The other day I was scrolling through Instagram, because sadly I have nothing better to do, and I came across this build your own starting five. So naturally, I decided to give it a shot. There were a lot of different ways I considered building a team, but at the end of the day I decided to go top heavy with talent and fill in the rest with cheaper players. 

Right off the bat I decided to buy Power Forward, Charles Barkley for $1. On all of these lists there is always one or two players that you can buy for cheap despite their value being much higher. In his prime, Barkley was arguably the best player in the league. He was just too good at defense and scoring to ignore at $1. I was tempted to go for Harden, but I just didn’t need his position with so much skill at guard higher up. 

Next I decided to buy Center, Hakeem Olajuwan for $2. Hakeem is one of the best centers of all time both offensively and defensively. I needed someone to pair with Barkley to man the middle and defend the big names like Shaq and Kareem. For such a low price, Olajuwan is a perfect fit at the center position. 

After that I bought Small Forward Scottie Pippen for $2. Scottie has always been slept on in his career and he was once again in this graphic. Pippen is easily one of the best defenders at the 1-4 positions in the history of the game. For such a cheap price it just made too much sense to take Pippen. 

At this point I’ve spent just $5 while getting 3 all time defensive players who can still score basically at will. Now if you’re any good at math, you understand that I now can take two players from the top row ( two players who came up in a previous blog of mine debating the best player of all time). So that’s exactly what I am going to do. 

Filling in at Point Forward I’m taking LeBron James for $5. LeBron is arguably the best player of all time because of his ability to score, defend and pass. While he does cost a lot, he is simply too good to not have on this team. 

Finally at Shooting Guard, Michael Jordan for $5. Michael Jordan is in my opinion the best player of all time. He is a remarkable defender and has the ability to score whenever he wants. He is also a necessity to have to take the last shot at the end of the game.

So my final Lineup reads:

LeBron, Jordan, Scottie, Barkley, Olajuwon 

For the sake of debate I also decided to build a couple other teams. The second best team I built was this:

Kobe, KD, Pippen, Olajuwon, Shaq

This team would be able to shoot the lights out with Kobe and KD while manned in the middle by two monster centers. It would also be able to defend across the board. 

Next, I built a third and final team:

Steph, Harden, Kobe, KD, Shaq. 

This team would shoot the lights out 1-4 and have Shaq in the middle to defend and score. This team would really have no problem scoring, however it is not quite as strong defensively. 

Obviously there are many ways to go but I still think that one of the first two teams I made would beat any other.