After listening to the Lakers get swept (I was with friends on I-65 returning from the Kentucky Derby), I raised a question to the car that myself and a few others have been debating recently as a means of better compiling an All-Time Greatest Players NBA list. The scenario is this:
We are starting a five-season, 30-team league in which every NBA player in history is available in their prime. The league will use modern rules. You are the GM for the team picking second. MJ is off the board. Who do you draft?
I like the way this re-frames and contextualizes the old “Who’s the greatest?” debate, and makes you consider how Wilt would match up with Shaq, Kareem, Olajuwon, Moses, Dwight Howard, or Pettit against Duncan, Malone, Barkley, KG, or Cousy against Magic, Isiah, Stockton, Nash, Payton…
The car debate got me hungry for a wider range of opinions, and while I threw the question out to a handful of my biggest basketball friends, I figured we’d open it up to the SBN community as well.
As such, give me the top 5 on your draft board without the assumption that Jordan is the first pick, since I know that at least one of my friends is going to argue Kobe as #1. And speaking of Kobe, if he’s not in your top 5, I’m specifically interested to hear where he is on your list.
Happy ranking,
JACK
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Jack M Silverstein is a freelance writer covering music, sports, and community in Chicago. He has written his opinion column "On the John" for 11 years. Say hey at 
Now, to get this rolling, let me give my own draft board. To the surprise of no one, I dorked it up big time last night, completing a ten-team, eight-man rotation mock draft with the scenario above. I also added the caveat that a player had to have at least five seasons through 2011 to be eligible, making the 2005 draft the cut-off. Hence no Durant, no Rose, etc.
Below are my ten, eight-man teams, and just to make it interesting, other than my top ten, I am not going to list the draft order, but will list the teams alphabetically by the point guard’s last name.
TEAM 1
STARTERS: Cousy, Ray Allen, Bird (1), Garnett, Wilt
BENCH: Unseld, Moncrief, DeBusschere
TEAM 2
STARTERS: Frazier, Wade, McGrady, Russell (1), Moses
BENCH: Bernard King, Nate Thurmond, Mullin
TEAM 3
STARTERS: D. Johnson, West, Havlicek, Duncan (1), Howard
BENCH: Cunningham, Webber, McAdoo
TEAM 4
STARTERS: Magic (1), Baylor, Pippen, Nowitzki, Mutombo
BENCH: Elvin Hayes, Kevin Johnson, Glen Rice
TEAM 5
STARTERS: Kidd, Kobe (1), Nique, K. Malone, Reed
BENCH: Maravich, Billups, Jerry Lucas
TEAM 6
STARTERS: Nash, Robertson, Pierce, McHale, Kareem (1)
BENCH: Richmond, Archibald, Mourning
TEAM 7
STARTERS: Chris Paul, Reggie, LeBron (1), Barkley, Ewing
BENCH: Rick Barry, Mark Jackson, Pau Gasol
TEAM 8
STARTERS: Payton, Jordan (1), Gervin, Rodman, D. Robinson
BENCH: David Thompson, Parish, Lanier
TEAM 9
STARTERS: Stockton, Iverson, Worthy, Pettit, Shaq (1)
BENCH: Walton, Earl Monroe, Penny
TEAM 10
STARTERS: Isiah, Drexler, Dr. J, Cowens, Olajuwon (1)
BENCH: Melo, Ben Wallace, Tony Parker