If Winston Churchill played basketball: center, rated 80

Winston Churchill as a basketball player: scouting report

Winston Churchill played polo as a young cavalry officer in India and kept at the game well into middle age, and polo players learn to fight for position at full speed with a ball they cannot afford to lose. He would bring that to center. His basketball IQ is the top mark on his card and his rebounding is close behind it, so he reads where the miss will land, establishes position early and simply refuses to give it up.

He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 and wrote histories that ran to many volumes, so he is not a center who needs plays drawn up for him; he will draw them up himself. His shooting is surprisingly good for a big, which gives him soft touch around the rim and a little range from the elbow. At his home at Chartwell he laid bricks and painted landscapes for relaxation, the sort of patient handiwork that matches a center's grinding job under the basket. His defense and passing are solid rather than special, so he anchors through positioning more than shot blocking.

Athleticism is the lowest mark on his card by a distance. He will not run the floor with younger bigs or swat shots from the weak side, so he is a half court center who controls the glass and the pace. Power forward is a reasonable second spot, and point guard is possible only at a real cost. Take him in the middle rounds, pair him with an athletic forward who can protect the rim and a quick guard who pushes the ball after his rebounds, and let him run the game from the low block.

Plays like A brainy, immovable center who owns the defensive glass

Put Winston Churchill in your lineup

8 rolls, a starting five and a bench, 82 games. Can you go 82-0? Free, no account.