the finals.   Game 1, Iverson scored 48 points on 44% shooting.  After that... his shooting percentages were 35, 40, 40, and 44 and they were never within 10 points of the Lakers.  What they did was shade Kobe on Iverson and let Eric Snow try to beat them.

If anybody had it in them to chase Curry around all game, it was Kobe with the fro.

 

 

 

 

[warcore]

1 hour ago, macdaddy said:

didn't they.   don't tell me i'm confused again.  it's possible. 

I recall the Mavs defeating the Heat in LeBron's first year. I thought the next year was when the Spurs had the chance to put them away but Ray Allen hit that corner 3 to force game 6 and then Heat took over from there. 

I guess we can all google this but it's more fun to test our brains. 

[Diesel]

1 hour ago, warcore said:

I recall the Mavs defeating the Heat in LeBron's first year. I thought the next year was when the Spurs had the chance to put them away but Ray Allen hit that corner 3 to force game 6 and then Heat took over from there. 

I guess we can all google this but it's more fun to test our brains. 

Yes, 

The Mavs beat the first year Heat.  The Heat beat the OKC Thunder in their 2nd year  The Heat escaped the 3rd year loss to the Spurs, and loss to the Spurs the following year. 

In that 3rd year, Ray Allen played game 6.. 40 minutes.   Missed all of his three point shots.  Had 6 points before hitting that game saving 3 pter.  The thing is Duncan was not on the floor and that allowed Bosh to get the rebound and swing it to Allen.

The only legit NBA title that Lebron has in my mind is against the Thunder. 

 

[AHF]

The Spurs are interesting as a team that was dominant enough to win a bunch of titles but not dominant enough to string them together.  T

The Lakers had the best top end talent and some very nice complimentary pieces in between like Robert Horry, Glen Rice, Ron Harper, Ho Grant, Rick Fox, etc.

GS obviously was the most dominant perimeter team of the bunch and can't be matched for their ability to spread the floor.

 

 

Tough call to make.  One thing I will say is that the era probably matters a lot.  If you plopped the Warriors down in 1999-00 they won't get the game called the way they expect and will struggle a lot more than in 2016-17.  In the abstract I went with LA because of how great Shaq and to a lesser extent Kobe were at their peak but I could buy into any of those three having legit cases.

[warcore]

23 minutes ago, AHF said:

The Lakers had the best top end talent and some very nice complimentary pieces in between like Robert Horry, Glen Rice, Ron Harper, Ho Grant, Rick Fox, etc.

He was the missing piece that put them over the hump. Until the trade of Eddie Jones for him, they had fit issues (like we do) because Eddie was redundant with Kobe. He was also that sniper that spread the floor for Shaq and Kobe to operate. I learned a lot about team building by observing the Lakers closely before and after that trade, despite being just a young lad the size of Mugsy Bogues. 

[AHF]

2 hours ago, warcore said:

He was the missing piece that put them over the hump. Until the trade of Eddie Jones for him, they had fit issues (like we do) because Eddie was redundant with Kobe. He was also that sniper that spread the floor for Shaq and Kobe to operate. I learned a lot about team building by observing the Lakers closely before and after that trade, despite being just a young lad the size of Mugsy Bogues. 

I think missing piece overstates it because it was also Kobe just maturing into a much better player.  Before Rice he was playing his age 19 and age 20 seasons and had a lot of growing pains.  I agree that Rice was less redundant than Jones and that Rice's shooting helped spread the floor but the Lakers didn't miss a beat when they moved on from Rice either.  Ego battles between Shaq and Kobe were the only thing that brought them down.  Shaq moved on to instantly win another title in Miami and Kobe eventually added enough talent that he could get back to winning rings (most notably with HOFer Pau Gasol).  Since I don't like the Lakers it doesn't bother me but that was a dominant foundation to a string of championships and definitely could have kept going if they didn't lose focus, imo.

[Diesel]

On 2/23/2024 at 12:59 PM, AHF said:

The Lakers had the best top end talent and some very nice complimentary pieces in between like Robert Horry, Glen Rice, Ron Harper, Ho Grant, Rick Fox, etc.

That Laker team went 15-1 in the playoffs.  A feat that has never been done.   Dominance.   It's hard to rule them out of the conversation as the best since Jordan's Bulls.  I know that their regular season was a crap sandwich but some teams only get up for the playoffs.   It would be fun watching that Laker team play the Warriors. 

 

[Diesel]

On 2/23/2024 at 4:11 PM, AHF said:

I think missing piece overstates it because it was also Kobe just maturing into a much better player.  Before Rice he was playing his age 19 and age 20 seasons and had a lot of growing pains.  I agree that Rice was less redundant than Jones and that Rice's shooting helped spread the floor but the Lakers didn't miss a beat when they moved on from Rice either.  Ego battles between Shaq and Kobe were the only thing that brought them down.  Shaq moved on to instantly win another title in Miami and Kobe eventually added enough talent that he could get back to winning rings (most notably with HOFer Pau Gasol).  Since I don't like the Lakers it doesn't bother me but that was a dominant foundation to a string of championships and definitely could have kept going if they didn't lose focus, imo.

I think the bigger missing piece was the change over from Del Harris to Phil Jackson. 

 

[Spud2nique]

2001-2002 Sacramento Kings

Stupid Tim Donaghy. Ugh  

61-21

Lost 4-3 to the Lakers on some bs.

Round 1 they beat the Jazz 3-1

Round 2 they beat the Mavs 4-1

PG- Bibby

SG- Christie

SF- Peja

PF- CWebb

C- Vlade Divac

Bench: Turk, Bobby Jax, Pollard

 

Team wise they really had it all. 

 

[Spud2nique]

On 2/23/2024 at 5:37 AM, macdaddy said:

You left out Spurs of Duncan, Kawhi.

And still having Parker and Manu that’s a big 4. But like you said earlier in a post.. I’m sick of them what have they done for us lately  

[Spud2nique]

On 2/23/2024 at 7:28 AM, warcore said:

I guess we can all google this but it's more fun to test our brains. 

I’ve been tested all my life and now I’m fried.