Dreamin' of the Dream Team

17 July, 1996

Let's say, for an instant, that life really is a beer commercial and you got named to Dream Team III as their 13th player. The press would fight about whether you really deserved it, even though, yes, you got good grades in school and you are a good representative of the red-white-and-blue blooded American. You would get invited onto numerous TV shows, maybe even the Rosie O'Donnell Show if you were nice and didn't grab your crotch after making a shot. If you just couldn't resist grabbing your crotch, at least you'd get invited onto Roseanne. You'd get endorsements, maybe even a movie deal starring opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger as a whimpy human-looking robot from the next century that could morph into nearly any shape it desired -- wait, that's already been done. But, since we're still supposing this is a beer commercial, you'd certainly have more women than you could handle (or men, because I have female readers and because, well, this is America, land of the free). They would be so hard to handle because you'd also be carrying Charles Barkley's bags all over the place.

But this isn't a beer commercial. It's America and basketball is America's sport. Even though America is about the freedom to chase your dreams, America has the big boys like Shaq, Hakeem, and David Robinson to swat your dreams back in your face. So, on the off chance you did make Dream Team III, Lenny Wilkens still would not play you. After seeing you have balls planted back in your face repeatedly in practice, he'd be more afraid to put you in a real game because you'd get hurt than because of some cockamamie fear of losing the game. But Lenny is a good guy, he'd give you playing time after the USA was ahead by 40 with four minutes to go and the crowd was chanting your name...

...So I ran it. I plugged in a few numbers and whiz-bang, You actually scored for the Dream Team. Below, I'm posting the '96 stats for Dream Team III in the context of themselves and You. The real guys' numbers are just their '96 season stats, but the team context resulting from playing these guys together comes from summing their contributions and adding Your pitiful stats. The results are somewhat interesting and I'll talk about them below, but I'll let you see the numbers first.

Team/PlayerGGSMINFGFGAFG%ThreePointShotsFTFTAFT%ORDRTRASTPFDQSTLTOBLKPTSPPGHigh
Dream Team III '96FGFGAFG%
W/L801.000
Olajuwon Hakeem7272279776814940.5143140.2143975480.7241766087842572420113247207193626.951
Payton Gary8181316261812760.484982990.3282293060.748104235339608221123126019156319.338
Pippen Scottie7777282556312160.4631504010.3742203240.679152344496452198013320757149619.440
Hill Grant8080326056412210.4625260.1924856460.751127656783548242110026348161820.235
Miller Reggie7676262150410660.4731684100.4104304980.8633817621425317507718913160621.140
O'Neal Shaquille5452194659210330.573120.5002495110.487182414596155193134155115143426.649
Hardaway Penny8282301562312150.513892830.3144455800.767129225354582160016622941178021.742
Barkley Charles7171263258011600.500491750.2804405660.777243578821262208311421856164923.245
Richmond Mitch8181294661113680.4472255150.4374254910.86654215269255233612522019187223.147
Robinson David8282301971113780.516390.3336268230.76131968110002472621111190271205125.045
Malone Karl8282311378915200.51916400.4005127080.723175629804345245113819956210625.751
Stockton John828229154408180.538952250.4222342820.83054172226916207114024615120914.731
You3501813220.1361150.067020.000218206250321170.24
33
Dream Team III183.6344327366147870.49890324140.374469262850.74717554951670648862611151485267791820327110.7132
Opponents183.6344325200130720.39880024360.328243232000.760212137295850202050002975851243911363274.2121
Coach: Lenny WilkensPythagorean Projection:183.30.30.999
Scor.Poss.FloorRTGPoints Defensive StopsDef.Off. OffensiveNetNetNetWinsLossNet
Poss.Pct.Prod.Total/Min/PossRtg.Win%WinsLossesWin%WLPer 1000 MinutesPts/48
Olajuwon Hakeem91816750.548107.1179310120.3620.70173.30.99617.30.10.99816.80.06.010.019.7
Payton Gary79515100.526111.216799140.2890.56078.90.99815.60.00.99716.00.15.060.027.4
Pippen Scottie71113760.517111.415338300.2940.56978.50.99814.20.00.99714.50.05.130.027.7
Hill Grant86115870.543107.0169710250.3150.60977.00.99616.40.10.99617.00.15.210.027.0
Miller Reggie68212570.543119.214986320.2410.46782.60.99913.00.00.99812.80.04.870.018.4
O'Neal Shaquille69312010.577109.113116410.3290.63775.80.99712.40.00.99811.60.05.960.019.9
Hardaway Penny89815420.582120.218538290.2750.53280.00.99916.00.00.99915.60.05.180.019.9
Barkley Charles77814010.555111.515638940.3400.65775.00.99814.50.00.99914.70.05.570.019.3
Richmond Mitch77015080.510114.217227600.2580.49981.30.99915.60.00.99615.00.15.100.028.1
Robinson David98116440.597115.7190111180.3700.71772.60.99917.00.01.00017.40.05.780.0011.2
Malone Karl101717350.586114.7199010280.3300.63975.70.99918.00.00.99917.60.05.660.0110.4
Stockton John72012270.587127.415627460.2560.49581.51.00012.70.00.99913.50.04.630.009.3
You4390.10524.39440.2450.47482.30.0000.00.40.0000.00.60.003.52-6.0
9828177020.555113.620113104750.58976.60.996182.80.80.994182.61.0
Power%Rtg.Adj.PPGPts/Sc.
Dream Team III:Off.0.522114.3107.4Poss.
Possessions:1778996.9Def.0.40276.672.02.092

First, let's talk about You, since everyone likes hearing about themselves. You actually hit one three pointer, but shot only 3 of 22 from the field overall and committed a rather sinful 21 turnovers. Coach Wilkens called them "diplomatic turnovers" to make the international teams feel better. Charles Barkley made fun of you, but when you hit that three pointer, he jumped off the bench and ran out on to the court to hug you, knocking a Greek forward on his butt and getting a technical.

But seriously, my imagination really needs a break...

The offensive numbers put up by the US team are not as great as one might think. Their cumulative offensive rating of 114 is about as good as the Bulls in '96. For some reason, I always think that when you put the stars of the league on one team, you should have a much better offensive team than any team on its own. However, when I do this sort of compilation for All-Star Teams and Dream Teams, the increase is never as great as I would think.

On the other hand, the defense should be really good. The opponents will also be rather weak, shooting poorly and committing a lot of turnovers. In addition, this Dream Team can be said to be stronger than its predecessor in one way and that is defense. Although Dream Team I had such defensive stars as Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing, they have been replaced by equally strong defensive players, Gary Payton and Hakeem Olajuwon. The relatively weaker defensive players from Dream Team I -- Chris Mullin, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Christian Laettner, and Clyde Drexler (who wasn't very weak) -- are replaced by Reggie Miller, Grant Hill, Penny Hardaway, Shaquille O'Neal, and Mitch Richmond. Of these players, I do not think that there is much argument in saying that all of the Dream Team III players are slightly better or much better defensive players than their predecessors.

One thing that was obvious when I was putting this team together was how deep it is. Depth often does not play a really big role in a basketball game, at least not past the sixth to eighth man. In general, those first eight will win or lose the game for you. If you start replacing those top six with players from the bottom four, you start losing a lot more games. On this Dream Team (and others), the first six or eight in every game will still be most responsible for winning, but Coach Wilkens can pick almost any combination of players from the twelve to make up the top six or eight and still win. It's an unrealistic scenario...

The team numbers I present above are indeed unrealistic. I did not do a simulation; the raw individual numbers are in the context of the individuals' '96 teams and the Dream Team context was faked. Even though I did my best to establish the team context so that everything made sense, there are too many reality constraints that I could not meet all of them. Perhaps the most difficult set of constraints was making the possessions for the offense and defense equal while making the rebounds sum close to the total missed shots. A full blown simulation of how these guys play together is getting closer to reality, but it's not yet here.

Finally, there was a point to putting You in the numbers, besides the humor that comes from the "Life is a beer commercial" analogy. Namely, notice that summing the wins and losses from all the individual players gives a record of about 182.6-1.0, whereas the Pythagorean Projection based on the team numbers makes it higher. At this point, my methods take every player's contributions as being equal, even though this is not true. Your contributions, as bad as they were, did not hurt the team at all in the sense of winning and losing. You were put into the game by the coach when the outcome of the game could not be changed. Hence, even if you had shot 13 of 22 in your time with the Dream Team and didn't commit all those turnovers, you couldn't say that your play helped the Dream Team win. Just like the rest of us, all you could really say was that you helped pay the Dream Teamers' salaries.