Building the Greatest Team of All Time

The fun argument in the NBA today is all about who is the greatest. The best player right now or how different players from different eras compare in terms of who is the greatest of all time. We do it with teams as well. It makes for some fun debates and if you have the technology to build these all-time teams to see how they stack up, more power to you.

Julius Erving takes flight over the rim. For reals.

I'm no stranger to building all-time teams. For a few years now (though we've had a long hiatus from this due to a lack of overlap of free time on our schedules), my friend Nathaniel and I have been breaking out an old classic in NBA Live 2002 for the Playstation 1. Amazingly, we still have one that works and works pretty well. A few years ago we decided to undertake a quest to build a team of the best players we could assemble up to that point (so obviously, this is pre-LeBron, and guys like Kobe and Tim Duncan weren't quite what they are now) from all-time teams the game and already assembled. Thus, the Aurora Possums were born.


The team itself has seen 3 separate incarnations as we've worked to build an optimal team. A lot of key guys have stayed around, but some people have had to be replaced as they don't fit the system. Our most recent version of the team. Italics indicate original players on the team.

Shaq is a cornerstone. And can jump. Note the time on the shot clock.

Shaquille O'Neal
Wilt Chamberlain
Julius Erving
Michael Jordan
Magic Johnson
Moses Malone
Bill Russell
Scottie Pippen
George Gervin
John Stockton
Elgin Baylor
Charles Oakley


The reason MJ's name isn't italicized is because in the PS1 version of NBA Live 2002, you had to unlock the ability to use MJ in a game, and we didn't unlock him the first time we played through a season. After that first run we went in and freed him, and here we are.

This was easily our best game, and something we will never replicate.

For giggles, in that game since I started playing the franchise on PS1, I've gone with arade style rules where there are no fouls, no out of bounds rules, you name it. The strategy basically turned into streetball, if you will, where Nathaniel and I shove opposing players to steal the ball every time they inbound it. And a little ways into our first season we realized something amazing: anyone on our team could shoot 3's; not just guys like Stockton or MJ. So we retuned our strategy around a lot of 3's, and we shoot well from out there.

On average, our games (3 minute quarters) probably end with a final of 310-2 (usually another team gets a layup or manages to get a decent jumper in there somewhere). Everyone on our team averages double figures, with a "hero line" of Shaq, Wilt, Pippen, MJ and Stockton taking the floor once everyone is in double figures. Wilt gets subbed out in the 4th quarter (usually for Oakley) as soon as he scores 69 points (yes, this is intentional, and yes, we are bad people).

Without the joy of getting to play out these games, I took the opportunity to recreate this team on WhatIfSports. As a registered user, you get 3 free "dream teams" to build from historical players for each sport they can sim, so I built the Aurora Possums. Immediately I put them to the test against one of the best teams of all time in the 1986 Boston Celtics. It wasn't even close. Obviously the scheme is different from what Nathaniel and I use to success, but it works. Your team may be slightly different from ours, but that's what makes this debate fun. Especially when the Possums edge out the Dream Team.