Dare to Compare?

Is it the competitiveness?  The talent?  The athleticism?  The showmanship?  The heart-pounding action?  The thrill of the victory?  What is it about sports that draws us in?  For me, sports provide an outlet for debate.  As I stated in my profile, I live for the give-and-take and with sports- the debates never die.  No one ever really wins because if someone wins, the debates end and then we all really lose. 

One of my favorite debates is the “all-time” debate.  “Who’s the best all-time Coach?”  “Which team was the best all-time team not to win a title?”  “What was the greatest play ever from March Madness?”  There’s no right answer to any of these questions (yes there is, of course: Mike Krzyzewski, DUKE 1998-99 and The Shot), but the debating is what makes it so fun.  You could ask 10 people the same question and get 10 totally different, yet equally correct answers. 

James, Ben and I gave each other this initial task:

Let’s get a best one-and-done team.  You have to pick a TEAM, not just the best players.

That didn’t take long enough I guess because within 15 minutes, we had upped the ante to this:

See if you can come up with a team for each class (i.e. one-and-done [freshmen], left after sophomore year, etc.).  If we choose players since 1980 only, I’ll bet there is zero chance the freshmen or seniors win.

Quick sidenote: I have to give ESPN’s Jason King (@JasonKingESPN) credit here because while James, Ben and I debate these kinds of topics day after day, it was Jason’s “King’s Court” from this week that really got this debate going.

This task took us significantly longer, but we finally decided on the following picks:

Freshmen:

PG: Derrick Rose

SG: Tyreke Evans

F: Kevin Durant

F: Carmelo Anthony

C:  Anthony Davis

Sophomores:

PG: Allen Iverson

SG: Jerry Stackhouse

F: Chris Webber

F: Rasheed Wallace

C:  Elton Brand

Juniors:

PG: Jason Williams

SG: Ray Allen

F: Michael Jordan

F: (H)Akeem Olajuwon

C:  Shaquille O’Neal

Seniors:

PG: Bobby Hurley (or Randolph Childress if this team is too much DUKE for your liking.  But for below, I’m using Hurley)

SG: J.J. Redick

F: Christian Laettner

F: Len Bias

C:  Patrick Ewing

Never Played in the NCAA (No NCAA Team)

PG: Tony Parker

SG: Kobe Bryant

F: LeBron James

F: Amare Stoudemire

C: Kevin Garnett

Fighting amongst myself took a great deal of time.  Do I want Kenny Anderson or Allen Iverson?  Do I want Patrick Ewing as my Center and Laettner and Bias as my Forwards? Or do I want to go with a frontcourt of Bias, Laettner and Derrick Coleman?  How do I not have Danny Manning on the list?  And Tim Duncan?  And Chris Mullin? (James, Ben and I decided that even though we are only naming five players per group, we have to acknowledge that while Manning, Duncan and Mullin are technically not on the team, they really are on the team.  It’s our game.  We make the rules.)

So, those are our teams.  The End.

Totally not the end.  What’s the point of making teams if you aren’t going to have them “play”?  (Incidentally, while on this topic; why play little league soccer if no one is keeping score?  I really don’t understand that.  What a waste of 90 minutes.  I digress...) 

When we started this, James hypothesized that there was zero chance that our Freshmen team or Senior team would win.  At first I thought he might be right.  Now I’m not so sure; at least I’m not so sure that there would be zero chance with regard to the Seniors. 

To begin, we must momentarily discount the Never Played in the NCAA team.  Why?  Because they never played in college and we are judging everyone else by what they did in college alone.  Otherwise, I’m taking Jordan’s team and it matters nil who else is on his team.

The first team that I would say is out is the Sophomores.  There’s so much talent there, obviously.  I mean- the trio of Allen Iverson, Jerry Stackhouse and Chris Webber would definitely win if this were a contest based solely on OH-MY-GOD-he-did-NOT-just-do-that-moments.  And halfway through the game, Allen Iverson would need a good five minutes just to walk around and collect all of the ankles he had just broken.  But it is a somewhat smaller team in comparison to the others; and while Rasheed Wallace was/is a maniac and Elton Brand was so crafty and superb in college, in comparison to the other teams, they just don’t measure up.  They do match up better in terms of toughness when compared to the likes of say, the Freshmen team that has Davis and Carmelo and Durant as their frontcourt; but with Carmelo and Durant’s ability to get their shot anywhere at any time, I’m not sure the game would come down to toughness. 

But, speaking of the Freshmen, to me, they are the next to go.  The level of athleticism on that team is out of this world and it’s no coincidence that the only two freshmen to win the NCAA National Player of the Year Award are each on the team (Kevin Durant and Anthony Davis).  This team would score and it would score a LOT.  I don’t watch every OKC game but I can say with conviction that each time I do and Kevin Durant shoots, it’s aut-o-mat-ic, just like when he was in Texas.  The guy is out of his mind.  Plus, Derrick Rose at the PG spot?  Yes, please.  Speaking of Derrick Rose- man, I can’t wait for Chicago to get him back.  His absence is a disservice to the league.  And then you’ve got Anthony Davis protecting the rim.  Who’s going to score on him?  Not many.  Well, actually… let me retract that statement: pretty much the entire Senior team would score on him.

Anthony Davis was a magnificent rim defender at Kentucky in 2011-12 and he was able to pretty much have his way in the paint on both ends of the floor, night after night.  But, and this is not a knock against Davis, who was he playing against?  Was the inside competition really that overpowering and dominant?  I’m not so sure it was.  Now, with the Seniors, you’ve got Bobby Hurley, the all-time assists leader a.k.a. “I’m going to find the best offensive option play after play after play”, J.J. Redick (floor spacing anyone?), Laettner, Ewing and Bias.  Can you imagine Patrick Ewing taking it to Anthony Davis?  It would be reminiscent of Ray Lewis “welcoming” Mark Sanchez to the NFL back in 2009.  In other words; it would be ugly.  The Seniors would have their way down low and then could even pull Laettner out to shoot it (I’ve heard he’s pretty good from about 15 feet out and I think there’s video to prove it too) and God knows J.J. isn’t missing many.  Len Bias is regarded as the best player to never play at the professional level.  I’m not sure we need to say more about him other than- what a shame.  So, this team is pretty unstoppable.  Pretty unstoppable.  But still: stoppable. 

Enter the Juniors.  This team has it all: the PG who can pass it and also shoot the lights out (just ask Maryland, the victims of his “Miracle Minute”).  Speaking of shooting the lights out: Ray Allen much?  Then there’s Michael Jordan.  Normally I would save him for the end and say simply this:  Michael.  Jeffrey.  Jordan.  But, we are talking about his college days, not NBA Jordan, so I can’t go off the deep end about him.  But, the guy, as James told me “was all that and a bag of chips.  He was a freak athlete as a freshman, but then became the total package in his sophomore and, especially, junior seasons.  It was very unusual for a freshman to play that much for Dean Smith.  Times were different.  That’s why he isn’t on the cover of Sports Illustrated when UNC was ranked #1 in the preseason of 1982.  Jordan was too good to keep down.”  Round the team out with Olajuwon and Shaq… ooooooh, that team is good.  That team is so good.  There is no weakness there (just so long as you keep Shaq off of the free throw line) and you have the ultimate clutch players in Jordan, Allen and Williams.  But, with that crop of talent, something tells me there wouldn’t be much need for clutch plays- they’re usually only needed in close games. 

The only thing left to do would be to try to compare the Juniors to the group that we set aside earlier: the guys that Never Played in the NCAA.  Honestly, I don’t have the desire to do this.  Why?  Because you know where it’s going.  Michael Jordan is on one team and LeBron James is on the other.  I refuse to add another dimension to the “Who’s Better?” debate between these two, even if it is pretty obvious who is better between UNC Jordan and NBA LeBron.  Besides, I do not understand how Kobe got bypassed in that conversation to begin with.  Even still, I’m not biting.