After the excitement of the summer Olympics, i got to thinking about the best actual team to step on the floor together. The 1992 Dream Team was unprecedented. They absolutely annihilated teams (138 to 70 was one score that summer!). I thought about that team and the fact that then the USA had claim to all the best players in the world. As stacked as this summer’s team was, it can’t make the claim it had the top 5 players in the world on the floor on the same team at the same time.

If one discards Luka from the conversation entirely, and Giannis, they might claim 4 players were the best in the world Steph, Durant, LeBron, embiid. But no Jokic. Their best 5 was either with Anthony Davis or Devin booker on the court with those 4. It was interesting how little embiid played at the end of the game leaving their 5 to include both booker and Davis. The Dream Team on the other hand while they had centers Robinson and Ewing, power forward Karl Malone, guards drexler and Stockton, one could make the claim that the top 5 people in the world if ranked at each position 1 through 5 were on the floor together at the same time: bird, magic, Jordan, Pippen, and Barkley.

Given the five of them against the top 5 lineup of today (we’ll say curry, Tatum, Durant, LeBron, embiid); which is the stronger top 5 and who wins 5 on 5 and why? Personally, I take bird over LeBron, Jordan over curry, Barkley holds his own with embiid, pippen gives Durant problems, and Magic is a better player than Tatum without question so, it’s close and as synergistic as the teams are, I take those 5 over any 5 that actually stepped on the floor together.