My wine cellar team

The premise comes from Bill Simmons' Big Book of Basketball. The idea is that the fate of the universe is at stake. You have to put together a 12 man team to face 12 basketball playing Martians with the fate of the universe at stake. So it is not just the 12 best players, but the best actual team that works together as a unit.
Also, it is not just a player like Magic in general, but a specific year ("vintage") of that particular player.

First I give you Simmons team as a benchmark:
Starters: '77 Kareem, '03 Duncan, '86 Bird, '92 Jordan, '85 Magic
Bench: '86 McHale, '92 Pippen, '09 Wade, '77 Walton, '10 LeBron, '09 Chris Paul, '01 Ray Allen

A great team for sure, but clearly Simmons fell for a bunch of Celtics.

Simmons limited his team to players whom he actually saw live so I will do the same. That makes the cut off the '92 Finals.

My team:
Starters: '92 Jordan, '03 Duncan, '94 Olajuwon, '10 LeBron, '09 Paul
Bench: '01 Kobe, '94 Robinson, '97 Malone, '96 Pippen, '96 Gary Payton, '07 Dirk, '03Tracy McGrady

My team emphasizes three key principles:
1) Defense
2) Versatility
3) No achilles heal

With respect to defense, it is difficult for me to imagine how anyone could score against a lineup of Olajuwon, Duncan, Pippen, Jordan, and Payton. (39 combined 1st team All-Defensive teams)

Tough choice #1: '07 Dirk over '04 KG - I had to give on my defense rule to get a guy that perhaps not even Martians could guard when he is at his best. '07 Dirk had the most impressive shooting season a big has ever had: .502 FG% .416 3PT% .904 FT%. Toss in 9 rbs and 3.5 asts and you have a perfect compliment for this team. He is the big long range shooter to create space on the floor for the others.

Tough choice #2: '94 David Robinson over '00 Shaq - This all came down to one basic thing--could I accept Shaq's atrocious FT shooting for his utter dominance. In the end the answer was no. I just couldn't put mankind through having to watch Shaq at the FT line with their very existence at stake.

Tough choice #3: '03 T-Mac over '10 Kevin Durant - this was for the I can get my shot off over anyone spot on the roster. In defense of my picking T-Mac:
See the video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceLlz7dOOvY

T-Mac for all of his shortcomings was one of the most unique/unguardable scorers in basketball history. His size/athleticism/skill level rivaled anyone to ever play the game. His other failings though are why he is the 12th man on my team and no higher. (Clearly never winning a playoff series is the black mark on his career, but its not as if he choked or shrunk his game in the playoffs. In 38 playoff games T-Mac averaged 28.5 pts 6.7 rbs 6.5 asts and his PER of 24.7 in those 38 playoff games is one of the best ever). At the end of the day though if we are playing martians for the fate of earth I want one of the most other-worldly scorers the universe has ever seen on my team. You know...just in case we get down late and need somebody to score 13 points in 37 seconds.

Toughest inclusion: Gary Payton - He had clubhouse issues and only shot .317% from 3 for his career (making not a perfect fit since he doesn't exactly stretch the floor in the half court), but with the fate of mankind hanging in the balance I am going to hope that the best defensive PG to ever play the game can keep his act together for one seven game series.

On picking Olajuwon as my starting center:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GCyU0sKxqI&feature=related (Just fastforward to the #1 play. No other center we have seen could do that).
Bill Simmons discussed a stat called "stocks" (just steals plus blocks). He described it as a good measure of a players athleticism and the defensive havoc they caused on the court. Olajuwon finished with 5,992 stocks. No other post-1974 player even eclipsed 4,500. His 12 300 stock seasons were double Kareem and Ewing's 6 combined and no other player had more than 7. As Simmons puts it: "No modern center was better offensively AND defensively than Dream." Oh and then there is the '95 playoffs when he beat Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, David Robinson, and Shaq in a row. In a golden age of centers (Ewing, Robinson, Dream, Mourning, Shaq, Mutumbo, etc.) Dream was the best of them all and he proved it on the court.