Washington Wizards’ players may think they could have given Cleveland the best shot in the Eastern Conference Finals, but it’s fair to assume even they would be aware of the mighty challenge faced against the Warriors. The local franchise may not have an extensive trophy closet, but it surely has a great list of players from the Wizards and Bullets histories. Could a “superteam” of historical Washington/Baltimore basketball players beat the 2016-2017 Golden State Warriors? Let’s build it. Starting with the guards.
Now that the Golden State Warriors have rolled through the NBA Playoffs on their way to the 2016-2017 NBA Championship, the hot takes regarding their place in NBA history are scorching. On a local level, one that caught my eye was when our friends at Bullets Forever asked the following:
Could a team of the best Bullets/Wizards of All-Time beat this year's Warriors in a 7 game series?
— Bullets Forever (@BulletsForever) June 9, 2017
I thought to myself, okay, any fan over the age of 12 would rationally conclude ‘yes’, but the results were overwhelmingly in favor of the Warriors. There were 688 votes and of those, 63% of the people voted ‘no’, a team of all-time Bullets/Wizards would not be able to beat this Golden State Warriors team in a 7-game series.
My already shaken confidence in humanity took another hit. Have people just defaulted to being prisoners of the moment? The debate continued with fellow staff writer Nithin Kuchibholta who was adamant that I was wrong (we disagree on pretty much everything), and he was insistent that historically we’ve never seen anything approaching this iteration of the Golden State Warriors.
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Regardless of how good this version of the Warriors is, my argument centered on two key points. One is, if we’re able to pick and choose from various generations, the various skills and versatility of that team would overwhelm any singular team, even this Warriors team in spite of how great they may be.
Secondly, the sheer depth alone would dominate the Warriors as the series progressed.s Whereas my Super Bullets/Wizards team would have the ability to play deep into their rotation, fatigue would be a factor for the Warriors.
Would Steph Curry, who averaged 37 minutes per game in the Finals against Cleveland, be as effective playing 5-10 additional high stress minutes a night while not having the ability to schematically hide on defense Golden State is a team that relies on the jump shot and tired legs would equal missed shots.
The counter to my argument seems to be that you can only have five players on the court on a time and even if you build a 13-man roster, all 13 players couldn’t conceivably play and get the rotational minutes necessary to be effective and wear down the Warriors.
As the argument progressed, I accepted the challenge to put together a roster I felt would beat this Warriors team.
The Ground Rules. When selecting players who played for this franchise, I agreed that when choosing players, I could only consider them as they were as Bullets/Wizards. In the case of Michael Jordan, I couldn’t select peak Chicago Bulls MJ. In selecting a team, I approached it as such and assigned a season to the player that I selected.
On the flip side, my team of Bullets/Wizards would also get a theoretical season to gel. It would be unfair to look at the finished product of the Warriors now and expect any team of players thrown together to click overnight versus them. Don’t forget that this very Warriors team lost 129-100 to open the season on their home floor versus the San Antonio Spurs. Time is needed for teams to gel, build chemistry, and define roles.
So how does my roster look? This article will focus on the guards, with the frontcourt part of the team in the next outlook.