kam_soluusar wrote:Olajuwon is the best there is, best there was, and best that there will ever be! (Sorry Hitman!) I can watch him doing that for hours.
Growing up, I used to tape anything and everything I could Olajuwon. I used to rewind and replay his moves over and over again. Then I would practice them over and over again.
I cannot even profess to being anywhere 1/100th of the level Olajuwon is/was at, (even at him being 50yrs old!) He still does those spin moves faster than I could ever manage.
Yet when I play, using some of those moves, I usually torch my opposition. The biggest problem I have is not having guards who know how to make efficient entry passes to the post. We always give Olajuwon his dues, (and rightly so.) But lately I wonder how good Olajuwon would have been, if he didn't have guards willing to give him the ball on nearly every posession, then spot up. Can you imagine how much better Olajuwon would have been, if he ran pick and rolls with Steve Nash, or Jason Kidd??? That would probably have been the scariest thing to ever see in NBA basketball. I am not taking anything away from Jet, Mad Max, Drexler, Elie etc. I think Olajuwon would have ended number 2 or 3 all time for scoring if tha had happened his whole career. We would have probably had more than 2 championships too.
Playing back to the basket is probably the hardest thing to teach a person. You notice Olajuwon used to catch the ball, and square up/triple threat on most plays. He could then go back to the basket again, before facing up again, or doing whatever he chose to. The closest I have seen to this in the NBA since his retirement is actually Scola, believe it or not. I saw a lot of similarities between his scoop shot and elements of the Dream Shake. Again, this is probably due to his Eurostyle upbringing. Sadly Scola wasn't anywhere near as athletically gifted. But he could play back to the basket in the post, step out to the elbow/high post, and shoot a decent mid-range jumper.
I could talk for hours about Olajuwon. He's everything to me Basketball wise. I cannot even compare him to MJ, because MJ isn't in the same league as Olajuwon, he is so far beneath it's not funny. This is one of the reasons I always laugh when people always say that MJ is the GOAT. He isn't worthy to hold Olajuwon's bags.
Whenever I hear the whole MJ argument I always propose a different hypothetical. "If MJ was 4 inches taller, do you think he would have been the GOAT? Reverse that, and make Olajuwon 4 inches shorter. He may not have been the GOAT, but I bet he would have been top 5 at least!
This post should be stickied as the forum motto.
