As the all-star break approaches, are you not worried about how many times we will have to watch Nate Robinson attempt his dunk this year? Well, me too, but let’s focus our attention on players more deserving of all-star talk.

Imagine you decided to go Marty McFly, and travel back in time to rewrite your fantasy league’s history. In preparation you pulled a fast one on your league mates, trading future considerations for picks so that you own the first 13 picks of the draft (I know, I know, any league that would let this happen would be dumber than a brick, but bear with me). Who do you pick to make an unstoppable team?

I posed this question to my boys here at Dropping Dimes in an effort to change things up a bit. The mid-season awards are being handed out, and it’s too easy to just list the top ranked players on Yahoo. Now granted, the best players will always come out as being must-have commodities in almost any format you could dream up. I figured with the structure of this actually being a team and using the current season’s stats, the exercise would lead to some interesting discussion…and it did. Thanks to D, Sarge and Ron for their input.

My hands are disappearing as I strum the riff to “Johnny B. Goode” so we better get this thing going. Ladies and gentlemen, here is our “perfect” draft. I tried to talk Doc Brown into letting us take a glimpse at the final season statistics, but he mumbled something about this causing too much damage to the space-time continuum so we’ll just have to speculate how the second half is going to go.

Point Guard:

Steve Nash, Phoenix Suns
Of course our team is led by the leading dime disher in the land. As you all know, Nash is also an asset in the percentages (53.6 FG%!) and treys. We can fill out steals as we move down the roster.

, Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers
There was some support for Dwyane Wade here but Kobe hits the threes, a category that is tough to win even with the pick of the litter. And Wade has been hampered more by injuries up to this point in the season.

Gilbert Arenas, Washington Wizards
His FG% is the lowest on the team, but Agent Zero is a must have. He would garner #1 pick consideration if everyone did their draft over. This is the special player that delivers moneyballs, steals and oodles of points.

Shawn Marion, Phoenix Suns
Marion saves us on some turnovers. His percentages are stellar as usual, and his threes/steals/blocks combo remains awesome.

Kevin Garnett, Minnesota Timberwolves
178 assists and 81 blocks to this point in the season is a rare combination. Usually KG’s assist numbers are even better than this year, but he remains the prototypical big man dime dropper.

Dirk Nowitzki, Dallas Mavericks
Here’s the way to pad the percentages on this team as well as gaining some three-pointers from the forward position. The Mavs are having an incredible campaign and Dirk is a fantasy beast as usual. Don’t worry about the blocks because our centers have that issue on lockdown.

Marcus Camby, Denver Nuggets
We opted for centers who do not hinder our percentages, and they were relied upon to win blocks. Enter Camby, who pulls down more boards than points (that’s a compliment in this case) and offers up more than 100 assists and blocks to this point in the year. Yes, he will be an injury concern. Give the man his props though.

Jermaine O’Neal, Indiana Pacers
JON also passes pretty well for a big man. His FT% is above 70%, which puts him ahead of Emeka Okafor here. O’Neal actually has more blocks than Camby right now, which show how great he has been on the defensive end this year.

Lebron James, Cleveland Cavaliers
One good reason for picking LBJ would be that so no one else can have him. Indeed the FT% is a concern and the turnovers can add up quickly. But this team can put turnovers and still build an insurmountable lead. Lebron keeps our FG% competitive while sprinkling a little sugar on the remaining categories. He has room to up his stats during the second half. The latest news suggests that he is not going to miss extended time because of his toe, so play him with confidence.

Jason Kidd, New Jersey Nets
His FG% is pretty good this year (.438)...for him. As Sarge put it, if you can stomach his percentage (and we can here), he is about as roto-friendly as he has ever been.

Yao Ming, Houston Rockets
Employing Camby and Jon means rolling the dice on their respective health issues. Yao was by far the best fantasy center before succumbing to injury himself. Here we can stash him away, and insert him back into the lineup for a boost in points and FT% without losing any ground on boards and blocks. If only he had longer arms and could jump a bit; his block totals would be sick.

Elton Brand, Los Angeles Clippers
To further address our injury concerns at the center position, it would be easy to be worried that all three of our centers would be unavailable to play at the same time. Employing another center would limit our flexibility. So we spend a little and buy the Brand name. We could play one man down, insert Brand into a utility spot, and could still take home the title easily after building up a first half lead. No need to expand on Brand’s game here; he is a well-known fantasy commodity, even with the Clips playing well below last year’s clip.

Ray Allen, Seattle SuperSonics
We will use our last bench spot on a three-point specialist. Of course on regular teams, Ray is a fantasy anchor. Here we can leave him on the bench, and insert him in as needed. His FG% is not that much better than Kidd’s, which is why Kidd earned the nod at one of the utility spots.
The 12-team Dropping Dimes’ Experts League was used as reference. Currently, Dennis leads the way with a score of 77.5. Here are the totals for leading each statistical category to this point. All stats are as of January 27, 2007.

FG%: .492
FT%: .803
3P: 462
Pts: 6991
Rebs: 2842
Ast: 1744
Stl: 471
Blk: 366
TO: 720

Our super team’s totals (using the starters only) would look like this…

FG%: .475
FT%: .812
3P: 523
Pts: 8894
Rebs: 3382
Ast: 2213
Stl: 550
Blk: 468
TO: 1144

Our team wins every category except FG% (third) and turnovers (dead last). Our points total would be 103, more than 30 points ahead of its closest competitor. FG% is a tough category to dominate, and the numbers show that even with first dibs on every player in the league, treys and steals remain pretty closely contested categories.

Other players mentioned as deserving of being on this team, other than the aforementioned Wade and Okafor were: Josh Howard, Caron Butler, Kevin Martin, Mike Miller and Chris Bosh. They were not necessarily the obvious choices, but certainly they have all stepped up this year.

Good luck to all in the second half!