Team G team writeup:
Basic Rotation and Depth Chart:
Jrue Holiday / Derrick Rose
Vince Carter / Ron Artest
Kawhi Leonard / Chris Mullin
Jaren Jackson Jr. / Artest
Wilt Chamberlain / Marc Gasol
Specialty depth (not in rotation)
-Dave Cowens (rebounding)
-Jeff Hornacek (shooting/playmaking)
-Joe Ingles (shooting/playmaking/nasty)
The basic idea here is surround Wilt with shooting and all-world defense (I have 6 all-defense players, 4 of them being DPOY). It is important to note that this is not the Wilt that put up ungodly stats on losing teams; It is the ‘66-‘67 point-center version which was his winning apex, winning MVP and leading the Sixers to a championship (and set the best regular season record at 68-13). He was still in his athletic prime but he became adept at facilitating and helmed a motion offense that was
considered the greatest team in history for decades. He still was wildly productive (24 pts/24 rebs/8 asts) but way more efficient (68% FG), and focusing on distributing more yielded a particularly monstrous defensive and rebounding presence.
More on that here.
Kawhi is THE premier two-way, 3-point shooting perimeter force, whose value is further supplemented by his high-level midrange game. This philosophy is reinforced with Jrue Holiday, being the premier two-way 3-point shooting point guard in the contest and JJJ being the definitive 3&D true big. Carter features to add a ton of spice to a somewhat vanilla Spurs-ian 4-out offense and subs out early to helm a 5-out deep-bench unit with Rose where they wreak havoc on the opposing defense. Artest is a key reserve, logging as many minutes as a starter, first subbing early for Carter to create a water-tight defensive lineup ("Fortress"), then sliding to the 4 in the aforementioned 5-out unit ("Machete") since he’s a 260 pound bull.
- Main lineup (starts and usually closes):
- Jrue/Carter/Kawhi/JJJ/Wilt
- Fortress (2nd) Unit (middle 4 minutes of every quarter):
- Jrue/Artest/Kawhi/JJJ/Wilt
- Machete (3rd) Unit (the minutes bordering the 1st/2nd and 3rd/4th quarters).
- Rose/Carter/Mullin/Artest/Gasol
- No paint clogging bigs so Rose and Vinsanity can go to work
Matchup with Team H:
Anthony Davis doesn't like playing center, so I think matching up with Wilt Chamberlain is almost a non-starter. H is a pretty well-rounded and interesting team but I generally feel like its just relatively soft overall and quite leaky defensively. I think H is probably a top-4 team but I don't think it holds up on toughness and fidelity in this matchup.
