Introducing the Historical Toronto Raptors! Before getting into the actual team, I’ll start with my guiding principles:
Passing: In real life NBA and in particular this league, my favorite teams are the ones that facilitate constant ball movement across most, if not all, players on the court. The trap with these games is that you end up with ball dominant players who don’t work in a setting where they aren’t the only important player on the team. What you’ll see on my team is an incredible amount of ball movement across the board:
Penny Hardaway – 7 assists per game, >30% assist rate
Fat Lever – 8 assists per game, 28% assist rate
Terrell Brandon – 7 assists per game, 38% assist rate
Paul Westphal – 7 assists per game, 30% assist rate
Paul Pressey – 8 assists per game, 30% assist rate
Marques Johnson – 3 assists per game, 12% assist rate (although these materially increased a couple years later when he had a better team around him)
Danny Granger – 3 assists per game 13% assist rate
Kiki Vandeweghe – 3 assists per game, 10% assist rate
Bobby Jones – 3 assists per game, 15% assist rate
Jermaine O’Neal – 2 assists per game, 12% assist rate
Marc Gasol – 4 assists per game, 19% assist rate
Serge Ibaka – 1 assists per game, 5% assist rate
So in the backcourt, you have every single player through Paul Pressey who can play small forward averaging over 7 assists and a 30% assist rate. Marques is a more than capable passer. Marc Gasol and Bobby Jones are high level passers for their positions. Bobby – a quick aside – was an incredible cutter who scored so efficiently. With this passing on the court, he’s going to be a nightmare to keep track of. You need someone who is there to score – Jermaine and Danny Granger are those guys – but everyone else is going to keep the ball zinging across the court.
Flexible, Switching Defense: It’s modern day! You have to be able to switch, right? It's literally my name, is it not? The big concern here is that other teams are going to exploit your matchups. I believe we have countered that. In the backcourt, other than Brandon who is less likely to get material minutes, you have Penny (6’7, quality defender), Fat Lever (6’3, 2nd team all-defense), Paul Westphal (6’4, quick-handed and capable defender), Paul Pressey (6’5, 2x 1st team all-defense), Marques Johnson (6’7, >3 DWS, best defender on the team until Moncrief came), Danny Granger (6’9), Bobby Jones (6’9, 8x 1st team all-defense, 1x 2nd team all-defense in addition to multi-1st team in ABA), Jermaine O’Neal (6’11, 2.6 bpg, 6.3 DWS), Marc Gasol (DPOY this year), Serge Ibaka (3x 1st team all-defense including DPOY runner-up, 4.4 DWS, 3bpg).
So we have quality defenders in the backcourt in the starting lineup who can guard bigger players, including Marques. We have all-defensive backups in Fat Lever and Paul Pressey. We have the best, period defensive frontcourt in the game with the rotation of Jermaine O’Neal, Bobby Jones, Marc Gasol, Serge Ibaka.
Spacing: We need to be able to shoot! I’ll keep this one briefer. Penny could shoot (32% this year but 35% the year before and 40% later in his career). Lever got to >40%. Brandon was 39% this year. Westphal had range. Pressey shot 30%-ish before the three-point era really kicked off. Marques had range. Granger was 40% on volume. Kiki got up to 48%. Bobby and Jermaine – ok, not so much but could hit a mid-range open shot. Gasol was 39% when he started shooting them. Ibaka was 38%. So up and down the lineup, you have outside shooting. It’s probably the best shooting team in this entire league, other than Bobby and Jermaine. Definitely the best shooting centers which provide that spacing for Jermaine to bang down low.
Efficient Scoring: Look, you need to put points on the board. You can’t just have amazing passing without people proving they can be an alpha. Up and down the lineup, there is efficient scoring.
Penny – 22 points per game on 51%
Lever -- 19 points per game on 47%
Terrell Brandon -- 19 points per game on 47%
Paul Westphal – 24 points per game on 54%. Per 36, this was 27 points per game. The year before was 29
Paul Pressey – 14 points per game on 49%
Marques – 26 points per game on 55%
Danny Granger – 26 points per game on 45%
Kiki Vandeweghe – 27 points per game on 55% (next year was 29 points per game)
Jermaine O’Neal – 20 points per game on 43% (I’ve already written about why he was inefficient this year due to his team – the years before when he had better facilitation he was at 48%)
Bobby Jones – 15 points per game on 57%
Marc Gasol – 14 points per game on 49%
Serge Ibaka – 15 points per game on 54%
If there’s one knock on my team, it’s that we don’t have enough oomph. We don’t have Tracy or Vince or truly prolific scorers. We traded off for some of the other attributes. But I’m not sure how many teams have this level of efficiency. Every single player is efficient offensively, and every single player can hurt you. When we really need a bucket, we are going to Paul Westphal, Marques, Danny Granger, Kiki, and Penny to create and score, or Jermaine down low. Those guys all proved they can be the alpha. They’ll get it done when it matters.
Summary: So that’s the philosophy. I don’t see another team in this league that can compete with my combination of passing and basketball IQ, spacing across all positions, defensive flexibility and frontcourt defensive ability, and efficient scoring. That’s a winning formula, and why so many of my players have won something important (Westphal, Penny (Olympics), Marques (NCAA), Bobby Jones, Marc Gasol, Serge Ibaka) or become coaches (Penny, Westphal, Pressey, Kiki). I liked the comparison from an earlier post to the Spurs, and that’s how this team wins.
Onto the good stuff – the team.
Penny Hardaway 1995-1996: 22 points per game on 51% shooting, 4.3 rebounds, 7.1 assists, two steals. 11.0 OWS and 3.4 DWS. 0.229 per 48 minutes which is my personal metric of choice. 3rd in MVP voting ahead of Hakeem, Pippen, Payton, Malone, Kemp, Hill. 1st team All-NBA ahead of Payton and Stockton. Took the team to the ECF until they met the ’96 Bulls. Won in the Olympics. Ended up a coach.
Fat Lever 1987-1988: 19 points per game, 8.1 rebounds, 7.8 assists, 2.7 steals. All-Star (2x total). Took his team to the WCF Semis. All-NBA Second Team the year before, All-Defensive Second Team this year.
Terrell Brandon 1995-1996: 19 points per game. 0.237 WS/48 (9.5 OWS, 3.1 DWS). All-Star (2x total).
Paul Westphal 1978-1979: 24 points per game on only 32 minutes. 6.5 assists and 1.4 steals. All-Star (5x total). 0.189 WS/48 (8.2 OWS). Champion. 3x 1st team All-NBA, 1x 2nd team. Ended up a coach.
Paul Pressey 1985-1986: 14 points per game, 5 rebounds, 8 assists, 2 steals, 1 block. 2x 1st Team All-Defense, 1x 2nd Team All-Defense. Took his team to the ECF this year. Ended up a coach.
Marques Johnson 1978-1979: 26 points per game on 55% shooting, 8 rebounds, 3 assists, 1.5 steals, 1.2 blocks. 0.211 WS/48. 1st Team All-NBA this year, 5x All-Star (including this year), 2x 2nd Team All-NBA behind Bird and Dr. J
Danny Granger 2008-2009: 26 points per game, 40% shooting from deep. All-Star
Kiki Vandeweghe 1982-1983: 27 points per game on 55% shooting. Got up to 2nd in the NBA in scoring. 10.5 OWS this year. 2x All-Star
Bobby Jones 1976-1977: 15 points per game on 57% shooting, 2.3 steals, 2.0 blocks. 5.5 DWS, 11.0 WS, 0.219 per 48 minutes. 8x 1st Team All-Defense, 4x All-Star, NBA Champion. Best teammate in this exercise. Made the playoffs…every…single…year
Jermaine O’Neal 2003-2004: 3rd in MVP voting. 20/10 guy. 2.6 blocks per game. Took his team to the ECF before losing to the eventual champion. 6x All-Star. 3x All-NBA. 6.3 (!!) DWS this season.
Marc Gasol 2012-2013: DPOY while scoring 14 points and dishing out 4 assists from the center position. 39% three point shooter from that position. 3x All-Star. 2nd Team All-NBA this year, 1st Team a different year. NBA champion.
Serge Ibaka 2013-2014: 1st Team All-Defense (3x) and runner up to DPOY another year (4th this year). 15 points per game with 38% three point shooting. 3 blocks a game. NBA champion.
Finally, the lineups. We love the flexibility here. The typical rotation is going to look like this:
Starters: Penny Hardaway – Paul Westphal – Marques Johnson – Jermaine O’Neal – Marc Gasol
In the playoffs, we are likely to go with a three man guard rotation with Fat Lever, rotate Marques Johnson with Danny Granger, and play Bobby Jones and Serge Ibaka off the bench although less with each other because of the lack of offense. So you’ll see these combinations off the bench (quicker subs with Fat Lever in for Penny and Serge Ibaka coming in for Jermaine O'Neal to facilitate it):
Fat Lever – Paul / Penny – Danny Granger – Bobby / Serge – Jermaine / Gasol
If we want to go all-defense, you’ll see: Fat Lever – Paul Pressey – Marques Johnson – Bobby Jones – Serge Ibaka / Marc Gasol / Jermaine O’Neal
If we want to go all-offense, you’ll see: Terrell Brandon – Paul Westphal – Danny Granger – Kiki Vandeweghe – Marc Gasol / Jermaine O’Neal
If we want to go smaller and faster, you’ll see: Terrell Brandon / Fat Lever – Paul Westphal – Penny Hardaway – Danny Granger / Kiki Vandeweghe – Serge Ibaka
If we want to go bigger, you might even see: Paul Pressey – Marques Johnson – Danny Granger – Jermaine O’Neal – Marc Gasol
Wow, that was way longer than I expected. But fun! Here’s the bottom line on my team – we aren’t the flashiest, and we know it. But we are the best passing, defensive, winning basketball team with a bunch of smart and likable guys, and you are going to get really annoyed playing us because we’re going to get easy buckets, space the floor, and defend the heck out of you.
And, beyond that, even if you don’t vote for my team, this was a lot of fun. Everyone was really great to play with and I learned a lot. But you should vote for my team anyways 😉