Barack Obama names his all-time NBA starting 5

[True Dough]

Shooting guard: Michael Jordan

Forward: LeBron James

Point guard: Steph Curry

Centre: Hakeem Olajuwon

Power forward: Kevin Durant

Our former President is clearly a fan of contemporary players with 3 out of 5 still active today.

https://www.facebook.com/barackobama

[Aviation Pro]

1. Disagree on the big

Wilt.

[underpants]

5. Arvydas Sabonis

See my post below. Wilt is the #1 big.

[Mosby]

11. thing about wilt

Is he never had to play against people like Robinson, Kareem, Ewing, Shaq, Malone, Walton.

[Aviation Pro]

13. He played against Kareem

When he was Lew.

[Mosby]

14. Head to head stats.

https://stathead.com//basketball/vs/kareem-vs-wilt?utm_campaign=2023_01_wdgt_player_comparison&utm_source=bbr&utm_medium=sr_xsite&utm_id=chambwi01

They both look pretty good, wilt's FT percent is atrocious though, but he was always a hellava rebounder. Wilt could obviously play well in today's game, but he wouldn't be the dominant force he was back in the day. If Kareem played today, he'd be 20-40 pounds heavier (training/strength improvements) and his sky hook would still be unstoppable. The only way to stop him would be fouling, and he would make those FTs, unlike Wilt.

[LuvLoogie]

2. I'm a Larry Bird guy.

[NewHendoLib]

3. Big has to be Bill Russell or Kareem

[underpants]

4. So it begins. Magic was the best point guard. Period.

and I hated the Lakers.

Curry is a shooter’s shooter. He’s a better shooter than MJ.

Center. Whew. Hakeem was transformative but the best? I’d go with Wilt. Stick Wilt in even today and he covers a lot of ground. Mention of Arvydas Sabonis is required.

Some mention needs to be paid to Moses. Moses was any era.

Two we didn’t get to see were Len Bias (🤬 ) and Dražen Petrović. Dražen reshaped my game when I saw him play (yes the Nets were on TV from time to time) on the one game a week we got in AFN when I was in the Army. He was one of the early Euro players.

[Mosby]

12. Magic wasn't a point guard

He played the point. Back in 1989 The Sporting News created two categories for PG because KJ was the best point guard in the NBA but Magic is Magic, so they created a separate category for him.

[LisaM]

6. That's some recency bias.

I am surprised, actually. I thought Obama was more of an historical student of the game.

[JT45242]

7. Recency bias there...

Wilt should be considered the greatest of all time. Hakeem was very good. Wilt is the greatest.

I understand Steph, but would rather have the Big O or Magic at point guard.

Lots of forwards played better defense than KD. Rebound better. I could argue you make LeBron the power forward and KD the small forward.or go another direction.

[Tarzanrock]

8. Larry Bird said "Look at the record book."

Some people need to take a close look at Wilt Chamberlain's mind blowing 1961/1962 season. For 10 years, 1959 - 1969 (until he suffered those debilitating knee injuries) Wilt Chamberlain utterly dominated and personally "owned" the game of professional basketball for probably all time.

[ProfessorGAC]

10. It's Ridiculous, Isn't It?

He averaged 50.4ppg one year. In another year he averaged OVER 27 rebounds per game. He averaged over 20 rebounds per game nine times!
And, at one point over 2 seasons he let his scoring fall down to a "puny" 24 points so ge could lead the team in assists. He average 8.2 assists over a 2 year period.
I wonder how many blocked shots he would have had they counted the blocks. (He played nearly his whole career before the NBA started recording blocks. Technically he was on the roster the first year they tracked blocks, but he didn't play, as he sat out his whole option year.)
Has to be at least a few thousand.

[Tarzanrock]

9. But for sportswriter bias and hatred of Goliath ...

... Wilt Chamberlain deserved to win the National Basketball League's MVP award and the subsequent NBA MVP award in each of those 10 seasons, from 1959 through 1969. Most fantastic superstars in the sport world put together 3 or 4 truly great seasons in their respective sports where they dominate the other players -- Wilt Chamberlain did it for more than 10 years where no one was ever even close to the stratospheric accomplishments he had in professional basketball and that was before he was traded to the Lakers where (even after his debilitating knee injuries) he still utterly dominated the game of professional basketball. Think back and remember that playoff game with the Milwaukee Bucks, when Chamberlain, then an old man in basketball years and hobbling on his bad arthritic knees, still blocked Lew Alcindor's famous shot a whopping six (6) times in that playoff game and the Milwaukee home crowd gave Wilt a long standing ovation for his marvelous defensive play.