Interesting NBA Prime Teams

The question is this: If a given NBA team had all of its players in their primes, how good would it be?

Example: Last year's Warriors were really good. But imagine how good they would have been if Andre Iguodala, Shaun Livingston, and David West were in their primes? But we can't just say "in their primes," because we're not lazy, so instead we'll pick years. For instance, we'd take '08 Iguodala, '16 Livingston, and '13 David West. The answer, by the way, to how good they'd be is "slightly better, but not enough to be interesting." So let's get to the interesting ones.

(N.B. By its very nature, this question is almost impossible to answer without analyzing virtually every year of every team. I'm not going to do that, so what we have instead is a number of very strong and/or interesting choices I've selected. But I definitely missed a lot of good teams, some of which might even contend.)


The Favorites:
2004 Los Angeles Lakers
PG: '96 Gary Payton, '09 Derek Fisher
SG: '03 Kobe Bryant, '07 Ime Udoka
SF: '97 Rick Fox, '02 Devean George, '00 Byron Russell
PF: '97 Karl Malone, '06 Brian Cook, '04 Stanislav Medvedenko
C: '00 Shaquille O'Neal, '92 Horace Grant

(I'm leaving off a couple guys but we have the ones we need.)

Holy shit, this team dominates. '96 Payton is the best defensive guard season ever, '03 Kobe is one of the best guard seasons ever, '97 Malone is extremely dominant, and '00 Shaq makes Malone look like a small child. Plus we have the underrated '09 Fisher, some solid forward play in George, Russell, and Cook, and then our secret weapon: Horace Grant, one of the most underrated players in NBA history. There's absolutely no one who's stopping this team on offense, and virtually no one who can score on their D. Payton and Bryant form, by far, the best defensive guard duo in NBA history, and Malone, Shaq, and Grant are all defensive presences in their own right.

The one evident weakness is at the 3, where we don't have an all-time great player to slot in. This is a little surprising, given how ridiculously strong the rest of the team is. But Fox is a very strong role player and we have tons of depth here. Kobe can slot in at 3 if need be, but there really isn't a better choice at 2. Still, Fox is solid on both sides of the ball, and it's not like there are any other holes of any kind on this roster.

And out of left field comes...


The (Extremely) Dark Horse:
2014 Brooklyn Nets
PG: '08 Deron Williams, '16 Shaun Livingston
SG: '05 Joe Johnson, '07 Jason Terry, '10 Marcus Thornton
SF: '02 Paul Pierce, '04 Andrei Kirilenko
PF: '04 Kevin Garnett, '13 Andray Blatche, '13 Reggie Evans
C: '13 Brook Lopez, '16 Mason Plumlee

Right? Where did this come from? This is a team that won, in real life, 44 games. But in our fun little exercise here, suddenly they have Williams, who was at one point (though we've collectively decided to forget it) considered juuust a step below Chris Paul; Joe Johnson, who is the poster child for being just good enough not to make the Hall of Fame (bkref has his chances at 50.6%); Jason Terry, who is one of the best sixth men ever; Paul Pierce; Garnett, who had one of the most dominant seasons of any PF ever in '04; Brook Lopez, who is a little bit of a weak point here; and Andrei Kirilenko, who was actually pretty good back then.

This team is not on par with those Lakers. They're significantly worse at 3/5 positions and only slightly better at the other two (maybe I'm being unfair to Paul Pierce, but in my defense, fuck Paul Pierce). They're here because it's interesting that such a bad team had such a ridiculous amount of non-prime talent.


The Old School:
1972 Los Angeles Lakers
PG: '66 Jerry West, '75 Jim Cleamons
SG: '72 Gail Goodrich, '70 Flynn Robinson
SF: '63 Elgin Baylor, '74 Jim McMillian, '74 Keith Erickson
PF: '74 Happy Hairston
C: '67 Wilt Chamberlain, '68 Leroy Ellis

And I mean old school. This team was already one of the greatest of all time, so all we're really doing is youthifying it a bit. We bring West back into his supposedly-athletic-but-who-can-know-for-sure prime, and we take a nice, prime, athletic Baylor season in the hopes that he can finish out the year with the team and win the ring he so richly deserved. Goodrich and Hairston were already pretty much in their primes, as was most of the bench. The keys here are West, Baylor, and Chamberlain.

We take Chamberlain from '67, which is slightly after his physical prime and not his most dominant season (that would be '62). But '67 is also the year that he became an exceptional team player (7.8 assists per game), while also retaining his scoring touch (24.1 PPG on 68.3% shooting) and rebounding (24.2 RPG). Nor was he quite the defensive presence in '67 that he was in his younger years, but he was still an elite defensive pivot and will do fine for this roster. There's also a sentimental reason here: '67 was the year that Chamberlain and the Sixers beat the dynastic Boston Celtics, the only championship Boston lost in the '60s.

So on this team we have West, one of the best guards ever in his absolute prime, a great shooter, passer, and (supposedly) defender; we have Baylor, the first of the athletic wings, a full decade before Dr. J came along and lit up the league; and we have Chamberlain, the most dominant force the NBA has ever known, with his perfect combination of utter physical dominance and elite passing skills that made him such a unique threat in NBA history. The depth on this team is also going to be really underrated, because you and I both have never heard of them but they were pretty solid, moreso than most of the other teams on this list.


The Other Lakers Team:
1999 Los Angeles Lakers
PG: '90 Derek Harper, '09 Derek Fisher
SG: '03 Kobe Bryant, '00 Eddie Jones
SF: '97 Rick Fox, '95 Glen Rice, '00 Ruben Patterson
PF: '92 Dennis Rodman, '98 Robert Horry
C: '00 Shaquille O'Neal, '96 Elden Campbell

Haha, I say "the other" Lakers team as if this is going to be the last Lakers team in this article. It probably won't. But this team is deceptively interesting. The key is Rodman. Rodman is by far the best rebounder ever and one of the best defenders ever, and him being in his prime for this Lakers team massively boosts their performance. Suddenly the Lakers have by far the best frontcourt in NBA history.

Then we shift everyone else into their primes, leaving us with an extremely strong starting roster with ridiculous depth. Fisher, Jones, Rice, Horry, and Campbell are the best bench rotation of any team listed so far, and the core of prime Bryant, Rodman, and Shaq is hands down the best trio we'll see. Then you have Harper, an excellent starting guard, and Fox, who we already talked about.

I actually think this team is a strong sleeper to win it all. They match up well with almost anyone, and their depth is positively elite. The one "weakness" they have is two non-elite starters, as opposed to the '04 Lakers' one (plus '99 doesn't have a bench player as good as Horace Grant), and maybe that's enough to change the balance of the game. Or maybe not.


The Bad Guys:
1988 Boston Celtics
PG: '81 Dennis Johnson, '84 Jerry Sichting
SG: '92 Reggie Lewis, '83 Jim Paxson, '88 Danny Ainge
SF: '86 Larry Bird, '85 Darren Daye
PF: '87 Kevin McHale, '91 Fred Roberts
C: '72 Artis Gilmore, '81 Robert Parish

If you've ever before dealt with the question posed by this blog post, or read Bill Simmons's Book of Basketball, you might be wondering why this isn't the 1986 Celtics. After all, that was a legendary team as it was, and they would get to add a better version of Bill Walton, who was an excellent center in his very brief prime. But this team is better.

The key is Gilmore, who, in his 1972 season (sixteen years before the season in question) put up one of the most dominant seasons of all time by a center not named Wilt, Kareem, or Shaq. And yes, it far outstrips Walton's best season. The other big advantage here is Reggie Lewis at SG, which means we get to have Paxson and Ainge, both of whom are very capable starter-level SGs, in our bench unit. Which is good, because besides them and Parish, the bench here is pretty shallow.

I hope, though, that I don't have to (further) explain how good this starting lineup is. Johnson is an elite defensive guard (although not on the level of Gary Payton), Reggie Lewis was very good, Bird is a legend, McHale was dominant on both ends of the ball, and Gilmore, as I just described, is one of the more underrated centers to ever play. I don't think this is the best team here, but they're probably better than you think.


The Other Dark Horse:
2009 Houston Rockets
PG: '16 Kyle Lowry, '07 Rafer Alston, '10 Aaron Brooks
SG: '03 Tracy McGrady, '02 Brent Barry, '07 Luther Head
SF: '04 Metta World Peace, '06 Shane Battier
PF: '09 Luis Scola, '10 Carl Landry, '06 Brian Cook
C: '97 Dikembe Mutombo, '04 Yao Ming, '11 Chuck Hayes

Interesting. Let's look at what we've got here. Lowry isn't elite, but he's effective at the 1. (Of course, being "effective" is far from being deserving of inclusion in this article, but he isn't that huge a weak point.) McGrady is elite, and his '03 season is one of the better ones on record. Artest is a defensive monster, probably the second-best defensive wing ever (after Scottie Pippen), and Battier is very good at the same.

I think Scola is actually a bit overrated, but the really interesting part here is the center position. Mutombo is dominant, one of the best shot-blockers of all time and an elite defensive pivot, and then you have Ming, who's 7'6 and skilled for his size. That's a devastating combination, although they probably can't occupy the floor at the same time; it's nice to have a seven-footer-and-then-some on the court at all times.

This team probably isn't as good as most of the others here, but it's very interesting. There's a lot of defensive talent here, between Artest, Battier, and Mutombo, and just as much offense, with Lowry, McGrady, and Ming. The question is, are the massive matchup problems that this roster can create enough to overcome the quite frankly large talent disparity? Honestly, I doubt it.


Showtime, Baby!:
1983 Los Angeles Lakers
PG: '90 Magic Johnson, '79 Norm Nixon, '80 Eddie Jordan
SG: '84 Michael Cooper, '81 Billy Ray Bates
SF: '90 James Worthy, '80 Jamaal Wilkes, '76 Steve Mix
PF: '75 Bob McAdoo, '89 Kurt Rambis
C: '72 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

I found the perfect year. This is Showtime, distilled into all its glory. This team is utterly and completely unstoppable. Let's take a walk. We have:

Magic Johnson, in the prime of his abilities ('90 gets underrated because the Lakers were pretty old and beat-up by that point, but Magic himself was phenomenally good still), with Norm Nixon as his excellent backup; the solid Michael Cooper, who was a lock-down defender, at SG; both of the Lakers' excellent wings in Worthy and Wilkes; and then the centers. Oh, the centers.

Kareem is God; we all know this. And '72 Kareem is one of the most unstoppable forces in NBA history. But then we have McAdoo, who was devastatingly good (and underrated) in his best season in '75. McAdoo also has the ability to slide to four, or we can play him off the bench with both Worthy and Wilkes starting. Either way, we have a lineup that A) is stacked with talent, top to bottom, and B) plays beautifully together as a team, as the Showtime Lakers played basically the best team ball we've ever seen.



Honorable Mention: The Near Miss
1997-99 Houston Rockets
PG: '95 Brent Price, '97 Matt Maloney
SG: '88 Clyde Drexler, '01 Cuttino Mobley, '00 Michael Dickerson
SF: '97 Scottie Pippen, '83 Eddie Johnson, '97 Mario Elie
PF: '90 Charles Barkley, '94 Kevin Willis, '93 Antoine Carr, '03 Othella Harrington
C: '93 Hakeem Olajuwon, '93 Stanley Roberts

(This is a mashup of two seasons, '98 and '99, but if I wrote '98-'99 it would look like I'm talking about just the '99 season.)

What could have been (in this article). In '98 the Rockets had the dynamic-postprime-trio of Hakeem, Barkley, and Drexler. The next year Drexler retired and the Rockets acquired the 33-year-old Scottie Pippen, also solidly past his prime. If only Drexler and Pippen had been on this team at the same time, we could have had a real contender!

Instead, what you end up is either a team with Hakeem/Barkley/Drexler or Hakeem/Barkley/Pippen and two pretty big weak points at the 1 and either the 2 or the 3. That's hard to overcome, even though those triads are still very strong. It's possible that one of those teams, e.g. '99 (with Pippen), could be strong enough to upset one of our other teams (like the '14 Nets), but it's much more interesting to talk about what could have been.


Honorable Mention: The Very-Nearly Unbelievably Dominant Juggernaut
1995-97 Los Angeles Lakers
PG: '90 Magic Johnson, '97 Nick Van Exel, '09 Derek Fisher, '92 Sedale Threatt
SG: '03 Kobe Bryant, '00 Eddie Jones, '88 Byron Scott
SF: '96 Cedric Ceballos, '01 George Lynch, '88 Jerome Kersey, '96 George McCloud
PF: '96 Elden Campbell, '98 Robert Horry, '98 Derek Strong, '89 Larry Krystkowiak
C: '00 Shaquille O'Neal, '95 Vlade Divac

(Again, this is a mashup of the '96 and '97 Lakers.)

Okay, so I'm not actually as sold on this team as I was when I wrote this title. The point, of course, is that we have Magic, Kobe, and Shaq holding down the starting spots, with absolutely absurd depth: Van Exel and Jones are All-Stars, Horry is Horry, and Divac is very solid at center. The problem, also of course, is that the forward spots aren't exactly strong. There's a massive disparity in talent between, on one side, the unfairly-stacked PG, SG, and C, and on the other side the solid-but-not-great SF and PF positions.

There is some hope that Magic can make the offense function. In fact I think the offense will be absolutely fine. The problem would be defense, and in matching up with some of the stacked teams here. Mostly this was about getting Magic, Kobe, and Shaq on the same team.