another "too hard to compare across eras" argument, imo. i will say that the first two dream teams (laettner excepted) had even more starpower than this one. by a longshot, probably. like, pioneer is saying mullin wasn't good, but check his traditional and advanced stats around that time period. he's better than tatum--much less haliburton, white, holiday, etc. i love holiday, but back then that's like having doc rivers or someone, imo.
1996 team always gets forgotten. i would rank that team ahead of the 24 team. david robinson was the 3rd best big man on that team. just insane
here's how i'd rank each team since 92 92 96 24 08 12 16 20 00 04 08 was probably the most fun team to watch out of the teams since 00. the athleticism on that team was off the charts
I wonder in this hypothetical how the 2001 Lakers team (the best NBA team in history IMO) would do against any of those teams.
2008 was a beast. apex kobe, near apex lebron, near apex chris paul, apex howard, bosh, and melo. add kidd and prime wade...probably better than the 2024 team, right? competition was tough, then, too, as spain and argentina were in their golden cohorts, imo. current france/germany/canda/serbia aren't as good as 2008 spain/argentina/lithuania.
Yeah, while France and Canada may fix their weaknesses. France has Traore coming into the league with Cooper Flagg and everyone is saying he's an elite PG prospect. If this kid lives up to be Tony Parker or Jamal Murray, then they will be a threat with those young kids (Risacher, Sarr, etc.) who are coming in this year. Zach Edey joining Canada will do a lot to fix their bad interior. SGA, Murray, Brooks, with Edey will be more challenging.
Sounds like Yabusele wants another chance in the NBA. I guess it'd take a decent guarantee to get him to leave Real Madrid. Would any of you guys have interest in him coming here? If he can be respectable with shooting 3's (he did shoot 43% over the past 3 years in the euroleague...), he'd be a nice fit with AD. Problem is, we got no room lol.
Mullin couldn't guard me: there was a reason that Run TMC never won squat despite all that scoring. I think it's hard to argue with the shooting though w/o Bird: the current's team shooting is just at a whole another level. Even Lebron 3pt is more reliable than MJ, Magic, Barkley. One could definitely argue that those guys would have become better NBA shooters in the modern era but it is something that sticks out. This team can shoot even Embiid
You don't see as counting on Morant and Zion as leaders of the team as a problem right now ? These guys have to show they can be counted on ..
in international competition, footspeed on defense matters a lot less because of defensive three seconds. very few international teams just iso up someone on offense. it's a huge part of why many of our players don't look as good there. serbia slowed us down without a single athlete on the floor. i also think you're overrating tatum's defense in refuting that comparison. and yes, i'd argue that jordan, malone, etc., would have all been better three point shooters in the modern era. it's not like humans evolved to be able to shoot from further in a period of 11 years. it was a cultural shift. lol, if yabusele's unstoppable in international play, zion should make other teams forfeit.
I am actually convinced that Malone would have been an excellent (assisted) 3pt shooter if that shot was popular back then, especially for power forwards. His jumper was great. He was bad trying to create a shot in iso situations, but his assisted long jumpers were so smooth, he shot around 85% (!) from around 17-18ft. How hard would it be to extend this to 22-23ft with a mindset "shift" so to speak? That's a 40+% 3-point shooter right there. Just look at some of these plays:
Embiid up against Ewing and Robinson is not even a contest. Jordan would completely neutralize Curry. Robinson would completely overpower AD. Pippen would bully KD off of all his mid range shots. Barkley and Malone would neutralize LeBron. Today’s team would only have a chance if defense wasn’t allowed to be played. Don’t even get me started on how lopsided the rebounding numbers would look. I’m sorry, but todays team is so soft compared to the Dream Team. That’s why I said that the only modern team who would have a chance is one with Shaq, Kobe and the rest.
assuming they play, i think the leaders of the 28 team would be tatum and edwards, maybe haliburton. i wouldn't even count on zion playing because he's always hurt
Would he be allowed to kick people on his 3 pts jumpers like his other jumpers? f*** Malone, never hated a player as much as him
Nobody had an answer for Shaq down low and Kobe could only be slowed if he had an off shooting night.
i hated malone with the fire of a thousand suns, but i agree that if he would have practiced threes, he would have hit them at a high rate.
