All Prime: 2000 Kings vs 1995 Celtics

[SelakStreet]

Who would win a best of 7? The ‘95 Celtics or the 2000 Kings with all their players in their prime and ‘92 Rick Adelman as the Kings head coach?

All-Prime 1995 Boston Celtics:
Sherman Douglas / David Wesley
Dee Brown / Jay Humphries / Greg Minor
Dominique Wilkins / Rick Fox
Dino Radja / Xavier McDaniel / Derek Strong
Pervis Ellison / Eric Montross

All-Prime 2000 Sacramento Kings:
Jason Williams / Darrick Martin
Nick Anderson / Tony Delk / Jon Barry
Tyrone Corbin / Corliss Williamson
Chris Webber / Peja Stojakovic / Scot Pollard
Vlade Divac / Bill Wennington

[PhiEaglesfan712]

The 2000 Kings win easy. We saw them 2 years later push the Lakers to 7 in the Western Conference Finals (and were likely cheated of an NBA Finals appearance, which they likely beat the Nets, by Tim Donaghy). 2002 probably proves that if those players all at their primes at the same time, the Kings are likely a Championship contender more times than not.

That Celtics team was post-Larry Bird and Reggie Lewis.

[tsherkin]

I'm not seeing the appeal of the Celtics team. The Kings would rip them to pieces, and Nique's presence wouldn't make a huge difference to that.

[Owly]

Who would win a best of 7? The ‘95 Celtics or the 2000 Kings with all their players in their prime and ‘92 Rick Adelman as the Kings head coach?

All-Prime 1995 Boston Celtics:
Sherman Douglas / David Wesley
Dee Brown / Jay Humphries / Greg Minor
Dominique Wilkins / Rick Fox
Dino Radja / Xavier McDaniel / Derek Strong
Pervis Ellison / Eric Montross

All-Prime 2000 Sacramento Kings:
Jason Williams / Darrick Martin
Nick Anderson / Tony Delk / Jon Barry
Tyrone Corbin / Corliss Williamson
Chris Webber / Peja Stojakovic / Scot Pollard
Vlade Divac / Bill Wennington

So start point ... the IRL Kings are much better: 3.04 SRS to -1.92 SRS.

Do Boston have the players to make up some ground.

Well yes ...
Wilkins is the obvious start, we could get him back up to a really productive player
then the healthy version of Ellison was a pretty good center
Jay Humphries, similarly, as never all-stars go, has a nice peak
McDaniel ... technically he was was an all-star and a high scorer ... box aggregates aren't anything special ... and despite appearing on those Knicks for a year he wasn't highly regarded as a defender. If he'd put together his first two years on the offensive glass with his year 3 passing maybe there's something more there ...
Douglas isn't far off his box peak that year.
The rest of the backcourt has some upside Brown has better box years; Minor doesn't but has ones with more minutes and later a strong impact signal off a small sample - if one buys that then maybe he can add more value; Wesley peaks a fair bit higher a year later.

That said
Peja has a nice peak
Nick Anderson has a solid non-all star peak that's a lot better than this version
Barry has a nice two year peak and can slide across to the 1.
Williams becomes significantly more sound in Memphis ... if still not a good defender
Williamson at his apex really upped his scoring, got his passing to ... higher levels
Phoenix/Minny Corbin had some productivity as well as being a good intangibles/energy guy
Younger Divac was a bit more productive too

Obviously some of this depends how much you buy into particular years numbers as "real", replicable.

First glance Boston have quite a lot of ground to make up and I don't see them doing it.

[PhiEaglesfan712]

Yeah, the Celtics team needs to be brought back a few years. If you make this the 1993 Celtics, they at least have a prime Kevin McHale and Reggie Lewis, which would make this a much more fair comparison.

[durantbird]

Why Peja isn't starting over Corbin?