Dream vs Modern day big men

I didn't read the entire thread, but I think it was spiralling out of control.

The mark = Hakeem in his prime (ie those 4 amazing years). Even the Spurs fans have said those 4 years, Hakeem's prime, were among the best at his position. Duncan, more consistent over longer years (maybe a longer prime??).

I take those four amazing years, Hakeem's prime, over any of Duncan's consistent years. Duncan lovers, look up a few pages when even you admit those fours years (prime)were "amazing".

None of the rest matters.
 
Got the better of does not equal dominate though, right? And without looking it up, I'd bet Robinson's overall numbers head to head vs Hakeem are decent. I think Shaq pretty much had his way with Hakeem most of his career, although if the officials would call offensive fouls, who knows.



I got this from another board about Shaq vs Hakeem in the finals:

During the series, Hakeem did indeed score more then Shaq and average more.. But he also took 116 shots to Shaq's 74.

- Hakeem shot 56-116 (48%), while Shaq shot 44-74 (59%).

- Shaq had 10 blocks in the series, Hakeem had 8.

- Shaq had 50 rebounds, Hakeem had 46.

- Shaq had 24 assists, Hakeem had 22.

- Shaq's team shot 119-274 not including Shaq, Hakeem's shot 106-227 not including Hakeem ... Someone work out the %'s I CBF.



Shaq's career - 4 championships, 5 NBA Finals appearances. 3 NBA finals MVP's, NBA MVP, 2 all star game MVPs, 2 scoring titles. Only Shaq, Kareem and Wilt have ever had 13 seasons of 20pts, 10 rebounds. 61 pts and 18 reb in a single game (his Birthday). 28 rebounds along with 15 blocks in the same game. NCAA record 17 blocks in a game.

Hakeem's career - 2 Championships, 2 NBA Finals appearances. 2 Final's MVP's. NBA All-Time leader in blocks, one of only eight players in NBA history with over 20,000 points and 12,000 rebounds, 1 NBA MVP, 2 Defensive Player of the Year Award's, Career high's 52 points, 25 rebounds, 12 blocks all at different times.

The argument with most people have is "Hakeem killed Shaq in the Finals". Well the numbers obviously prove otherwise for starters, and secondly... it was Shaq's 3rd year in the league. it's pretty obvious that Hakeem did outscore Shaq, but Shaq shot a much better %, got more rebounds/assists/blocks - not to mention Hakeem was a defensive player more then offence.
 
If you want to argue that in those two championship runs that Hakeem was better than Duncan has ever been, you can make a good case. Hakeem had two of the best playoff runs that any player has ever had.

However, you need to put Hakeem's whole career in perspective, especially when you compare him to Duncan. Convenient that none of the Rocket fans are bringing up the time he was suspected for faking an injury to get his contract renegotiated and got suspended by the team. Can you imagine that happening with Tim Duncan and the Spurs in a million years? Those things count, in the grand scheme of things, in how you are remembered, even if it did turn out that Hakeem was really hurt. The fact that they didn't believe him speaks volumes.

You can say whatever you want about Tim Duncan's game not being "dominant" (by whatever nebulous definition you care to apply), but you can't deny the leadership he's displayed or that he is the ultimate teammate and winner. Rings don't count in the final discussion? Whatever. It's not an accident that there have only been two players in the history of the NBA who have won multiple championships with the same franchise, with completely different teammates: Tim Duncan and Bill Russell. Think about that... Magic always had Kareem. Jordan always had Pippen. Bird always had McHale and Parish. Russell had complete roster turnover and won rings with the Celtics, and Duncan did it with the Spurs. Nobody else in the history of the league has done it.

But for all of you stats geeks who would like to ignore the intangibles that Tim Duncan brings to the game in lieu of Hakeem's "dominance", here are some more fun facts, courtesy of basketballreference.com...

Years in Top 5 MVP voting:
TD: 9, HO: 6

Career PER:
TD: 25.1, HO: 23.6

Defensive Rating (lower scores are better):
TD: 94.0 (#1 all time), HO: 97.9

First team All NBA:
TD: 9, HO: 5

First team All Defense:
TD: 7, HO: 5

Times inadvertently funded terrorism:
TD: 0; HO: 1

Times eliminated in first round of playoffs:
TD: 0, HO: 8
 
Hakeem was Defensive POY twice. The only player ever to have 200 blocks and 200 steals in a season. You can bring up all the team awards you want, but individually Olajuwon was better.

He was straight up dominant (not good) on both ends of the court.
 
This thread is very long and I apologize if I am treading over old territory. But I did see mention of Malone and Duncan in terms of historical great centers. Malone was a power forward as is Duncan. A few years ago I may have put Malone as the #1 power forward of all-time but now I would put Duncan as #1. Shaq would have to be added to that top 5 centers list including Wilt, Russell, Kareem, and Olajuwon. These big men dominated while they were at their peaks and won championships doing so. Discussions of power forwards really need their own thread.
 
In ’93-94, when Olajuwon won MVP, Robinson averaged 26.6 points, 14.2 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 3 blocks and 2.2 steals against Olajuwon, who averaged 24.2 points, 12.6 rebounds, 4.8 assists, 3 blocks and 1.2 steals, and the Spurs went 3-2.
 
I am a big Spurs fan and love what David Robinson meant to the team and their fans, but I have to admit that I believe Olajuwon to be the better overall player - though not to the extent some here are implying.

That said, there were games that I saw in person where Robinson got the better of Olajuwon and games when the latter got the better of the former. I think the playoff series where Hakeem dominated is further skewing some already biased opinions.
 
it's weird how some people almost hold hakeem's 4 year run against him. like those 4 years were great, but lets get to what counts, consistency and ignore the greatness when comparing the two. next, i even showed hakeem's stats w/o the 4 year run, and they were as good on offense and better on defense than duncan's. for some reason, in some people's minds, hakeem was expected to play at a 92-93 or 93-94 level his whole career to equal duncan. if he replicated those 2 years (and the 95 playoffs) for his whole career, it would be hard to argue he wasn't the best center ever and possibly the best player ever. but we're just talking tim duncan, not michael jordan here. he basically had tim duncan or time duncan plus seasons for 8 years, then went crazy for 4 more.

next, saying he lost in the first round 4 of 6 seasons so he must be worse. maybe when two guys seem to have quite similar individual results and massively different team results, it just might be the rest of the team? i don't know, tough call. michael jordan lost in the first round his first 3 years and was 1-9 in those series and didn't reach the finals until his 8th year. maybe tim duncan was better than MJ, too. or maybe MJ just needed to wait until he had some other good players around like pippen before starting a legendary run.

that also brings up the whole winning with completely different supporting casts argument. definitely an impressive feat, but it obviously has a lot to do with circumstances. duncan joined a 59-win, veteran team and won a title. then the whole team retired or got old while he was still in his prime and his team added another great group of players. it's not really bird's fault that mchale and parish were always there or magic's fault that worthy and kareem were always there or jordan's that pippen was always there so they never really had different casts.

and for whoever mentioned buck johnson, john lucas, david wood, and craig ehlo. LOL! david wood was on the team for 1 year and started a career high 13 games while averaging a near career high 5.3 ppg (he would explode for 5.5 ppg 4 years later on the warriors). craig ehlo played 88 games in 3 seasons and averaged 3 ppg for the rockets. after another 3 years averaging 7 ppg on the cavs, he would finally become a respectable player in 90-91. how did hakeem not allow this gem to shine? buck johnson played 5 or 6 mediocre years for the rockets and then a year later was out of the league at age 29. and when hakeem did get a chance to play with the legendary 31 year old john lucas, he went to the finals.

in fact, seemingly the only talent anyone can ever seem to dig up as having played on hakeem's rockets went to the finals on hakeem's rockets. when he had sampson and a good backcourt, they beat magic, kareem, and worthy's lakers. then sampson's knees went out, the backcourt discovered cocaine was a hell of a drug, and the rockets drafted derrick cheivous, buck johnson, and some other scrub with the 3 first round picks they had in a 5 year period. a little different than finding parker and ginobili at 29 and 57 (or wherever they went), i would say.

then the rockets picked up some more solid role players in thorpe, maxwell, smith and rookies cassell and horry, and we won 2 titles riding hakeem's unbelievably playoff runs (though hakeem pretty much always had huge playoff numbers). basically, when hakeem had talent, he made deep playoff runs, trips to the finals, and won championships every bit as frequently as duncan has done.

and finally, as for the hakeem/shaq head-to-head, i actually do get annoyed when people say hakeem just dominated shaq in the finals. as someone else showed, it was very even. hakeem scored 5 ppg more while shaq had an extra rebound, 0.5 blocks, and 0.75 apg. hakeem was far less efficient from the field, but hakeem had 7 more steals and 10 fewer TO's, essentially negating shaq's shooting efficiency advantage. hakeem has to be considered the winner for sweeping shaq, but it was still close.

as for their total career playoff head to head numbers, they only played one more time, in 1999 when hakeem was far past his prime and shaq was in his. that will throw off the numbers pretty easily (same with regular season head to head considering how many late career games hakeem played against shaq).
 
when it comes to robinson and hakeem over their whole careers, it actually was very even. their stats are eerily similar and head to head the spurs have a signicant W/L advantage (though some of that is the duncan years and even in 1995 the spurs won 5-1), and robinson's stats may even be slightly better. so is it unfair to use one 6 game sample as the sole measuring stick? probably so, but i think it ends up being so important for 2 reasons:

1. both guys were at their absolute peaks, played the same position, and were on really good teams. robinson won the mvp and hakeem had won it the year before, robinson had just had a ridiculous statistical regular season and hakeem was hakeem. the spurs won 62 games and were obviously a very good team and the rockets had drexler, good role players, and would win the title. and they were both centers. you could really not have a more ideal basis for comparison, a better test to see who put their team over the top.

2. robinson had a reputation, justified or not, and still does, for not stepping up in the playoffs. and in fact for playing below his regular season self. hakeem, on the other hand, had a very justified reputation for stepping up big in the playoffs. going head to head, it was hard to ignore whatever truth lay in either reputation when hakeem just obliterated drob and got his team to the finals.

so in the end, maybe 6 games is a small slice of a career to be judged on, but if you had to put money on it, would you bet on it going much differently if they played that series again?
 
If I had to make a top 6 I would put Robinson in there before Ewing. Ewing did not enough of an inside outside game and his one big move into the lane was really a travel IMO. Ewing is top 10 though.

Anybody think we may end up seeing Ming crack the top 10 or possibly top 6 when all is said and done?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Weekly Prediction Contest

* Predict HORNS-AGGIES *
Sat, Nov 30 • 6:30 PM on ABC

Recent Threads

Prediction Results Threads

2024 Schedules

Back
Top