Imagine you and nine rival general managers are putting together basketball teams from scratch. Every current or former NBA or ABA player is available to draft, each in the prime of his career.
How would you construct a 12-man roster? Would Michael Jordan be the surefire No. 1 player on your draft board? If you had a full list of centers from which to choose, how would you decide among Wilt, Russell, Shaq, Kareem and Hakeem? Where would you slot Kobe and LeBron? Magic and Larry? How would you balance stars and role players, or pioneers versus today's greats?
These were just some of the questions facing the 10 writers -- Chris Ballard, Richard Deitsch, Paul Forrester, Lee Jenkins, Chris Mannix, Jack McCallum, Joe Posnanski, Phil Taylor, Ian Thomsen and Alex Wolff -- who participated in SI.com's Ultimate Basketball Draft.
Below you can see the pick-by-pick results of the draft, which was conducted before the Mavericks won the championship and Derrick Rose emerged as the clear front-runner in the 2010-11 MVP race. You can view a complete analysis of each team by clicking on the writers' pictures or on "TEAMS" above. Disagree with the picks? Weigh in with your thoughts on the draft's hottest debates.
Who drafted the best team? For one answer to that question, SI.com asked Strat-O-Matic, which has been creating the best-selling statistical-based simulations for more than 50 years, to design a realistic representation of what might occur if these 120 players all played at the same time in this 10-team league. We present the standings, league leaders and player-by-player stats from the balanced, 72-game regular season, as well as the outcome of the four-team postseason, which includes box scores for every game and a summary of each series.
Each player's best season was the foundation for creating the data for the simulation, but Strat-O-Matic director of development Bob Winberry and his team then had to adjust those numbers to all-time norms; make further modifications based on average league height and the integration of basketball over time; and factor in the company's own rating of players in specific categories on offense and defense. James Williams, the top basketball researcher at Strat-O-Matic, also had to fill in the gaps for stats that were not officially tabulated in the early days of pro basketball.
Players are geared toward a certain number of minutes based on the writers' preferences, but playing time and number of starts are handled by the automated computer coach in the simulation. (The writers also picked real coaches for their clubs -- see the individual team pages for results -- but those coaches had no bearing on the simulation.) Injuries come into play like in real life, as does the possibility that some players will have off years or exceed their usual productivity.
Now, on to the draft ...
1. Michael Jordan
2. Wilt Chamberlin
3. Bill Russell
4. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
5. Oscar Roberston
6. Shaquille O'Neal
7. Larry Bird
8. Magic Johnson
9. Kobe Bryant
10. Tim Duncan
Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/basketball/nba/ultimate.draft/index.html#ixzz1Pq9fRJGB
How would you construct a 12-man roster? Would Michael Jordan be the surefire No. 1 player on your draft board? If you had a full list of centers from which to choose, how would you decide among Wilt, Russell, Shaq, Kareem and Hakeem? Where would you slot Kobe and LeBron? Magic and Larry? How would you balance stars and role players, or pioneers versus today's greats?
These were just some of the questions facing the 10 writers -- Chris Ballard, Richard Deitsch, Paul Forrester, Lee Jenkins, Chris Mannix, Jack McCallum, Joe Posnanski, Phil Taylor, Ian Thomsen and Alex Wolff -- who participated in SI.com's Ultimate Basketball Draft.
Below you can see the pick-by-pick results of the draft, which was conducted before the Mavericks won the championship and Derrick Rose emerged as the clear front-runner in the 2010-11 MVP race. You can view a complete analysis of each team by clicking on the writers' pictures or on "TEAMS" above. Disagree with the picks? Weigh in with your thoughts on the draft's hottest debates.
Who drafted the best team? For one answer to that question, SI.com asked Strat-O-Matic, which has been creating the best-selling statistical-based simulations for more than 50 years, to design a realistic representation of what might occur if these 120 players all played at the same time in this 10-team league. We present the standings, league leaders and player-by-player stats from the balanced, 72-game regular season, as well as the outcome of the four-team postseason, which includes box scores for every game and a summary of each series.
Each player's best season was the foundation for creating the data for the simulation, but Strat-O-Matic director of development Bob Winberry and his team then had to adjust those numbers to all-time norms; make further modifications based on average league height and the integration of basketball over time; and factor in the company's own rating of players in specific categories on offense and defense. James Williams, the top basketball researcher at Strat-O-Matic, also had to fill in the gaps for stats that were not officially tabulated in the early days of pro basketball.
Players are geared toward a certain number of minutes based on the writers' preferences, but playing time and number of starts are handled by the automated computer coach in the simulation. (The writers also picked real coaches for their clubs -- see the individual team pages for results -- but those coaches had no bearing on the simulation.) Injuries come into play like in real life, as does the possibility that some players will have off years or exceed their usual productivity.
Now, on to the draft ...
1. Michael Jordan
2. Wilt Chamberlin
3. Bill Russell
4. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
5. Oscar Roberston
6. Shaquille O'Neal
7. Larry Bird
8. Magic Johnson
9. Kobe Bryant
10. Tim Duncan
Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/basketball/nba/ultimate.draft/index.html#ixzz1Pq9fRJGB
