All NBA Teams

My All-Time Squads

We used to have ESPN’s Andre’ Snellings on our SXM show once per week, and as I wasn’t really up on the current NBA back then, I’d spend the segment discussing basketball philosophy of sorts — what makes a player valuable, what qualities are redundant on a team, and which ones “scale,” so to speak, etc. So some of what I’m about to write comes from him and a lot of it from my interactions with him.

To begin with, the purpose of basketball is to win the game, and you do that by scoring more points than you allow. To that end, any player who increases his team’s combined offensive output is helpful as is any player who decreases that of his opponent.

For example, if an average team could be said to score and allow 100 points, a player whose presence boosts that output to 105 points on average without hurting you defensively is a good player. Similarly, a player whose presence keeps your scoring at 100, but reduces the opponent’s score to 95 is also helping you. Most players do one or the other, some do both, and a few do neither, but the latter are typically not long for the league.

Of course, players don’t help or harm teams in a vacuum. Certain combinations of players work well together, and others don’t. If you had a team with Dennis Rodman, Dikembe Mutombo, Bruce Bowen and Rajon Rondo, adding Kobe Bryant would make a massive difference. But if that team instead already had Michael Jordan, James Harden, Dirk Nowitzki and Tracy McGrady, Kobe’s presence would give it only a small boost.

That’s because there’s only one ball, and players like Jordan, Harden, McGrady, Dirk and Kobe tend to have it in their hands a lot. Once you have players who can create their own shots and score efficiently, adding more of them is redundant. The offensive pie won’t grow a whole lot bigger by adding yet another ball-dominant scorer to a team with four of them already.

Contrast that with adding Stephen Curry, Ray Allen and Reggie Miller to a team with Jordan or Kobe. In that case, the ball-dominant scorer could go to work, and if anyone even thought about doubling him, he could kick it out to an all-time great shooter. This would result in more made threes, more efficiency and fewer defenders able to help on Kobe or Jordan. Three-point shooting, unlike generic high-volume scoring, does scale. It does grow the pie and is not redundant.

Another quality that quite obviously scales is defense, especially for shot-blocking big men. Imagine if you had Hakeem Olajuwon at center, Kevin Garnett at power forward and Rodman as your front court. All three would shrink the opponent’s output, make it harder to get to the rim, harder to get second-chance points and open looks. Throw in Gary Payton and Kawhi Leonard on the perimeter, and you’d have lock-down starting five that shrunk the opponents’ pie considerably.

Rebounding and passing also scale for obvious reasons. If you had Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Nikola Jokic on the same team, it would score a ton of points, especially if you added a couple more shooters like Curry and Kevin Durant. Or a team with elite rebounders like Rodman, Garnett and Wilt Chamberlain along with Russell Westbook and Luka Doncic in the backcourt.

In any event, you get the point. If you’re going to build all-time teams, you can’t necessary just stack them with the five greatest players of all-time any more than you would stack an all-time NFL team with Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, Joe Montana and Peyton Manning — there’s only one ball.

Other stipulations: you get these players at their peaks, not for their entire careers, so there are no bonus points for longevity or career stats. And I’m assuming they’d all have to suit up today, so there’s no era adjustment for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Bill Russell, for example. Finally, I give *some* weight to clutchness, as measured by playoff success — you want winners, players who transcend their specific skill sets with mentality.

Here are my squads:

Third Team:

PG Chris Paul — I could have gone with Payton, John Stockton, Steve Nash, Isaiah Thomas, Oscar Robertson or even Damian Lillard, but I’m not making any era adjustments, and Paul is still active. He can shoot, shoot from deep, pass and run the offense as well as anyone. I also am partial to Russell Westbrook because he’s so explosive, but he can’t shoot, and is very high usage. Paul is a 37/46/87 career shooter with 9.4 apg and led the league in steals six times.

SG James Harden — I could have taken Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade or one of the pure shooters like Reggie Miller or Ray Allen, but on a team like this you don’t need a ball-dominant two-point shooter/dunker as much as a three-point shooter/passer/playmaker, and Harden fits the bill. Harden doesn’t play much defense, but you can forgive that in a perimeter player. I went back and forth between him and Kobe because while Harden is a *much* better fit on an all-time team, Kobe has five titles, and two finals MVPs, while Harden’s never done much in the postseason.

SF Kawhi Leonard — It’s funny that two of my third-team players are on the present-day Clippers, and Paul George would arguably find a spot if I went five teams deep. Leonard is one of the best non-big-man defenders of all-time, has two titles and two finals MVPs. He’s also a 39/50/86 shooter for his career. (Maybe he belongs on the second team.)

PF Tim Duncan — I narrowly took him over Karl Malone (era), Dirk Nowitzki (defense) and maybe shoehorning a center like Bill Russell (era) into the spot. Duncan isn’t going to stretch defenses, was a good, but not great passer and won’t handle the ball much. But he was an elite defensive big man and ultra-reliable scorer in the post. He also won two MVPs and five titles.

C Wilt Chamberlain — This was the toughest call with an era adjustment and so many worthy players left out (Kareem, Shaq, David Robinson, Russell, Moses Malone), but Wilt would muscle the soft, modern NBA centers around like they were children. He also ran absurdly fast times for the 100, 400 and 800 meter distances for a 6-11 (at the time) high school athlete (the actual numbers cited (49-second 400!) seem apocryphal as they’re too ridiculous to believe), but still. His NBA stats were so off the charts for his era, it’s hard even to put them into context. While he lost to Russell’s Celtics every year, he won two titles and four MVPs.

Second Team

PG Magic Johnson — Magic had three MVPs and five titles. He shot 52 percent from the floor and 85 from the line while averaging 11.2 apg. The only thing he didn’t do was shoot the three, but that was also due to the era in which he played.

SG Kevin Durant — I shoehorned Durant into SG when really he’s a small forward, but I wanted to get another great shooter (39/50/88 for his career), and at nearly seven feet he can help protect the rim too. But maybe with Magic, I should have put in a dunker like Kobe or Clyde Drexler to run the floor.

SF LeBron James — I know it’s blasphemy to have him on only the second team, but he’ll pair nicely with Magic running the floor. LeBron got dinged because he’s not an elite shooter (35 from three, 74 from the line), and despite the insane longevity, he had only two titles outside of his hand-picked dream team with the Heat (who blew a third one against the undermanned Mavericks.) LeBron plays defense, can defend any position and averaged 7.4 apg for his career. He’s also more valuable on a team that needs someone to do it all than on an all-time one.

PF Kevin Garnett — Blame this one on Andre’ who sold Garnett to me for 15 years straight as a short-list GOAT. Garnett was an elite defender and rebounder, an excellent passer and could shoot from outside for a big man. He wasn’t much of a three-point shooter, though. He won only one title and MVP.

C Hakeem Olajuwon — An elite, all-time defender who at his peak was averaging four blocks, 14 rebounds and two steals per game, Olajuwon won two titles and an MVP. He wasn’t as good for as long as Abdul-Jabbar or as big and powerful as Wilt, but I’m making an era adjustment here.

First Team

PG Stephen Curry — I love Magic, but Curry translates better to an all-time team because he’s the greatest shooter of all time. There are only a handful of 40/50/90 players in NBA history, and none attempted even 400 threes, let alone the 886 that Curry put up that year. He also has four titles and two MVPs.

SG Michael Jordan — I actually don’t love a ball-dominant player on an all-time team, and Jordan is as ball dominant as they come. It’s just that no one grades higher for mentality, and if the game were on the line, he’s still the player everyone would want with the ball. Everyone knows about the six titles (despite missing two prime years), five MVPs and excellent defense too.

SF Larry Bird — I went Bird over LeBron because his skill set (shooting, passing) scales so well on a team like this. Bird was another 40/50/90 guy, and at 6-9, 220 averaged 10 boards and 6.3 assists per game for his career. He also won three titles, three MVPs and played solid defense though he’d probably be a liability there at small forward in 2024.

PF Giannis Antetokounmpo — Why not have an elite defensive player who can protect the rim, handle the ball and play all five positions? Giannis has shot 55 percent from the floor for his career because he’s always at the basket, has two MVPs and an NBA title. This is an all-time team with elite outside shooters on it, so we don’t care that he’s not going to stretch defenses. He can pass pretty well too for a big man.

C Nikola Jokic — Another controversial pick, but Jokic is by far the greatest passing big man of all time, has three MVPs, an NBA title and even plays pretty good defense these days. He also shoots 35/56/83 for his career and has averaged nearly 11 boards.

Maybe you could argue to swap out Jokic for the more defensive-oriented Olajuwon or even Bill Russell on this top team, given how much offense is already on it, but as I mentioned, passing scales, and having five guys who can pass and score, would be tough to stop. (You could even argue for removing Bird for Scottie Pippen or even Dennis Rodman on a team like this, but Larry might be second only to Jordan for mentality.)