With a league that is transitioning from a post-dominated game (Shaq, Duncan) to a point-dominated game (Nash, Paul), it’s important to have someone who can control the game at both parts of the floor.  Having a Kobe or T-Mac is great, but since neither one of them can guard the elite point guards, having an unstoppable one affects the game in an increasingly important way.  Maybe if they go back to the illegal defense, hand-checking NBA of the 90’s, Dwight Howard and Yao Ming would be able to do it themselves.  But until then, give me these five combos:

1.  Tony Parker and Tim Duncan.  Tony Parker is still the hardest point guard in the league to stop defensively, and Tim Duncan gets votes for best at his position EVER.  Watching Tony Parker is watching a renaissance of the floater, and I swear I saw Duncan admit that he committed a foul in the Celtics game.  There’s a reason these guys have all of those rings, and it’s not the clutch shooting of Kerr and Horry.  Duncan never leaves his feet defensively unless he gets the block, and Parker gets inside the restricted area better than anyone his size that I can remember.  Kevin Johnson and John Stockton think this guy’s quick.

2.  Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer.  Williams is just bullying the rest of the league at his position.  He gets wherever he wants to go, and if that’s a fadeaway from ten feet, then it’s going in.  Boozer is intimidating, and at this point I would take his raw physicality for Amare’s speed-power combo.  He can body up on bigger players on defense when he has to, and his spin moves remind me of Shaq when he was fast enough to pull them off.

3.  Steve Nash and Amare Stoudamire.  Amare is the biggest benefactor of the Marion-for-Shaq trade.  Seeing him drive the ball from the perimeter is scary.  Nash hasn’t been hurt by Shaq’s size in the paint as much as by his velocity.  If Shaq had a little bit of speed left, he could get out of the way and into the right spot for a quick dish-and-dunk.  But Nash will figure out how to use him as an obstruction and we’ll see a lot more players running face first into the big fella and hitting the floor.  The little guy always finds a way.

4.  Chris Paul and David West.  Paul might be the only player that is overrated by people that have never seen him play.  That’s not to say he’s overrated; they just don’t know why he’s so good.  It’s the defense that puts him ahead.  If I got my pick of players to match up with Parker, I’d pick Paul.  For every two or three times Parker blows by Paul, Paul will pick him once and take it to the hoop.  I hope he gets healthy so we can see just how much he’ll step it up in the playoffs.  David West is a hard player to read because Paul makes everyone around him look good.  But this guy has a great mid-range game and the ability to sky to the rim for rebounds.

5.  Chauncey Billups and Rasheed Wallace.  As always, these guys can be anywhere in this top five on a given night.  I was shocked at how poorly Billups played in last year’s playoffs., but he’s getting a little more rest down the stretch and that should pay off.  His big-shot potential is higher than all of the guys above him, and he’ll win a three-point contest against any of them every day of the week.  Wallace is barely a post player, considering that by my standards Dirk isn’t one at all.  Wallace loves to hang out at the three point line, and it’s not like he can’t drill it from there consistently.  With his size, I’d like to see him in the paint contesting rebounds and drawing the box-outs that allow Billups and Hamilton to knife into the paint and pick up the offensive rebound.  His back-to-the-basket skills have declined since the day he was giving Shaq as good he was getting, but he still takes it strong when his coach asks him politely.  Which is good, because in the playoffs, “Both teams play(ed) hard.”