Here's my view of the five teams that have done presentations thus far:
1. Magic
2. Mavericks
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3. Spurs
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4. Diablos
5. Nuggets
Here's my thinking: The Magic and Mavericks are clearly the two best teams who have posted so far, in my humble opinion. All of the teams for far have some major strengths, and a few weaknesses.
Orlando: I hate Starbury on this team. I think he has the potential to disrupt the locker room. That said, the Magic can always cut him, and the only harm is a wasted draft pick. This is probably the best passing team in the league, and I love that they can outscore anybody or play some excellent defense. Weaknesses: Not great defensively up front, overall weakness at the PG position.
Dallas: The most talented team so far, maybe. This team can score and shoot with the best of them. It's hard to overestimate how good of a player Karl Malone was in his prime, and he's going to punish teams. Weaknesses: This is a "fit" problem to me a bit. Lots and lots of ultra-talented guys, but also a lot of "me first" dudes in my opinion. Bynum, young Pierce, Westbrook, Bibby, Stackhouse, Cousins, etc. ... There's a criticism that those guys are out to "get theirs". Also, I don't like the strategy of building a team to score 120+ points per night. Teams like that run into the right defensive squad and they're in trouble.
San Antonio: Another extremely talented team. It would be great to see teams try to score on a JO / Smith / Battier / Pippen / Armstrong lineup. Ilyasova and Person weren't my favorite picks, but otherwise this team has a strong bench that fits well. Weaknesses: I don't know what it is, but I don't like that Finley / Nash backcourt. I guess it's because we've seen it before on the "real" Dallas Mavericks, and it didn't work at all defensively. It was just bad. Also, I don't love the fit of JO and Brand next to each other. I really wish the Spurs had landed a dominant center to play next to JO; that would have been something.
Downeast: I love Dikembe as a backstop and Kirilenko as a roaming defender. Iverson can pressure the passing lanes that way, making this team opportunistic on defense. I love Charles Oakley; he's one of my favorite role players ever. Weakness: Iverson. I don't like Iverson as a starter in this format; I think it leads to getting less out of the surrounding teammates than you'd like in this format. I could buy Iverson in one of these leagues if he was a sixth man surrounded by defensive role players. Here, though, he's playing next to Mitch Richmond and Amare Stoudemire, two players who need a ton of touches and who don't play much defense. We saw this year how ineffective Amare can be playing next to a lane-clogging center and a high-usage scorer. I think that would be even worse on the Diablos (and I am a big Amare fan). I thought the Klay Thompsen pick was a wasted one (binkie alert?), and I hate the idea of a poor defender like Kevin Martin playing out of position at SF.
Nuggets: It's probably unfair to put this team in last (of these five particular teams). Ewing was an absolutely amazing player, and I'm a Penny fan. Grant Hill was other-wordly back in the day (I mean, 21/9/7 with 2 steals for a full season?!?) Weaknesses: I just can't rate a team with P.J. Brown and Doug Christie in the starting lineup that highly. Role players are nice, but when you've got two players so far below the league-average in your starting lineup, it makes things a huge up hill struggle. I don't love many of the bench players, either (although I do like Prince a lot.)
All of the above are excellent teams, but in my subjective opinion, I like some better than others.
Topic: How's my Historical Team? (Awesome right!) (Read 161355 times)