by Writerbob

Created on: February 10, 2007   Last Updated: April 27, 2007

Fantasy "All-Universe" NBA Team

It is pointless and even counter-productive for sports fans to try to assign a "best of all time" label to any one player's career. A case could be made for any of a number of players as being the best of their particular era. The definition of era too has become fluid. Once it may have been considered 25 years, recently it has been viewed more from a decades standpoint, and in the 2000's because of free agency moves that span could even be seen as little as five years. What is more appropriate is to cite a group of players whose accomplishments are objectively superior to others of the same era in which they played.

For NBA basketball, the construction of an ultimate "Dream Team" from across all the years that the pro game has been played might be of some interest to discuss. The following is a hypothetical construction of that team - assuming that each player is in the prime of their career - put together like an ordinary franchise with 12 players, 5 of them starters, 4 more key members of the rotation, and then 3 bench warmers that get mop up time. This sort of debate then is more fruitful, because there will be strong disagreements as to who has the edge sufficiently to get the significant chunk of playing time in our fantasy All-Cosmos league.

Ladies and Gentlemen, here is our All-Universe NBA dream team:

Roster:
C - Wilt Chamberlain
C - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
C - Shaquille O'Neal
PF - Karl Malone
PF - Tim Duncan
SF - Julius Erving
SF - Larry Bird
SG - Michael Jordan
SG - Oscar Robertson
PG - Magic Johnson
PG - John Stockton
PG - Steve Nash

Starters: Chamberlain, Malone, Erving, Jordan, Johnson

Top 3 reserves: Jabbar, Bird, Robertson, Nash

Even for more fun, let's hypothesize that there were 20 trying out for these 12 spots, and you the GM had to cut loose eight players as being a cut below this group. You then would have given pink slips to the following:

C - Bill Russell; F - Charles Barkley; G - Bob Cousy; F - Scottie Pippen; F - James Worthy; C - Bob Petit; F - Rick Barry; G - Isiah Thomas.

Of the non-starters, Nash may be the most controversial choice. As a thought experiment, how good would Nash have made a team with his unique passing and penetration skills in the 60's and '70's? No one of that era could do the things that the Phoenix point guard currently creates on a nightly basis. Yet there has only been one Magic Johnson, a unique talent that may have played into his 40's without his health issues. There's no a whit's worth of difference between Erving/Bird at small forward, and Oscar Robertson was certainly the equal of Jordan in his era, though without the championship successes. Modern-day fans may find the choice of Chamberlain over O'Neal a puzzler, but no player ever dominated his era the way Wilt did.

These arguments are all in fun of course because they will never be resolved, but what one wouldn't give to see these greats together on the court just one time. It's the stuff that dreams are made of.

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