[Seuss]

Each GM has one day to get his gameplan up. Here's a gameplan template.

Offensive Plan:
Defensive Plan:
Overall Focus:

(#1) Utah Jazz Team:

PG: Nate Archibald
SG: Sam Jones
SF: Paul Arizin
PF: Jerry Lucas
C: Shaquile O'Neal

BENCH: Norm van Lier, Neil Johnston, Charlie Scott, Cliff Hagan, Bailey Howell


(#4) Memphis Grizzlies Team:

PG: Alvin Robertson
SG: Eddie Jones
SF: Scottie Pippen
PF: Charles Oakley
C: David Robinson

BENCH: Rick Mahorn, Rodney McCray, Fast Eddie Johnson, Anthony Mason, Richard Hamilton

[Sharpie]

The Jazz have a very strong team around Shaq, all of his teammates compliment him well except maybe Arizin who I am not at all familiar with. Eagerly awaiting the writeups here.

[jericho]

No write-ups for this one?

At a quick glance, this is a closer matchup then the seeding suggests. Both teams drafted with a clear strategy in mind, and both have solid enough benches.

I think these teams will give each other fits. Utah is built to score well with a balanced attack, but they face excellent defenders. Nate will get his, but Alvin has the length and athleticism to keep him from totally taking over. I think Arizin (who's undersized at the 3 in this league) will really struggle against Pippen, who (speaking of length and athleticism) has the capability to really smother him.

But I don't see that Memphis is built with enough scoring power to take full advantage of the edge their defensive prowess provides. Their only real go-to scorer is Robinson, who has to contend with Shaq. And while having Pippen in there helps with ball movement, Alvin was generally not a full-time PG and none of the other starters are notable passers, so I question whether this unit has the overall playmaking ability to create enough efficient scoring opportunities.

With all that said, my eyes are drawn to the center position. Robinson at his peak was a truly amazing player, and over the course of a season can be expected to hold his own against O'Neal (especially with his superior mobility and versatile offensive game). But in crunch-time postseason, I have to go with the more proven performer in Shaq, who seemed to be good for 30-20 when his team really needed it.

So in the absence of gameplans that tell me how these teams would counter each others' strengths, my nod goes to Utah.

[Sunsfan81]

Originally Posted by Sharpie

The Jazz have a very strong team around Shaq, all of his teammates compliment him well except maybe Arizin who I am not at all familiar with. Eagerly awaiting the writeups here.

The inventor of the jump shot, 2-time scoring champion and excellent shooter.

http://www.nba.com/history/players/arizin_bio.html

"In addition to his unrivaled shooting accuracy, "Pitchin' Paul" was a great leaper, a slick ballhandler, and a tough defender -- an early version of Michael Jordan or Sidney Moncrief."

"Not even superstars like Schayes and Bob Pettit, both considerably taller than the 6-4 Arizin, could put up a strong defense against his deadly jump shot. He could score from the inside as well and Arizin's spectacular drives to the hoop made him one of the most acrobatic players of his day."

[tkb]

Of his day the keywords there. Pippen would smother him on both ends imo.

And as far as the center matchup goes; Robinson's team won over 71% of the games he played against Shaq before he went down with the knee problems. 71 (!) percent. And if i'm not mistaken DRob outscored Shaq by over 4 points per game too over those games.

DRob has really gotten underrated by the years. Please look beyond the old guy next to Tim Duncan with bad knees and look back at the young and dominating Robinson before you decide on the center matchup. Shaq in his prime was really good, i'm not debating that, but Robinson was one heck of a player too.

[tkb]

Originally Posted by jericho

But in crunch-time postseason, I have to go with the more proven performer in Shaq, who seemed to be good for 30-20 when his team really needed it.

I respect your position, but the closer on those teams was Kobe. Shaq put them in position to win, but if the game was tight it was usually Kobe they went to in the 4th because of Shaq's astrocious FT-shooting.

[Sunsfan81]

There is a great center matchup here with Shaq and David Robinson, in which I give the edge to Shaq. Utah has a big advantage at PF with Lucas against Oakley. Pippen will slow down Arizin, but he'll still contribute with some points. Robertson is excellent defensively, but Nate is so quick that he'll certainly score points and be able to penetrate. And Sam Jones will also manage to score some points against Eddie Jones. Their offense isn't too scary. They will depend on Robinson to do much of the scoring. And then they don't have much offensive fire-power off the bench. The Jazz have four players who can score off the bench, three HOFers who were excellent rebounders as well, and the explosive high-scoring Charlie Scott. Jazz should win the series because Memphis will struggle to score points.

[tkb]

The non-scoring argument has been beaten to death imo. This is how my scoring is:

Robinson - 29.8
Oakley - 14.6
Pippen - 22.1
Jones - 20.1
Robertson - 19.6

Mahorn - 10.8
Mason - 18.0
McCray - 14.4
Hamilton - 20.1
Johnson - 19.1

This team wouldn't have problems scoring enough to win. That's roughly 190 points per game. No team in this league is even going to come close to that in one single game, yet average it for the season. Anyone who thought that needs a reality check imo. Scoring is nice, but when you basically have more than enough of it other qualities comes to play instead. Things like defense, passing, rebounding, chemistry and efficiency gets more valuable. I don't think it's unreasonable to say i hold some advantages in some of those areas.


Now, the big flaw i see on the Jazz is lack of enough balls for their team. Nate will score some, but he's a bad (and i mean bad) defender which will allow Robertson to at least get 20-22 on good efficiency on him. Alvin is taller, but still very quick. He'll chase Tiny around and force him enough to if Tiny is going to get his 34 points from his best season, it won't be on good efficiency.

The Jazz have a scoring point guard. That's never a good idea when you have a dominant center. Do you want to pound it to Shaq or do you want Shaq to screen for Tiny (in which we wouldn't defend Shaq because he's useless 10 feet from the basket or further away and concentrate on Tiny instead)? That duo would only work if Shaq had anything close to a mid range game (which he never had). I mean, just go over to b-r.com and check up on the Jazz teams' usuage rates. Tiny had a UsG of 24.0 when he was reduced to a 11.0p, 4.7a guy. Imagine his usage at his peak.

Understand that when you take a player and reduce his touches by like 60% (which would have to be the case for a lot of guys on the Jazz to get the number of posessions down to a reasonable number), you take a lot away from their game. You're not comparing the same player anymore. Michael Jordan reduced to 12-13 fgas is not the same player as the one that took closer to 25 a game for most of his career.

You also have a fair amount of really old era guys on the Jazz which there should be question marks about when it comes to ability to translate their game. Cliff Hagan would be undersized in this league and he was close to what Hamilton is today as a scorer back in the late 50s, early 60s. I know Hagan is a hall of famer, but thinking he was a better pure basketball player back then than Hamilton is today is lunacy.

Sam Jones is also a hall of famer and he averaged a couple more points per game back in the mid 60s than Eddie Jones in the early 2000s. Problem is that the Celtics in Sam Jones' highest scoring season (25.7ppg) took 2000 more shots than Eddie's Hornets when Eddie peaked at 20.1. If you adjust for that, then Sam comes up at under 20 ppg on worse efficiency as judged by TS%.

When it comes to the PF matchup i'm not going to lie, Jerry Lucas was a better basketball player than Charles Oakley. However, Oakley is going to do his best frustrating Lucas, and like i already said i've got enough scoring so the defense and rebounding Oakley provides will be nice (which Lucas does a good job of too for his team).

I've already touched on Robinson vs O'Neal in my previous posts. Robinson beat Shaq 71.4% of the times they faced before Robinson's knee gave out. This of course was in the earlier stages of Shaq's career, but if you look at the numbers it tells you something. Shaq regularily averaged more points per game over the season even back then, but head to head, Robinson outscored him by over 4 points per game. What does this tell us? Shaq wasn't very good at affecting David's offensice production, while David did a good job limiting Shaq. This will also be the case here.

Back to the Pippen - Arizin matchup. Just from the get-go i have a good size advantage there, and when you look closer the advantage is bigger than that. Pippen was without any kind of question a far better defender than Arizin was. Arizin wasn't bad, but Pip is top 3 ever among perimeter players (along with Moncrief and Jordan). Pippen is also at least as good a rebounder (look past raw averages and also adjust for league average height) and a far better playmaker. As overall players they aren't even close. Arizin averaged a lot of points (mid 20s per game) back in the 50s on mediocre efficiency which makes it suspect enough in a modern setting. Pippen outdid him in pretty much anything else.

When it comes to the benches you also need to pace and minute adjust to get a fair share of how they look stacked up against eachother. You also have the issues with players that shined when pro basketball was under 20 years old on the Jazz. This isn't an issue on the Grizzlies. The league has evolved a lot since then which gives me an advantage in this regard. We don't know if guys like Arizin, Howell, Johnston and Hagan would be good in a more modern league. We know the guys on the Grizzlies would.

My team is proven in regard to era issues, we're the better defensive team, we're the better passing team, we're at least as good when it comes to rebounding, we've probably got better chemistry and we're probably the more effective team and better shooting team as a whole. Please look past raw ppg averages when you vote.

[jericho]

You make a good case, tkb...many compelling points. What's your offensive gameplan, though? How does Robertson fit in at PG? Is he the primary playmaker?

[tkb]

Pippen is the primary ballhandler/playmaker. Robertson will be set up in a slashing role. I'll have a triangle set up with Eddie down in the corner as the shooter on the strong side/triangle side (usually the PG/Combo position in the triangle), Pippen on the strong side at the wing as the facilitator and Robinson down low on the strong side. Oakley will set screens for Robertson, stick the midrange J if doubled and rebound from the weak side.

Off the bench we have another point forward in McCray that will do a nice job of facilitating our offense. The mid-range shooting and long-range shooting of the team will see fit that we always have proper spacing (15-18 feet apart which is the ideal spacing in the triangle).

[Sunsfan81]

Originally Posted by tkb

The non-scoring argument has been beaten to death imo. This is how my scoring is:

Robinson - 29.8
Oakley - 14.6
Pippen - 22.1
Jones - 20.1
Robertson - 19.6

Mahorn - 10.8
Mason - 18.0
McCray - 14.4
Hamilton - 20.1
Johnson - 19.1

This team wouldn't have problems scoring enough to win. That's roughly 190 points per game. No team in this league is even going to come close to that in one single game, yet average it for the season. Anyone who thought that needs a reality check imo. Scoring is nice, but when you basically have more than enough of it other qualities comes to play instead. Things like defense, passing, rebounding, chemistry and efficiency gets more valuable. I don't think it's unreasonable to say i hold some advantages in some of those areas.

Tiny Archibald - 34.0
Sam Jones - 25.9
Paul Arizin - 25.4
Jerry Lucas - 21.5
Shaquille O'Neal - 29.7

Norm Van Lier - 16.0
Charlie Scott - 34.6
Cliff Hagan - 24.8
Bailey Howell - 23.6
Neil Johnston - 22.7

That's a grand total of 258.2

And no, Memphis "doesn't have more than enough of it"; when you have to rely on David Robinson who's going against Shaq, and Pippen who wasn't a great scorer to carry the scoring load, and you have guys like Eddie Jones and Oakley in your starting lineup, and the likes of McCray, Mason, and Mahorn off the bench that's not much of a scoring threat. It might be more than enough scoring for an NBA team today, but not in this league of all-time great talents.

I'll give Memphis the defensive edge. But in passing? Archibald is a better passer than anyone on Memphis, they don't have a real PG in the starting lineup. Rebounding? I don't see it, with Shaq, Lucas, Arizin, Johnston, Howell, and Hagan, the Jazz have a rebounding edge. Chemistry? None of Utah's guys are bad character guys, they were winning players who have won a combined 22 championships, while the Grizzlies have a malcontent in Anthony Mason.

[Sunsfan81]

Originally Posted by tkb

The Jazz have a scoring point guard.

Wrong! Archibald wasn't just a "scoring point guard". He led the league in assists the same year he led the league in scoring. He was an excellent passer and playmaker who finished in the top 5 in assists seven times.

[BadBaronRudigor]

This is the toughest matchup of the four to call. I give the point guard edge to Alvin Robertson over Archibald. The more shooting Nate does, the less shots are there for his teammates and the teammates have better matchups so (assuming Nate plays pass first as he did on the Celtics), Alvin will match him in scoring and Alvin is a fine triangle point along the lines of BJ Armstrong or Ron Harper with Pippen as primary ballhandler. And of course, defensively, Alvin in his prime was a nasty force. Pippen also overmatches Arizin, though not by as much as TKB might try to push; Arizin was a fine two way player but Pippen was better. On the other side, Lucas can take Oakley outside where he is less effective and both outscore and outrebound him though Oakley's defense was better. The other two positions are close but you have to give the edge to Shaq and Sam Jones for clutch play; David Robinson and Eddie Jones were not guys who stepped up in playoff/pressure situations though again, Robinson's help defense is better. Utah's bench also enjoys a slight edge so matchup wise it is very close.

Teamwise:
Interior Scoring goes to Utah. Shaq is up there with Wilt and Kareem on the offensive end and Johnston and Howell were effective in the low post too.

Outside Shooting is close. Slight edge to Memphis for it's three point shooting; most of Utah's shooters were slash and pull up guys, they don't have the true court stretching guys except maybe Lucas at PF and don't have the proven 3 point shooters down the stretch.

Defense clearly goes to Memphis. No stoppers on Utah except maybe Van Lier off the bench, and Tiny, Scott, and Johnston were weak (from what I hear of Johnston).

Rebounding edge to Utah with Shaq and Lucas though it is mitigated by the better rebounding of Pippen and Robertson.

Clutch play. Shaq is either great or terrible, Finals MVP or swept, not the guy you want on the line in clutch time. Sam Jones, however, is terrific in the clutch. No one else stands out on Utah. On Memphis, Eddie Jones disappears in clutch time and Robinson doesn't step up his game for playoffs though he can hit the big shot. However, Pippen brings championship toughness to match Jones and the nastiness of Oakley, Mahorn, etc. will be given a bit of free reign in the playoffs. Call it even.

It comes down to Shaq. Can his interior scoring and rebounding counter the much superior team defense of Memphis. Tough tough call and I will delay it to let both GMs tell me i'm an idiot.

[Sunsfan81]

Originally Posted by tkb

Michael Jordan reduced to 12-13 fgas is not the same player as the one that took closer to 25 a game for most of his career.

But his abilities are still there, they wouldn't just disappear, so he would be just a big a threat to score.

Originally Posted by tkb

You also have a fair amount of really old era guys on the Jazz which there should be question marks about when it comes to ability to translate their game. Cliff Hagan would be undersized in this league and he was close to what Hamilton is today as a scorer back in the late 50s, early 60s.
I know Hagan is a hall of famer, but thinking he was a better pure basketball player back then than Hamilton is today is lunacy.

Wrong! Hagan finished in the top five in scoring twice. Hamilton never. Hagan finished in the top ten in assists four times. Hamilton not even close. Hagan also finished in the top ten in rebounding twice. Hamilton not even close. Hagan finished in the top 10 in FG% five times. Hamilton never. He was a six-time All-Star and twice All-NBA team. Hagan is a deserving HOFer, Hamilton won't sniff the Hall of Fame. Saying Hamilton was a better player than Hagan is lunacy. Might as well have picked all players from the 90s and 2000s, if they supposedly "can't play today."

Originally Posted by tkb

Sam Jones is also a hall of famer and he averaged a couple more points per game back in the mid 60s than Eddie Jones in the early 2000s. Problem is that the Celtics in Sam Jones' highest scoring season (25.7ppg) took 2000 more shots than Eddie's Hornets when Eddie peaked at 20.1. If you adjust for that, then Sam comes up at under 20 ppg on worse efficiency as judged by TS%.

OK, so what that tells us is that Eddie Jones was a better player than Sam Jones. Eddie Jones....future HOFer!

Originally Posted by tkb

When it comes to the PF matchup i'm not going to lie, Jerry Lucas was a better basketball player than Charles Oakley.

Really??? I'm shocked! Why not just say Oakley was better?

Originally Posted by tkb

Robinson outscored him by over 4 points per game.

Dubious stat. I'd like to know where that came from. Regardless, Shaq is still going to score, and he has much better help around him than Robinson does.

Originally Posted by tkb

As overall players they aren't even close. Arizin averaged a lot of points (mid 20s per game) back in the 50s on mediocre efficiency which makes it suspect enough in a modern setting. Pippen outdid him in pretty much anything else.

Not even close? I rank Pippen higher, but "not even close" is a major stretch. Arizin was certainly a better offensive player; he was a 2-time scoring champion and finished in the top 10 seven times.

Originally Posted by tkb

My team is proven in regard to era issues, we're the better defensive team, we're the better passing team, we're at least as good when it comes to rebounding, we've probably got better chemistry and we're probably the more effective team and better shooting team as a whole. Please look past raw ppg averages when you vote.

Again with the eras. We all should have just drafted mediocre players from the 90s and 2000s, instead of greats from earlier times, right? Defensively yes. Better passing team? No. The Jazz with Archibald and Van Lier have better passers than anyone on Memphis. Better chemistry? The Jazz have 22 championships, while Memphis have a convicted drug user, Eddie Johnson, and a malcontent in Anthony Mason. Not to mention Alvin Robertson's off-court issues, drugs, rape accusation, etc.

[Sunsfan81]

Originally Posted by BadBaronRudigor

This is the toughest matchup of the four to call. I give the point guard edge to Alvin Robertson over Archibald.

How? Robertson isn't even a real PG!!! Archibald just wasn't a better scorer, he was much faster, and he was a better passer, playmaker, and penetrator. He led the league in assists the same year he led the league in scoring, so he has no problem taking shots and setting them up. Utah can also bring in Van Lier off the bench who was a better PG than Robertson as well.

Originally Posted by BadBaronRudigor

Clutch play. Shaq is either great or terrible, Finals MVP or swept, not the guy you want on the line in clutch time. Sam Jones, however, is terrific in the clutch. No one else stands out on Utah. On Memphis, Eddie Jones disappears in clutch time and Robinson doesn't step up his game for playoffs though he can hit the big shot. However, Pippen brings championship toughness to match Jones and the nastiness of Oakley, Mahorn, etc. will be given a bit of free reign in the playoffs. Call it even.

Charlie Scott was also very clutch for the Celtics. The Jazz have a combined 22 championships with their players. They all won at least one except for Van Lier.