12/10/2013 · originally published on uselesssportsanalysis.com

X's, O's, and Triangles: Dream Team vs. Jordan

Previous Posts
1. Small-Stars vs. Tall-Stars

Two weeks ago, we debuted our X's, O's, and Triangles segment, where we use technology (a PS4) to simulate various fun, wacky, or stupid scenarios that would never happen in real life, wholly inspired by SBNation's far superior Breaking Madden series.  So it's time for our next installment!

What would happen if Isiah Thomas were put on the Dream Team?

It's of course well-known that Isiah Thomas was shunned from the Dream Team, despite still being one of the best players in the league in 1992.  And while there's no indisputable evidence that it was done to entice Michael Jordan to be on the team, there's certainly enough hearsay and conjecture (those are kinds of evidence!) to indicate as such.

So let's put Isiah Thomas on the Dream Team anyway.  Okay, fine, it's obvious that Jordan is out.  (Others might be out, too, but let's assume that Jordan is the only definite "no".)  I don't think that's where the story ends. You see, Michael Jordan would be so angry that he'd make it his mission to prove that the Dream Team made a mistake in choosing Isiah over him.

Since he has a competitive disorder and a penchant for making the impossible possible, I submit that Jordan would find a way to clone himself in order to field a full team of Jordans to enter the 1992 Olympics (for his home country, Nike) and beat the Dream Team.

You might be thinking that this is a stretch.  It sounds pretty realistic to me, but even if it isn't, don't you want to see how this would play out?  Of course you do!  And if you don't, well, you're locked in now, so keep reading!

Step 1: Create the Dream Team +Isiah, -Jordan

So here's the tricky part.  The complete Dream Team was in NBA 2K13, but it's gone in 2K14.  And I sure as heck wasn't going to create a bunch of players, adjusting their stats and characteristics in order to replicate the team perfectly.  So I took the easy way out -- I built teams based on the closest matches I could find.

The good news is that 10 of the players that we need are in the game, thanks to classic teams.  They're the "wrong year model" for each, but I'm okay with this.  Let's add these guys:

Chris Mullin - 1991 Warriors
Clyde Drexler - 1991 Blazers
David Robinson - 1998 Spurs
Isiah Thomas - 1989 Pistons
John Stockton - 1998 Jazz
Karl Malone - 1998 Jazz
Larry Bird - 1986 Celtics
Magic Johnson - 1991 Lakers
Patrick Ewing - 1995 Knicks
Scottie Pippen - 1993 Bulls

That just leaves two gaps -- Charles Barkley and Christian Laettner.

Obviously Barkley is a big miss, given that he was the team's leading scorer in Barcelona.  So, if I'm too lazy to create Barkley, who should get his spot?  I consulted Basketball-Reference.com's similarity score to pick a player with a similar career length and quality.  The top match for Barkley was Julius Erving, who just so happens to be in NBA 2K14 on the 1985 Sixers.  Easy enough!

Now, Laettner.  Obviously, not really a big deal to get him right here, as he's not likely to play too much.  But let's use the same similarity score metric just to do this right.  His top match is Antonio McDyess, who is not in NBA 2K14, but his #2, Hedo Turkoglu, is.  So the latest version of Turkoglu makes the cut, as well!

Julius Erving - 1985 Sixers
Hedo Turkoglu - Magic

Finally, the big question.  Which franchise should we use for the Dream Team?  To me, the 76ers made the most sense.  Their uniforms are the right colors, and what is more patriotic than a 76er?  Nothing!

Here's our team:

Step 2: Create the Michael Jordan Team

This team was trickier to build.  Let's start simple -- there are six versions of Michael Jordan in NBA 2K14.  They're all in.

Michael Jordan - 1986 Bulls
Michael Jordan - 1989 Bulls
Michael Jordan - 1991 Bulls
Michael Jordan - 1993 Bulls
Michael Jordan - 1996 Bulls
Michael Jordan - 1998 Bulls

So, how do we build around this team without creating new players?  We want to add players that:

• Play shooting guard, so there is no risk of them starting over Jordan
• Are low-rated enough that they won't get significant playing time
• Have some kind of connection to Michael Jordan, no matter how thin

Kobe Bryant is a great choice in concept.  While his current incarnation is too highly rated in the game and would get a lot of minutes, super-young, pre-championship Kobe is in the game, and lower rated than all six Jordans.  He's in.

Kobe Bryant - 1998 Lakers

From here, I decided to add shooting guards on the Bobcats, since Jordan is the owner and presumably knows what he wants at that position:

Ben Gordon - Bobcats
Gerald Henderson - Bobcats

Still three spots left.  Yikes.  What if we just fill the team out with low-rated shooting guards from the Wizards, since Jordan last played there?  It's a stretch, but I really don't care at this point.  These guys won't be playing much.

Garrett Temple - Wizards
Glen Rice, Jr. - Wizards
Martell Webster - Wizards

Here's the final team:

Step 3: Final Preparations

Let's make sure that the teams are coached appropriately.  Not a ton to say here.

I let the Dream Team have a lot of freedom in how it played, balancing on size / speed, offense / defense, and inside / outside games.  Meanwhile, I told the Jordan team to use their speed on offense and create chaos on defense.

I'm not sure exactly how much impact these coaching settings have, but they're fun to play around with:

From here, the game chose the starters for each squad.  Notably for the Dream Team, Isiah got the starting nod over Magic Johnson and Clyde Drexler filled Jordan's void at shooting guard.  Meanwhile, there's not much to say about Team Jordan:

Game Time!

So after all of that "hard work", time to see the fruits of our labor!  I put these two teams against each other, giving Jordan home court advantage, since as the most popular athlete on the planet at the time he'd be in the position to make demands.

The first half of the game was tight, with Team Jordan finishing out with a 38-35 lead.  The third quarter was the most interesting and entertaining, so I present it to you below, uncut:

The Dream Team had chances to finally take the lead, as it was 47-46 for over a full minute, but they weren't able to convert and Team Jordan pushed the lead back to 7 at the end of the 3rd quarter.  This proved to be costly, as the 4th quarter wasn't particularly close.  Team Jordan pulled their starters with a few minutes to go and cruised to a 72-60 victory.

Notably, the Dream Team got crushed in scoring off of turnovers, as Jordan's 14-3 lead in that department explained virtually the entire scoring margin.  It's also a bit alarming that Team Jordan won on points in the paint and rebounds.

Larry Bird led the Dream Team in scoring (remember, this is the 1986 version of Larry) but struggled with his shot.  Meanwhile, Michael Jordan was the #1, #2, #3, #4, and #6 scorer on his team, with Garrett Temple somehow getting 5 points in his 4 minutes.

The winner of the Jordan Player of the Game?  Michael Jordan!

The other Michael Jordans were not amused.

And with that, we'll wrap up.  It turns out that a pissed-off team of cloned Jordans could easily take out the greatest team in sports history.  So while it's a bummer that Isiah Thomas didn't get his due on the Dream Team, it's probably best the way that it worked out.

-rj