Dream Game

Enough of the heavy stuff for a while.  Typical Sloth & Gluttony night of eating silver salmon, watching Deadliest Catch, and putting off grading tests.

With the NBA playoffs going now, I was thinking, what would be the dream game to see?  The Dream Team of 1992 certainly stands out.  What if pro players had always been able to compete in the Olympics?  My two ideal teams would come from 1964 and 1988.  To me, these would have been the two best times in NBA history, with the best players at the best stages of their careers.

Now I just thought about putting up today's best and see how they might stack up.
Here goes:

                   1964                               1988                                2013
1        Oscar Robertson             Magic Johnson                Chris Paul
2        Jerry West                       Michael Jordan               Kobe Bryant
3        Elgin Baylor                    Larry Bird                         Kevin Durant
4        Bill Russell                      Karl Malone                      Lebron James
5        Wilt Chamberlain          Hakeem Olajuwon          Tim Duncan

I changed Bill Russell, Lebron James and Tim Duncan's positions to allow for the best players of each era to be on the court at the same time.

Looking at the match-ups:
At point guard I'd have to go with Magic, but I only was able to see Oscar at the tail end of his career, when I was too young to know what a triple-double was.  Either one could post up Paul all night long.

Shooting guard would have to go to Jordan, but I would love to see he and Kobe in their primes head-to-head.  West was great but not in their league.

Small forward is hard because I don't remember seeing Elgin play.  This one is the closest to a toss-up.

Power forward is a matter of how you view the game.  To me Bill Russell is the greatest team player ever.  It's a team game.  Lebron is absolutely spectacular, but he's never been guarded by anyone approaching Russell's caliber.  Malone was a stud, but he is third here, in my opinion.

Center would have to go to Wilt, but Hakeem would make him earn his money.  I think both would be too athletic for Duncan.

The 1988 team is the over-all tallest of the three, but the other two teams are quicker.  I think the '88 squad has the best back-court.  The '64 team would be the toughest up-front, with the two greatest rebounders of all time.  If I had to bet on outcomes, '88 would finish first, followed by '64, then this year's team.