SI all time basketball draft...and stratomatic game

[Glengoyne]

Did I miss the thread on this.

SI has a bunch of sport's writers drafting the all time best NBA player's to build teams and run them through a Stratomatic simulation.

The Article is here
NBA Ultimate Fantasy Draft - NBA - SI.com

with the lead in

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. (The winner takes a victory lap here.)
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 ...

The game won't be available until November, but there is a pre-order offer with I think a discount here
SI Offer | the Strat-O-Matic Game Co.

[Glengoyne]

All Right 30 minutes in...and no one has shamed me by posting a thread I missed in my search.

So..my first two questions...
Bird over Magic? I rooted for the Celtics against the Lakers all those years, and I'm still wondering about this.

Shaq over both Bird and Magic?

[Glengoyne]

Oh yeah. I haven't read to the end of the Article yet...so use the Spoiler tag.

[MikeVic]

I skimmed through it. Some odd picks, but it's interesting. I didn't see a list of the teams and which players they got though? So it was kind of hard to see if a pick was odd, or made sense with how the team was being built. The comments by the drafters weren't always friendly in that regard.

[larrymcg421]

Since they're using the best individual seasons for a player, I can understand the Robertson selection, since they get to pick a year where he averaged a triple double.

As for Shaq, there was an early run on big men, so I can see why he was taken so early.

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by Glengoyne

Bird over Magic? I rooted for the Celtics against the Lakers all those years, and I'm still wondering about this.

Magic over Bird for versatility.

[Glengoyne]

Originally Posted by Matthean

Magic over Bird for versatility.

That is what I was thinking.

[Glengoyne]

I ran down the team rosters, and here is what I think without looking at the results page.

Ballard...Bill Russel and Lebron James. Reggie Miller, Mullen, and Barkley for spice.
Lebron as the full time point guard against all time/all world competition? If that works out, then this could be a great team. I'll rank them third, if the gamble works. If it doesn't work, I think they've still got an outside shot at the play offs.

Dietsch...Duncan, Cousy, Olajuwon, Garnett,Payton.
This team is all about the Defense. I love their Depth too, but seriously how much can depth help in a league like this. Still Bobby Jones in the twelfth round is a steal. Middle of the pack. The best this team could hope for is to be the last team to make the playoffs. Defense wins championships right? Not in this league.

Forrester...Shaq, Pettit, Wilkins, Frazier, and West.
I think this team works. I'm not sure how the front line holds up. Can Shaq carry the load? Will Stratomatic include hack a shaq logic? I love the guards and the Offensive options. Not sure about the front line defensively. I'll rank them fifth, due to some liabilities.

Jenkins....Jabbar, Malone, Worthy, Gervin, and Kidd
This team has it all. Run the floor, just run the floor. Pistol Pete off the bench! Defense...Yeah okay there might be a few holes to be exploited out there. Still enough to be a top tier team against this competition. I'll call them second best.

Mannix: Ewing, King, Stoudemire, Kobe, and Stockton
I like the guards here. How could you not? This team is all about the Offense. I don't think there was any thought given to defense here. I also think the front line is run over against this competition. My boldest prediction yet? These guys are the bottom of the barrel.

McCallum: Unseld, Mchale, Baylor, Earl Monroe, and Oscar Robinson.
When I saw this guy's draft picks round after round. I thought oh he's going for the all under rated team. Unsung heroes all. Or almost all. These guys might be the stuff that team Mannix scrapes off of the bottom of the barrel to reach the bottom. I'm going to give Stratomatic's engine the benefit of the doubt, and pick these guys to finish seventh. Although there is the potential to be truly dismal.

Posnanski: Chamberlain, Nowitzki, Erving, Thomas, Havlicek.
I gotta think Stratomatic will love this team. Offense abounds. Enough Defense to not be a liability. Will Wilt take enough pressure off of Dirk to hold down the front line against top rated competition? If not I think Dwight Howard will be right there to fill the gap. I'm not a big Thomas fan, but along side Havlicek and the Doctor. I gotta think this team is the cream of the crop. Best team in the league.

Taylor: Malone, Barry, McAdoo, Magic, Hardaway.
I really like the Magic, Barry, and McAdoo here. Do the likes of Mikan and Moncrief make up the difference? I'm not going to bet too much on it. I want to pick this team to do better, but I can't. There are enough question marks to keep even Magic paired with Rick Barry in the middle of the pack.

Thomsen: Walton, Mourning, Bird, Drexler, Nash.
Bird is my favorite player of all time, and really who doesn't love Bill Walton? Add in great guard play, and this team could be great. If team Chemistry plays enough of a role in the game engine, this is a playoff team. I don't think Bill Walton and Mourning hold up to the competition. I think that leaves Bird and company on the outside looking in come play off time. Call them a toss up with Teams Taylor and Forrester, vying to be the best of the rest.

Wolff: Robinson, Thurmond, Jordan, Dumars, Paul
OK almost all of the writers seem to think that this team is THE threat. I'm not seeing it. Again, I'm not sure this team's front line stacks up against the competition. I am sure that Jordan and Dumars/Paul/Wade will be strong. I also like some of the deep guys here on the bench. Jordan makes this team the fourth team in the play offs, but I wouldn't be surprised to see this team in the bottom half either.


Man I love this kind of stuff.

Now to check the results.

[Glengoyne]

I picked fairly well. I figured that the big men would be the most important when it comes right down to a simulation.

It was easier to spot the losers than to rank the winners all in all. The all under-rated team fared worse than they probably would on the actual court. Intangibles and the like being hard to represent.

The big surprises for me...
Wolff's team. I only rated them fourth because I had too many teams bunched in the middle. This may be proof that I criminally under rate David Robinson. Probably the same for Tim Duncan as well, who held his own along side Olajuwon for Dietsch's team. This team also had Wade and Paul coming up Big. They also put up impressive defensive numbers, which is another place I underestimated them.

Ballard's team. Again I originally had them rated fourth, only bumping them to third after deciding I needed to bump Wolff's team up. So Lebron can carry the water at the point in Stratomatic. Good to know. I really felt that was the only question mark here.

Forrester's team was a bit of a surprise for me as well. Shaq was a force. I guess I shouldn't have doubted he would be anything but.

[ColtCrazy]

Thanks for posting this...great stuff. I was in a play by mail stratomatic league for a few years in 90s. Even made the finals once with a team led by Reggie Miller and Shawn Kemp. Only quit when the commish used his clout to assemble a super team and went 74-8 one year.

I've always loved Posnaski as a writer, very insightful. Not surprised he built a very balanced team. I liked Ballads team from an offensive stand point. Like you, I was a bit surprised they may a run for the title.

I may have to buy the computer version again. Haven't played in 13 years I bet.

[Glengoyne]

Originally Posted by ColtCrazy

Thanks for posting this...great stuff. I was in a play by mail stratomatic league for a few years in 90s. Even made the finals once with a team led by Reggie Miller and Shawn Kemp. Only quit when the commish used his clout to assemble a super team and went 74-8 one year.

I've always loved Posnaski as a writer, very insightful. Not surprised he built a very balanced team. I liked Ballads team from an offensive stand point. Like you, I was a bit surprised they may a run for the title.

I may have to buy the computer version again. Haven't played in 13 years I bet.

I'm thinking the same thing about this going on my must do list. I'll have to do some searching to see if there is a feature list or demo to evaluate. After picking Posnaski's team as the best, I figured I'd done well enough with him finishing just one game back. Then I saw that I'd gotten outhouse lucky enough to pick the actual winner.

The new players seemed to do better than I expected. D Wade and C Paul and others scoring a ton of points. Among the disappointments was Bill Russell only averaging 10 or 11 points, while Shaq was a dominant force in the paint. Patrick Ewing, while I wouldn't have considered him an especially strong pick, ended up a deep scrub.