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G.O.A.T. said 10/23, 04:05 PM
Very good picks, nomarfan, and I simply cannot disagree with Jefferson, Dwight, and Luol. However, I DO disagree with your backcourt.

At point guard, I would much rather have Deron Williams. But it's kind of funny, if you look at the stats of CP3 and Williams they are pretty close to the same thing in nearly every single category. Paul's scoring average is a little better but Williams' assists per game average is a little better. So I can only go on a few things. One of them is leadership. Deron Williams led the Illinois Fighting Illini to a number one seed in the NCAA tournament and were the runner-ups. Last year, he led the Utah Jazz to the playoffs. In fact, he led them all the way to the Conference Finals. The WESTERN Conference Finals. Now, it being his first big game experience you would think he might melt under the pressure. He most certainly did not. He became the youngest player in the history of the NBA to score 20 points and record 10 assists in a conference final game. You may ask who was guarding him. Who would allow a second-year player to do this to their team? Well, it was the veteran "best perimeter defender in the league" Bruce Bowen. He allowed it.

SG- Roy

G.O.A.T. said 10/23, 08:33 PM
First off, Mehmet Okur is not good. In the playoffs this past year, he averaged only 11.8 points per game. He is 6'11" and should be inside doing the dirty work yet he is outside launching up threes.

You obviously forgot Peja Stojakovic, who averaged 17.8 points a game last year which is much more than Desmond Mason. Also, Chris Paul did have some help down low with Tyson Chandler, who was pulling down 12 and a half boards a game.

You mentioned Brown, Augustine, and Powell as if they were great players or something. None of them are getting any serious PT in the NBA right now. Also, Paul played in the backcourt with, arguably, the greatest faceguarding defender in college at the time, Justin Gray. He also had a pretty decent big man, Eric Williams.

Now you are going to talk about overachievers, eh? I am pretty damn sure the Jazz making it to the WCF last year was overachieving for them. Am I right? THAT is overachieving. And if you even watched the WCF, you would have seen that Deron Williams was controlling the tempo almost perfectly in those games but he faced some illnesses late in the series that cost the Jazz. Looks like I ran out of space to talk about Roy. Sorry.

G.O.A.T. said 10/24, 04:07 PM
I wouldnt' say that he didn't help them at all. In those 13 games, he averaged 18 points each game. They also went 9-9 in that stretch recording wins against Detroit, Golden State, and Houston to name a few.

In your rebounding paragraph, you pretty much said that Deron Williams led his team to the conference finals with a rebounding core equivalent to that of a sub-.500 team. Also, to go 39-43 in the best division (not conference, by the way) you have to have more than one good player. That shows that Chris Paul DID have help. More than you think he did.

These are all "clutch stats" (4th quarter or OT, less than 5 min left, game within 5 pts) from 82games.com.

Brandon Roy: Team Win%- 56.7
Passing Rating- 9.5
Ball-Handling Rating- 17.9
Rebounding Rating- 13.8


Ben Gordon: Team Win%- 59
Passing- 3.4
Ball-Handling- 12.3
Rebounding- 9.5

I think this shows that Gordon was having some trouble keeping the ball within his own team's hands at late in games. Also Roy was helping his team more on the boards. Gordon will get you more points at the end but Roy is the better all around player when in crucial situations during a game. He's the player I want.