Legacy League: Game #8 - Mack N. v. Apollo (Winner: Apollo)

[Joey]

The legacy league was created to pit teams drafted by fellow RR members against each other and allow the general RR populous to vote on who would win this winner take all, single elimination game if all players were at their peak performance.

Each team drafted an 8 man roster. Each team provided a gameplan justification as to why they believe they should get your vote. Each team is allowed 1 post for "in game adjustments." The role of RR community is simple, vote for who you believe should win. Post justification if you want (encouraged) and weigh the pros and cons for all to see, but ultimately, your vote decides who will win this tournament of legends.

Match-up #8 - AVATAR BET IS ON!!


Mack North Lineup

PG - Russell Westbrook 4x All-Star, 4x All-NBA 2nd Team, 1x Scoring Leader
('14-'15 - 28.1PPG,7.3Reb,8.6Ast,2.1Stl)29.1PER
SG - Jerry West 14x All-Star, 12x All-NBA Selection (10x 1st Team), 4x All-Defensive 1st Team, 1x Champion
('65-'66 - 31.3PPG,7.1Reb,6.1Ast)24.6PER
Bench - Josh Smith All-Defensive 2nd Team, J-Smoooove The Stat Stuffer
('11-'12 - 18.8PPG,9.6RPG,3.9Ast,1.4Stl,1.7Blk)21.1PER
PF - Kevin Love 3x All-Star, 2x All-NBA 2nd Team
('13-'14 - 25.9PPG,12.5RPG,4.4 APG,190 3PMon38%)26.9PER
C - Moses Malone 3x MVP, 12x All-Star, 8x All-NBA Selection (4x 1st Team), All-Defensive 1st team, 1x Champion
('81-'82 - 31.1PPG, 14.7RPG,1Stl,1.5Blk)26.8PER
Bench - Bob Pettit 2x MVP, 11x All-Star, 10x All-NBA 1st Team
('60-'61 - 27.9PPG,20.3RPG,3.4Ast)25.2PER
Bench - Kevin Johnson 3x All-Star, 5x All-NBA (4x 2nd Team)
('90-'91 - 22.2PPG,3.3RPG,10.1Ast,2.1Stl,52%FG)23.7PER
Bench - Drazen Petrovic All-NBA 3rd Team, 2x Mr. Europa Award winner
('92-'93 - 22.3PPG,2.7RPG,3.5Ast, 2%FG,45%3PFG,1.3Stl)17.3PER

Apollo Lineup

PG - Tony Parker 4x Champion, 6x All-Star, 4x All-NBA Selection (3x 2nd Team)
SG - Kobe Bryant MVP, 5x Champion, 17x All-Star, 15x All-NBA (11x 1st Team), 9x All-Defensive 1st Team, 2x Scoring Leader
SF - Elgin Baylor 11x All-Star, 10x All-NBA 1st Team
PF - Patrick Ewing 11x All-Star, 6x All-NBA 2nd team, 3x All-Defensive 2nd Team
C - Dikembe Mutumbo 8x All-Star, 4x Defensive Player of the Year, 6x All-NBA Selection (3x 1st Team)
Bench - Shawn Marion 4x All-Star, 2x All-NBA 2nd Team, Champion
Bench - Penny Hardaway 4x All-Star, 2x All-NBA 1st Team
Bench - Alex English 8x All-Star, 3x All-NBA 2nd Team, 1x Scoring Champ


Mack North's Gameplan

To get the ball rolling, my team is just much quicker than the Apollo's, but we can also dominate on the boards from all those missed shots from Kobe etc.. Westbrook and KJ would simply blow by any of the inferior(Penny, Parker) defenders as ball-handlers, leaving easy wide open looks for any one of The Logo, K Love, Draz P or even J Smoove. With Ewing stretched out to the 3-line to guard the lethal K Love, that will leave the lane susceptible to either quick entry passes to the cutting West/J Smoove, or easy rebounds for Moses Malone(17.6RPG) over Dikembe. Bob Petit comes in off the bench and dominates at over 20RPG and 27PPG in his prime, a C that was matched up vs the great Celtics of the 50's-60's, the like of which English or Marion have never seen. With all the great assist men and shooters the North side has, it's just not fathomable for them to get anything less than 125+ points on offense in this matchup.

On the other side of the ball, Penny was never a huge facilitator, so it's just going to be Kobe being Kobe all day - and we'll live with that. Josh Smith will be the primary defender on Kobe, giving Bryant many problems with his length, size, speed and shot-blocking abilities. Moses Malone effectively cancels any out positive that Ewing can do, with the two players primes nearly mirroring each other, with Malone scoring more and rebounding(+5), to Ewing's blocks being slightly higher. It pretty much goes without saying who would win the battle of Jerry West vs Elgin Baylor, one guy is the logo while the other is Elgin Baylor(fine player, just not Logo worthy). Westbrook's quickness/peskiness(like a puppy nibbling at your ankles) would give the much taller Penny fits, leading to turnovers and bone-headed plays. I don't have to worry about Love guarding Mutombo, as that's just not a spot anyone(especially Kobe) would be willing to pass to.

Apollo Gameplan

DefenseOffenseor

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In Game Adjustments

Apollo's Adjustments
DefenseOffenseMack North's Adjustments
Defense
As stated previously, Josh Smith is my starting SF, but on D he switches off to Kobe, leaving Jerry West to guard Baylor. Jerry West's final season(73-74)(All-Star in all 14 seasons he played btw)saw him finish with 81 steals... in 31 games! Do not let the unknown stats fool you, they did not keep stats for steals and blocks etc. prior to the '73-'74 season, so my team may appear to have a disadvantage, but this would not be the case. West would give Baylor OR Kobe fits when they have the ball in their hands. With Josh(excellent help defender and block artist) and Moses protecting the rim with his grittiness, those two would be left outside with Mutombo and Ewing having terrible spacing on the inside, clogging the lane. Baylor is not an outside shooter, nor was he a good facilitator, leaving him stuck on the outside watching Kobe. He's just so ball dominant that his teammates would lose patience from working so hard inside that they wouldn't fight for rebounds, leaving my superior boarders to gobble up the missed shots and send to anyone of my terrific PG's/SG for break opportunities.

Offense
I believe those Jerry West measurements are extremely skewed as Bob Loblaw mentioned, there's no way he played at 6'2" 175lbs, so that notion that he's too undersized to handle Penny, Kobe, Baylor goes out the window. I would even match him up with Matrix when he checks in.

While most of my team is undersized, let's remember who and what won the championship this year, and what teams are looking to do going forward - speed and shooting. I have some lightning bolts out there that would just run his bigger team into the ground. Excellent ball movement on the perimeter to the interior for good looks inside by Love, Malone or Petit(26PPG, 31, 31 respectively) or outside shooting by West, Drazen, KJ(44+% in their primes from 3 point range) and Love(38% from 3).

Team North has the inside and outside game down pat... you be the judge!

So RR faithful, who wins this game?

[Joey]

Hopefully I this right ... Good luck guys!

[TrueTorontoFan]

what are the rules here??

[Apollo]

Review the rosters, read the game plans and then vote for which team you think should win.

The winner advances in the championship tournament bracket and the loser moves to the consolation bracket.

[Apollo]

Adjustments

DefenseTony ParkerPenny Hardaway to cover Drazen as Kobe switches off onto Westbrook. KobeMutombo and the size disadvantage that Mack surrenders at C and both F spots.

If unsuccessful we check in the highly athletic and versatile Marion for Mutombo and also as a last measure, with this long, athletic team we will opt to switch to zone if need be to help contain Westbrook.

OffenseKobe and he can try. Now that PennyElgin Baylor in the paint so that he can operate his polished low post game on the greatly undersized Jerry West(surrendering 50lbs). Ewing will move out a little and utilize his sweet baseline jumper to draw a big man out of the paint as to avoid clogging the lanes. Meanwhile MarionElgin Baylor or else continue to be brutalized in the paint. Once that happens we move back to getting Kobe more involved from long range and cuts to the basket as no one else can hang with him.

[e_wheazhy_]

what are the rules here??

Dang man where have you been the past few weeks

[TrueTorontoFan]

I was driving cross the country

[e_wheazhy_]

I was driving cross the country

Niiiice

[Miekenstien]

nice gameplan apollo. i would like to see how mack deals with the size.

[Snooch]

Gotta go with Apollo on this one.

West is Grossly outsized at the sf spot(having played a fair bit of PG in his time in the league and pretty much exclusively a sg) Baylor will just beat him down

Apollo is better utilized with a Ewing and Marion front court, which would space the floor for Baylor to just post up West relentlessly.

Only chance right now to sway my vote is if MAck puts Smith at the sf spot and moves West over to sg.

[BobLoblaw]

what are the rules here??

Assume all players are in their prime. It's not about career achievements, it's about how good each player was. Pick one team to win based on quality, gameplan, matchups.

[Mack North]

Adjustment will come this afternoon... FTR, I had Drazen on the bench, with West at SG and Smith at SF(stated he'd be on Kobe all day in my gameplan). My bad for not making it clear in my starting lineup, I just used the 10 sentences for gameplan.

[BobLoblaw]

Interesting matchup. I think Team Apollo has more talent, but Team Mack North fits much better.

Team Apollo:

A ton of perimeter talent.

2 twin towers, but Ewing out of position defending Love on the 3pt line, and neither twin tower can pass the ball, so I'm not a fan of this.

Not enough shooting around twin towers either. Baylor can shoot a midrange jumper but really wants to go into the paint (where it's crowded), Tony Parker wants to go inside too.

There will be a few points in transition, sure, but I think halfcourt will get very ugly. I think in this halfcourt offense, Parker, Kobe and Baylor are taking turns shooting midrange jumpers or going into the paint, where they'll meet their own twin towers plus 3-4 Team Mack North defenders.

Good defensive team. But Ewing is out of position defending Love at the 3pt line. Baylor wasn't a good defensive player and I think he's mismatched here against Jerry West.


Team Mack North:

It makes sense offensively. Petrovic, West, Love can all really shoot.

Moses is a very quick power center, he's facing Mutombo who's very good post defender, but I think Moses will be hard to slow down even for Mutombo without help. And it won't be easy to help on Moses when Jerry West, Love and Petrovic are spotting up and ready to shoot.

Then there's Westbrook, who can shoot a little and who can kill you on drives. And offensive rebounds from Love and Moses. Very good transition team too with its speed and shooting ability, also athleticism from Westbrook, West and Kevin Johnson.

It's not a team without weaknesses. Moses wasn't a good passer at all, so this isn't an inside out team. It's a team that moves the ball around perimeter and drops it into Moses when he's in a good scoring position.

Also, defense and size. Jerry West is undersized for a SF, he's a SG. He's not 6'2, more like 6'5, but that's still small for a SF. Overall, this isn't a good defensive team at all. Jerry West is good, but he's out of position. Petrovic is bad. Moses is pretty average. Love is weak. So overall, an unimpressive team defensively.

However, all Team Mack North really has to do in this matchup is not let Kobe take open 3s and then mostly just pack the inside. Give the other team mildly contested midrange jumpers. Bad defense can look good, if the other team has no spacing.

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In the end, Moses' weak passing and mediocre defense gives me a bit of a pause here. If this was Hakeem or Kareem instead of Moses, I think it would be easier to pick. Also, I liked Apollo's gameplan post more.

So it's not an easy choice, but still, I'll go with Team Mack here, fit over talent.

[TrueTorontoFan]

Assume all players are in their prime. It's not about career achievements, it's about how good each player was. Pick one team to win based on quality, gameplan, matchups.

Can you pick anyone?

[BobLoblaw]

Can you pick anyone?

There are two teams in each thread, so just pick one team in each thread that you think will win.

If you meant players, yes, any players could've been picked. But now that part is over, all teams are formed and playing each other.