Team Shaq8 of 12

PG: Luka Dončić
SG: Dwyane Wade
SF: Tracy McGrady
PF: Draymond Green
C: Shaquille O’Neal
Sixth Man: George Gervin

With the seventh overall pick, Team Shaq claimed its namesake in Shaquille O’Neal, who was arguably the most physically dominant player in NBA history.

In any era, Shaq’s combination of size (7’1″ and often over 300 pounds), footwork and athleticism would make him an impossible matchup. An underrated post player, he didn’t score merely by running over opponents, although that happened often. Shaq possessed an underappreciated ability to fake defenders, follow post moves with counters and even hit a little one-handed floater on the rare occasions a defense could stop his forward momentum.

Having him as the brightest star around which everyone else orbits is going to cause problems for every other team in this exercise.

After Shaq, the imaginary front office went way down the board to snag Luka Dončić with the 16th pick. (He ranked 57th in the B/R 100.) However, it’s not as big of a stretch as you might think.

The instructions for the drafters read: “Assume that you’re drafting every player at the prime of his career.” Now, consider how many primes you think are definitively better than Luka’s. Over the last six years, he’s averaged 30.0 points, 8.8 rebounds and 8.7 assists, and the volume of threes he gets up would pull defenses away from Shaq inside.

With Luka at the controls, this duo would be truly unstoppable. With those two occupying the 1 and the 5, the next picks were about finding complementary wings.

That’s not a great description of Dwyane Wade, who was unquestionably an alpha early in his career, but he did prove willing and able to scale down alongside LeBron James. He and Luka could combine for a dynamic inside-out backcourt.

Next up, Tracy McGrady felt like a pretty easy call even though he landed at No. 59 in the B/R 100. His 2002-03 campaign, in which he averaged 32.1 points (in the NBA’s dead-ball, post-MJ era), 5.5 assists and 2.3 threes, gives him the third-highest single-season offensive box plus/minus of all time. His size, range and athleticism make him a dynamic, multipositional defender as well.

That left a glaring hole at the 4. Although Karl Malone was still available at No. 51, Team Shaq was already loaded with scoring from the first four picks. That made versatility and defense the priorities.

Draymond Green provides loads of both. He can take on the opposition’s toughest defensive assignment, create on the break or on the short roll, and he opens up the opportunity to play “death lineup”-esque small-ball units. Those could be a nightmare to cover with sixth man George Gervin on the floor.

Getting the No. 42 player in the B/R 100 at No. 60 felt like a coup. After coming over from the ABA, Gervin averaged 28.0 points over his first eight NBA seasons. He won four scoring titles in that stretch, topping out at 33.1 points in 1979-80.

Having prime Ice Man as a reserve may give this team the ultimate example of the heat-check scorer off the bench.