Duke "All Champion" Team

[DukeOrDie]

Can't sleep and I'm thinking about all 5 Duke teams we love that won the title. I wanted to put a list together of the best lineup featuring all 5 teams players.
so here are the parameters:
-can only include players who won it all
-use specific years like '10 Scheyer or '01 Boozer and no repeat players
-also lets go with an 8 man rotation in typical K fashion

Ok so here's mine

G. '92 Bobby Hurley -MOP of the final 4, that year, fired Laettner up at the half after an awful start in the title game, the driver of the '92 Ferrari
G. '01 Jason Williams - NABC player of the year, Gone in 56 seconds, led all tournament scorers at almost 26 per contest, bulldog!
F. '01 Shane Battier- Naismith, Wooden, AP, etc player of the year, Defensive POY, arguably the best leader Duke's had in the K era. Who's your daddy?
F. '92 Christian Laettner- NCAA Player of the year, probably the most clutch performer in tourney history, THE SHOT, shot over 40% from 3 land at 6'11". Just sick
C. '15 Jahlil Okafor- 1st team All American, ACC player of the year, maybe the best pure offensive center K has ever had. JAHZILLA

6. '10 Kyle Singler- MOP of final 4 averaging 20pts and nearly 10 reb, One of the toughest players I've ever seen at Duke and would literally throw his body around to try and help his team win.
7. '15 Tyus Jones- MOP of final 4, "Stones" loves the big moment and bright lights always performing on the biggest stage.
8. '10 Nolan Smith- NDotSmitty makes my list not only because he was an amazing player but he's also one of my favorites. Clutch performer who hit some really big shots in the '10 tourney.

 

[acc hoops]

Grant Hill would have to be on starting 5.
Move Laettner to center and have Hill as SF.
Jah comes off the bench.

 

[Heyman25]

Originally posted by acc hoops:
Grant Hill would have to be on starting 5.
Move Laettner to center and have Hill as SF.
Jah comes off the bench.

I agree, acc hoops. Any all-time tournament team without Hill would be incomplete. Remove Nolan, place Hill in the SF slot, move Laettner to center and have Jah coming off the bench. OFC

 

[HuffyJB]

Its an interesting question, and shows the talent Duke has had. Do you consider full body of work, or championship game performance. A guy like Mike Dunleavy's numbers and awards don't line up with those guys, but he had as good a championship game performance as any Blue Devil.

 

[DukeDenver]

Stones
JWill
Hill
Battier
Laettner

Hurley
Winslow
Boozer

 

[DukeOrDie]

Yeah so the entire year of the Title team would be included. This was the only reason I left Grant Hill off the list. If Duke had won it all in '94 then Hill would have made my first team based on scoring, defense and just the fact that he willed that team to the title game. '94 Hill was much better IMO than '92 Hill. This is what makes it a little tougher.

 

[Wojoman]

JWill
Hurley
Hill
Battier
Laettner

Scheyer
Jah
Boozer

 

[dbav]

Hurley
G. Hill
Singler
Battier
Laettner

On the bench I'd have:

Tyus
Williams
Justise
Jah
Nolan
Dunleavy

 

[carlsondevil]

Hurley
Williams
Hill
Battier
Laettner

Jah
Tyus
Singler

 

[jibip]

Well I don't know why we're limiting ourselves to 8, but here goes (this is really tough. I'm looking for versatility, as I think K would value that significantly in comparing the talent in this pool:

Starters:
PG - JWill
SG - Hill - out of position perhaps, but I have no concern with Hill playing in this spot
SF - Singler
PF - Battier
C - Laettner

Bench:
Hurley
Winslow (lots of versatility here)
Okafor

My next fellas to round out a full roster would be:
TJones
Dunleavy
Boozer
Scheyer

 

[HeLooks2MuchLikeDave]

Starters:
G-T Jones
G-Williams
F-G Hill
F-Battier
C-Laettner

Bench:
G-Hurley
F-Winslow
F-Singler
F-Boozer
C-Okafor

Apologies to Duhon, Dunleavy, Scheyer, Thomas Hill and all the other champions

 

[skysdad]

Just about impossible.

PG. Hurley. Got 2 rings
SG G. Hill. Got 2 rings yes he could play the position.
C. Laettner Got 2 rings
SF Singler
PF Battier OFC

 

[youngman42]

Hmmm.... I think there may be some forgetfulness about how incredibly great Jason Williams was. If he's not in the starting lineup ... I don't know. He was truly a great player on what was a really great team in '01 (a much better title team than 10) - very good defender with 78 steals, 21.6 ppg, and 43% from 3 point range. Plus, generally very clutch.

I'd like to do a 12 man full squad from the teams ... But, I'll give my top 5/8 and then 4 others to get the 12:

G - Hurley
G - J. Williams
F - Grant Hill
F - Battier
C - Laettner

Bench (6, 7, 8)
F - Singler (the 3 or 4)
G - T Jones
F/C - Boozer
(9-12 - this was pretty tough here)
SF - Winslow
C - Okafor
G - Nolan
G - Scheyer

 

[dukehokie]

Are we basing it off of tournament or final four performance? In that regard I can almost see why Jason was on some benches. He actually was off a bit in the final four games. By the same token, Boozer was brilliant against Maryland and Arizona and aside from Battier was the reason we won that Final Four in 2001. Based off of Final four performance, I'm going:

PG - Hurley
SG - Scheyer
SF - G Hill
PF - Battier
C - Laettner

Bench:
Boozer
Tyus
Jason Williams
Jah
Singler
Smith

 

[DukeOrDie]

I'd agree with you that Battier was obviously a main factor and why he won MOP. Jay will scored the most points in the 01 tourney and scored 23 vs Md and 16 vs Zona in the title game and hit the dagger 3. If that was off he could've been "off" for all 108 games of his career and still gotten his jersey retired. He was straight nasty!

 

[germantondevil]

Originally posted by HuffyJB:
Its an interesting question, and shows the talent Duke has had. Do you consider full body of work, or championship game performance. A guy like Mike Dunleavy's numbers and awards don't line up with those guys, but he had as good a championship game performance as any Blue Devil.

Great point. His reign of 3's in the second half of that championship game ranks right up there with clutch performances when things were still undecided. He was a solid player and I loved watching him play.



"Mike Dun-leave-me open!" (in reference to open made three point shots by Mike Dunleavy)
This post was edited on 4/18 10:00 AM by germantondevil

 

[youngman42]

Originally posted by germantondevil:

Originally posted by HuffyJB:
Its an interesting question, and shows the talent Duke has had. Do you consider full body of work, or championship game performance. A guy like Mike Dunleavy's numbers and awards don't line up with those guys, but he had as good a championship game performance as any Blue Devil.

Great point. His reign of 3's in the second half of that championship game ranks right up there with clutch performances when things were still undecided. He was a solid player and I loved watching him play.



"Mike Dun-leave-me open!" (in reference to open made three point shots by Mike Dunleavy)
This post was edited on 4/18 10:00 AM by germantondevil

Yes, I was tempted to put Dunleavy on the team. He was huge in the final.

 

[FearTheBeard]

G: Bobby Hurley
G: Jay Williams
F: Grant Hill
F: Shane Battier
F: Christian Laettner

G: Tyus Jones
F: Kyle Singler
F: Jahlil Okafor


REALLY hard not to have Winslow in there with his driving ability and defense.

 

[DukeJim99]

Great topic. It's hard to look at any of these lists and think "oh, that's a bad choice." They're all basically great lists of great players.

JWill would have to start on my team, regardless of how good Hurley and Tyus were. That guy was just such a beast and could do everything.

 

[DFerryFan]

I would have to say that because this question is too tough, they would have to change the rules of basketball to allow 10 players to start. Then I could start narrowing things down.

 

[DukeOrDie]

Absolutely. Just so many great players. One of the pleasures of being a Duke fan

 

[skysdad]

Every player named in this thread would work for me. OFC

 

[dukehokie]

Originally posted by DukeOrDie:
I'd agree with you that Battier was obviously a main factor and why he won MOP. Jay will scored the most points in the 01 tourney and scored 23 vs Md and 16 vs Zona in the title game and hit the dagger 3. If that was off he could've been "off" for all 108 games of his career and still gotten his jersey retired. He was straight nasty!

There's no doubting that. haha.

 

[pisgah101]

I like sky's list a lot. That's be one tough group. Give me J-will off the bench and Jon and I'd take that team over any

 

[Showenuff]

I just wanna watch this group run one game together , each in their prime. Kyrie Irving, Grant Hill, Christian Laettner, Elton Brand and Shane Battier.

 

[gottagonow]

The easiest and most fair thing is just have two first teams. I just don't see a way to have only 5 fist team players.