Suppose I set up a seven game series in a million parallel universes. One team is composed of 5 Shaq-like center players in prime form. The other team is 5 Jordan or similar guard players. In those million universes what would be the overall result? Would the 5 "Shaq" team score at will thus win most of the time? Or would the 5 "Jordan" team be able to cancel it out by driving by the Shaqs and also scoring three pointers and defend enough to win most of the time? Or would it be close to 50/50?
5 Hakeems would be a better challenge. 5 Jordans would destroy 5 shaqs. No ball handling, no perimeter defense.
Assuming you're playing with all NBA rules and regulations full court, the guards would win in the end. An organized game can expose weaknesses all around with a team consisting of 5 shaqs easily. No ball handling so they could easily press on defense and create turnovers whenever they wanted, pack the paint and allow jumpers, hack a shaq. The general use of the overall court would be much easier to guard if you're playing against 5 shaqs. Now if you're talking a half court game the team of bigs wins
If playing by today's NBA rules... 5 Jordans would beat 5 Shaqs by just packing the paint on defense, and by doing whatever they wanted on offense.
I am talking a full 5 on 5 NBA game with NBA rules. Also it doesn't have to be 5 Shaqs vs 5 Jordans but it needs to be 5 "true" centers vs 5 "true" guards if that makes sense.
run the experiment, watch this video a million times and multiply by five. :grin::grin: actually Shaq's looking pretty good here <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1NwgNLW9ASQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Also if everyone thinks 5 Jordans would easily win against 5 Shaqs, then what about 5 Hakeems vs 5 Currys/Westbrooks or similar 6'3" or under small guards?
if you do 5 hakeems it's a lot closer, because hes much more skilled. that would allow him to adapt to more situations in a full court game compared to your original post of a shaq.
The 5 Shaqs is throwing me off. If the center is Shaq, then no they can't win. As great a center as he was, he was not a well-rounded player. Significant weaknesses in ball-handling, perimeter defense, outside shooting, and free throws. If it's Dream, I'm more inclined to give the centers the nod because Dream was at least passably good at everything. There may still be a bit of a weakness on ball-handling and outside shooting, but so much as with Shaq. And the advantage he'd have on defense and post play would be enormous. However, if you're picking a 'center' who can play small like Dream, and a 'guard' who can play big like Jordan, the hypothetical is starting to get a bit pointless -- you're almost comparing two versatile small forwards. So, for the sake of the exercise, maybe you need a true center like Shaq vs a more pure small guard, like maybe an Allen Iverson. Between 5 Shaqs and 5 Iversons, I take the Iversons. The Shaqs can't reliably get the ball down the court, and can't counter hack-a-Shaq (maybe we need 12 Iversons for that though).
Wouldn't 5 Shaqs destroy 5 Iverson's though? I would think 5 Shaqs would just score almost at will and can limit ball handling and steals by just making high passes to each other all day long. Iverson wasn't even that great of a shooter so couldn't exactly make up for 5 Shaq at will scoring at will.
A team of 5 shaqs would have extreme difficulty just advancing the ball past half court. Half court I would give 5 shaqs a good chance. While the paint would be stupidly packed, it would be like dad beating up on his son in the driveway. Just keep tapping it to yourself until one goes in.
