It’s the greatest internet fantasy geek tournament ever created, and it starts now. Plus it’s a hell of a way to pass the off season rumor mill and FA period by.
That’s right we have brought to The Sports Headquarters for the first time the All Time NBA Mock Draft.
The basis of the competition is simple, we took every NBA player that has ever laced them up and made them eligible to be in our draft, once the order was determined we went through a 12 round snake style draft that created our teams.
The teams were created with the rules being, everyone plays by today’s NBA rules, all players are considered to have access to the same technology and work out regimen of today.
Once the teams were selected, well that is where we are now, the pool play. In the pool play we take our teams and devise a sort of game plan, based off a combination of game plans, roster, and NBA knowledge you vote for who you think would win our hypothetical game.
In this edition, we get two of the most gifted offensive players ever facing off against one another in the All Time NBA Mock Draft- Larry Bird v Rick Barry.
The man that started the point forward position, versus the man that some consider the greatest legend of the greatest era in NBA history. They won so much, and now you surround them with even more talent, the possibilities for these two are endless, so let’s see what we have devised for this game.
As always if you would like to follow along in our forums sections, check that out as well.
PG – Jason Kidd – 36 minutes
SG – Joe Dumars – 34 minutes (12 at PG)
SF – Larry Bird – 38 minutes
PF – Dave Cowens – 34 minutes (10 at C)
C – David Robinson – 38 minutes
BN – Rajon Rondo – DNP
BN – Reggie Miller – 26 minutes at SG
BN – Jerry Sloan – DNP
BN – Ron Harper – DNP
BN – Detlef Schrempf – 10 minutes at SF
BN – Spencer Haywood – 24 minutes at PF
BN – Mark Eaton – DNP
Offense:
1-4 High
On offense we will be taking advantage of our shooters, athletic post players that can shoot, and the creating ability coming from our point. We want to run a 1-4 high, starting with Kidd setting up all the offense. We will run Larry Bird on the same side with Cowens. They have the ability to be a mean PnR combo. On the other side will Joe D with Robinson. What this does is put a ton of athleticism working the high and low post on the same side with Dumars who was a great spot up shooter. Kidd will initiate the offense up top, peeling off either Cowens or Robinson. First option is for Kidd to attack the bucket if his defender hits the pick hard at the elbow for an easy 2. If Kidd makes that turn and goes to the bucket, both Bigs will crash from the elbow to clean offensive glass. Now if the defender sticks with Kidd, he will kick out to either Dumars or Bird, and then clear through under and out to weakside short corner. The weakside wing will then rotate up top to give an outlet to ball side wing. If it is Birds side, we will set up Cowens in a PnR or PnP on the wing. Bird can come off looking to fire off the pick, or if they over pursue, the easy kick down to a rolling Cowens has easy bucket written all over it. On Dumars side, Robinson will drop to the block, while Bird rotates to top key. This gives me Robinson working low post, and Dumars and Bird as the kick out 3. Kidd will be open on the open weakside short corner for the rotation and open 3 or drive if they cheat and help off.
Miller, Haywood and Schrempf are easily transitioned in to their spots in this offense as their skill set is exactly the same, and in Reggie’s case, its even better and this offense opens thye florr up for more Robinson inside buckets, or Miller 3′s if they help down. Pick your poison really.
Break
We will always look to push on a missed bucket. We arent a running team, so dont get us confused with always running. But on a missed oppurtunity by our opponent, the break is left open more times than not for the ability of getting an easy bucket in transition. Think Spurs of this year and how they always look to make the controlled break on a missed bucket. Its maximizing your oppurtunity. Rebound will always outlet to the lead guard. Good thing about having Dumars at the 2 is he also can run point, so its easy to locate an open lead guard to start. Robinson will always release after rebound up the middle ahead, and Birdman will always leak weakside wing. What we are looking for is either Dumars/Kidd to get out in transition and attack if the option is there. They also have the options of Robinson streaking middle and for an easy dropdown, or Birdman on the skip pass cross court for thye open 3. If the defense is back, we will pull back, and set up our offense and grind them down and get our buckets that way.
Defense
We will be playing a physical brand of man to man defense all 48 minutes.
Tiny/CP3: Dumars and then Kidd when Dumars is grabbing a breather. The idea behind this strategy is to disrupt the flow of their offense as much as possible. We want Dumars and Kidd in their left front pocket, making them work for every inch. The longer we can prolong their offense from initiating, the better chance we have at them forcing up a bad shot. And with Rick Barry, their could be plenty of those. Main idea is to force sideline and baseline, essentially keeping them from the heart of the court where all the action will be.
Hondo/Worthy: This will be Birdman and Schrempf. We want to utilize length and tactics on this matchup. While Hondo was a great defender and team player, his offense wasnt elite caliber. And as much flack as Bird gets for his defense, he was a very good crunchtime and big game defender. And this is exactly what we have here. Bird will use his length and knowledge of the game to beat Hondo to his spot, and make it incredibly difficult to get the shots he wants over the 6’9 Bird and Schrempf. Worthy we will bump off his lines, and not let him get a full head of steam, and play him the same as Hondo, but even more physical.
Barry/Thompson: Kidd / Miller get the call here. What we want to do is just limit the damage here, and the plan on defense earlier set this matchup up for us. Basically freeze out the other guys, and make these guys volume scorers. Yes they will get theirs, but by making them volume scorers, we take away other more efficient options, and this shall lead to our controlled break and easy buckets. We want to play them straight up at arms length, and force them out of the middle at all costs.
KG / CWebb: Robinson and Haywood get the call here as we want athletes and stoppers on these guys, who will more than likely be the first option offensively from the post combo. Now Haywood may not be considered a stopper, but he is definitely an athlete and can hang with either of these guys anywhere on the court. Robinson is definitely what you call a defensive stopper, and has the edge on KG and Webber in everything. Strength, length, defensive ability, defensive prowess. He is the perfect guy to shut down either of these guys, and Haywood is there to just attack the glass against them.
Thurmond / Sabonis: Cowens and Haywood when Cowens is out. The job here is simple. Keep them out of the high post, and dont let them get to the glass. Physical brand of play is what we want here and immediate box out. As long as we keep Thurmond off the offensive glass, we take 8-10 points away from him alone.
In the end, we have more talent across the board, and use it to our advantage in every way possible. 3G has a tough team, but we are hard to beat when we play our game.
PG- Chris Paul (24mins)
SG- John Havlicek (42mins)
SF- Rick Barry (34mins)
PF- Kevin Garnett (38mins)
C- Nate Thurmond (38mins)
Bench
PG- Nate Archibald (24mins)
SG- David Thompson (6mins)
SF- James Worthy(14mins)
PF- Chris Weber (10mins)
C- Arvydas Sabonis(10mins)
DNP- Paul Silas
DNP- Hal Greer
Defense
Jason Kidd- Hondo gets the nod for most of his time, with some of it going to CP3. Hondo was a relentless defender with a motor never seen from the back court position before or since, so he can pressure the ball coming up the floor at times, and then back off of Kidd, remember prime Kidd was one of the worst shooters ever, so we will back off at half court and that allows us to play the passing lanes and cut off penetration.
CP3 should get the rest of the time on Kidd, same defense, never allow him to get uncontested penetration, go under screens and force Kidd to take outside shots.
Dumars- Match up of whoever is not guarding Kidd. If Dumars is their primary offensive weapon we are in great shape. Never help off of him, force him to the baseline and make him put the ball on the floor.
Cowens- Rick Barry gets the nod here; I know what you’re thinking… Barry? Well Cowens will most likely just be used as a screener, mid range post player and someone to crash the offensive boards, so the key is to show on screens out on the perimeter, any underneath screens fight through… DO NOT SWITCH unless it is on Bird at the 3pt line in order to keep him from getting open looks.
Robinson- Thurmond gets him, no help from anyone but Kidd’s defender. Straight up defense, cut him off at the free throw line, force him out of the paint and allow yourself to get help defense without opening yourself up to easy baskets from Robinson. If he is taking shots from beyond 15ft, we will live with the results rather than easy baskets off help from inside the hoop.
Bird- This is obviously the biggy, and it is simple. KG gets him for as much time as he can handle, if KG needs a breather, or a blow defensively, we rotate Hondo to Bird, CP3 to Kidd, and Barry to Dumars.
When KG is on Bird play him tight, force him into hard shots, don’t let him get by you, and always play him physical and punish him when you get beat and can’t recover. If Bird is going to get by you, KG is going to punish him as much as possible.
Bench- Other than Reggie and Rajon we play straight defense here.
Reggie- Do not help off of him, and hit him as he comes through the 700 screens that he will be run off.
Rajon- Play off of him, dare him to shoot, cut off passing lanes and driving lanes.
Offense
Primary Offense runs through Mr. Barry, and we will utilize him in a plethora of ways: From the perimeter, to the low post to the high post, to well everything in between.
Start with getting him into open positions with a screen on the perimeter with CP3 and get the ball in his hands either attacking or creating for others.
Obviously if the lane is there for Paul he takes it and attacks the basket where he has all the options he needs in Barry, Hondo, or KG for open mid range shots or Thurmond down low.
Once we get the ball into Barry’s hands he can take an open perimeter shot, attack the basket and drop the ball to Thurmond, or swing it to Hondo to drive to the basket as well.
We want Barry to be the ring leader and get everyone involved, but if he needs to take over the scoring, he can do that as well.
The caveat… If Dumars is taking Barry, we are going to shift the bulk of the responsibilities over too Hondo, who can control the flow of the offense as well, using the same set up from the beginning.
We also will use CP3 more if Bird is on him… Basically, whoever Bird is on we want to attack more because we want to punish him with screens and make him work on the defensive side of the ball.
Our second option, remember our first option is Barry or Hondo, is KG at the high post if Cowens is on him, or KG on the baseline extended if Robinson is on him.
KG will set a screen on the ball handlers man, and then roll or flair as needed when in the high post.
When on the baseline extended we want to keep him out of the paint and allow him to catch and shoot open shots if Robinson helps on any and all dribble penetration.
When Tiny is running with the first unit for his 14mins or so we want to use him as our primary ball handler and go to more of a dribble drive, with picks offense. The picks can come from the perimeter or from the post players, but we want the ball always moving and always attacking.
Bench offense- With Tiny, Skywalker, Worthy, Weber and Sabonis in for periods we want to attack in transition, and then use our superior passing and athleticism to attack on the breaks.
We want to crash the boards and run with Worthy and Skywalker filling the lanes, and Weber trailing.
If we are stopped in transition we will run a 1-3-1 with Sabonis in the high post and Weber roaming the baseline in order to create more lanes for Tiny, Worthy and Skywalker to attack the rim and use their superior mid range game.
Whoever Reggie is guarding will also be attacking from the wings on the 1-3-1.
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