Hoops Habit
Fansided

Each State’s All-Time NBA Starting Five

By Ben Gibson

Jan 26, 2014; Chapel Hill, NC, USA; North Carolina Tar Heels mascot waves a flag before the game at Dean E. Smith Student Activities Center. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 26, 2014; Chapel Hill, NC, USA; North Carolina Tar Heels mascot waves a flag before the game at Dean E. Smith Student Activities Center. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
1 of 52
Next
Jan 26, 2014; Chapel Hill, NC, USA; North Carolina Tar Heels mascot waves a flag before the game at Dean E. Smith Student Activities Center. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 26, 2014; Chapel Hill, NC, USA; North Carolina Tar Heels mascot waves a flag before the game at Dean E. Smith Student Activities Center. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports /

Fans talk about how great basketball is in their state and how many players they’ve sent to the NBA. But sometimes when they talk about how strong the sport is in their state, they actually rely on college players from other states or the NBA team located there if they’re lucky enough to have one.

But instead of looking at what states import the most basketball talent, I wanted to see which state produced the best NBA starting lineups. If a player was born or played their high school basketball in a state, that’s what counts.

ALSO ON HOOPSHABIT: 50 Greatest NBA Players of the 1980s

I stretched the rules here and there, but this list of all 50 states and one district is meant to look at if each state could have an all-time starting NBA lineup, just how good would it be?

For the sake of simplicity, we are mostly going by what state a player was born in and where they played high school, but there are some exceptions. A player like Michael Jordan may have been born in New York, but he’s “from” North Carolina by most opinions. We had to stretch the rules for some states with fewer players, but the general idea is the same.

I didn’t stick entirely to player’s positions in the NBA, but for the most part I tried not to have a center playing shooting guard or anything like that. We live in a “positionless” NBA now, supposedly, so we might as well make these all-time state teams reflect that.

Let’s get this rolling in alphabetical order, starting with Alabama.

Next: Alabama