Starting Five for Warriors: Center - 27 Year Old Shaq from 1999 Curry, Durant, Green, Thompson from this past season. The rules for building the Opposing Team is as follows: 4 of the 5 Players must be from 2017. The other player can be a prime player from any year. (ex. 1995 Olajuwon) Also the Opposing Team Starting Five cannot be Curry, Durant, Green, Thompson or Shaq. (No duplicates). Obviously I am only focused on the starting 5. The rest of the rosters will be filled with replacement level players of equal talent and skill. So bench depth and talent will be equal and won't factor.
Obvious choices for the Opposing Team from 2017 on everyone's list would be: Lebron James Kawhi Leonard I would think those two are unanimous choices. So that leaves just 3 more starters (one of which is a past legendary one.) I don't think any 2017 player can oppose Shaq. So I think you would need a legendary player to cancel him out. But I don't know of such a player offhand. I definitely think that if this challenge was limited to all 2017 players (no duplicates from Warriors), then I'm not sure that this challenge can be met.
I think there are centers today who can challenge Shaq, like KAT or Cousins. I don't think either of them are as good as Shaq, but both are better than anyone Shaq had to go up against during his Lakers championship years, IMO (considering David Robinson and the '90s star centers were in serious decline). But, obviously, if I can take a center from any time, Olajuwon, Chamberlain or Abdul-Jabbar would be preferable.
1995 Olajuwon- has the skills to go one on one with Shaq downlow and has a playstyle very suited for the modern game. Davis Lebron Kawhi Harden You have the ability to play big without giving up much in terms of speed. Olajuwon and Davis could easily be a new Twin Towers and while neither can shoot threes, they can both hit mid rangers and play great D and can clog the paint completely. You put Harden covering Thompson and Davis on Green. Lebron and Kawhi alternate between Curry and Durant. While Harden doesn't play good D, a player of his caliber is necessary to keep the offense at a full throttle. IMO this would be more interesting if we could pick a 6th man too. I'd love to be able to throw in another 3/4 to be able to keep Davis and Olajuwon fresh and to play small ball.
BTW - Call me crazy but adding 1995 Shaq makes the Warriors slightly worse than today and no better IMO With Shaq there, Warriors will be forced to dump the ball down to him and that takes away their game plan. They need to wait on offense to get Shaq's slow ass int he paint. Also you always have the hack a Shaq play to slow down momentum and ensure GSW don't go on those crazy runs where they just rain in 3's
Yeah, the perfect center for Golden State would be someone like Porzingis. Provides rim protection and rebounding on the defensive end, helps space the floor on the offensive end. This Warriors team with Porzingis would be very close to a perfect team (barring Magic/Jordan/Olajuwon type historical superteams).
