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Hey Guys. Please show some love to the Olajuwon thread I made in the General NBA Forum. It's labeled: "Hakeem Olajuwon made David Robinson his personal B____!"

I am seriously fed up with all these people putting Robinson and Ewing in the same class as Hakeem. it's just very disrespectful and degrading to the Dream.

Here's the link for those who are too lazy to look up the thread. Please show some love and rep!:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=943167&p=20714102#p20714102

I used to be in the camp that thought that Ewing was overrated, but Hakeem himself calls him one of the greatest, and Dream's word is good enough for me.

I used to be in the camp that thought that Olajuwon was better than Robinson, back in my rose colored glasses days, but lately I really don't think that's the case. Hakeem is better than Ewing, though, and about on par with Shaq.

Look at their per-36's. Robinson got to the line more, shot a better percentage at the line and from the field, turned the ball over less, took less shots, fouled less, while stealing/rebounding/scoring/blocking shots at about the same rates. Robinson pretty well ties or beats him in every category that isn't a total, which makes complete sense since Olajuwon played 4 more seasons, and Robinson was seriously injured at an earlier point in his career, which he started as a 24y/o rookie.

moofs wrote:I used to be in the camp that thought that Olajuwon was better than Robinson, back in my rose colored glasses days, but lately I really don't think that's the case. Hakeem is better than Ewing, though, and about on par with Shaq.

Look at their per-36's. Robinson got to the line more, shot a better percentage at the line and from the field, turned the ball over less, took less shots, fouled less, while stealing/rebounding/scoring/blocking shots at about the same rates. Robinson pretty well ties or beats him in every category that isn't a total, which makes complete sense since Olajuwon played 4 more seasons, and Robinson was seriously injured at an earlier point in his career, which he started as a 24y/o rookie.

Robinson would have never won a title without Tim Duncan.

Since you argued that so persuasively, I'll just ask exactly do you figure that, and did you bother to even look at various team rosters?

Robinson and Hakeem were nearly even in the regular season, the gap comes in their post-season play, D-Rob being a notorious under-achiever, while Hakeem has always upped his game in the playoffs, to a level few have ever matched. I think most consider Hakeem clearly the best of the three, but Ewing and Robinson were damn good in their own right.

moofs wrote:Since you argued that so persuasively, I'll just ask exactly do you figure that, and did you bother to even look at various team rosters?

San Antonio had some very good teams in the early 90s with Sean Elliot, Terry Cummings, Willie Andersen, Rod Strickland.

Look at their playoff numbers
Hakeem played in 145 playoff games vs 123 for Robinson so it's a good comparison point

Hakeem's regular season avg was 21.8ppg
Hakeem's playoff avg was 25.9 ppg

David's regular season avg was 21.1 ppg
David's playoff avg was 18.1 ppg

Hakeem's regular season avg was 11.1 rpg
Hakeem's playoff avg was 11.2 ppg

David's regular season avg was 10.6 rpg
David's playoff avg was also 10.6 rpg

Hakeem's regular season avg was 3.09 bpg
Hakeem's playoff avg was 3.26 bpg

David's regular season avg was 2.99 bpg
David's playoff avg was 2.54 bpg

Hakeem's regular season FG% was 51.2%
Hakeem's playoff FG% was 52.8%

David's regular season FG% was 51.8%
David's playoff FG% was 47.9%

Hakeem's regular season FT% was 71.2%
Hakeem's playoff FT% was 71.9%

David's regular season FT% was 73.6%
David's playoff FT% was 70.8%

Hakeem averaged 35.7 minutes per game in the regular season
Hakeem averaged 39.6 minutes per game in the playoffs

David averaged 34.7 minutes per game in the regular season
David averaged 34.3 minutes per game in the playoffs

6 important categories for a center
In each case Hakeem's numbers went up, sometimes significantly
In each case David's numbers went down , somtimes significantly or stayed the same (rebounding)

Some points:
- As always, the smaller sample size matters more than the big one because it's more important.
- By minutes, Hakeem should see roughly an 11% increase, and Robinson should stay the same. Hakeem saw about a 16% increase in scoring, 9% in bs, and 0% in rebounding. All other stats stay roughly the same, and the extra 5% jump in scoring isn't overly unusual.
- Robinson played nearly 1/4 of his playoff games his last 2 seasons, and 1/3 his last 3 seasons. Look at his stats in those seasons, they throw his totals off significantly.
- Those early season Spurs you mentioned performed pretty well, until they started getting injured in Robinson's third season with the players not recovering. Either way, arguing a single player's effectiveness based on his team's results is a dubious position at best, especially if you were trying to point at the Spurs' playoff results there, too.

ok subtract the last 3 playoff seasons off both of their careers

David scored 1808 points in 83 playoff games for a 21.8ppg average
Hakeem scored 3572 points in 131 playoff games for a 27.3ppg average

David grabbed 973 rebounds in 83 playoff games for a 11.7rpg average
Hakeem grabbed 1519 rebounds in 131 playoff games for a 11.6 rpg average

David was averaging 2.97 blocks per playoff game before his last 3 postseasons
Hakeem was averaging 3.43 blocks per playoff game before his last 3 postseasons

David was averaging 38.5 minutes per playoff game before his last 3 postseasons
Hakeem was averaging 40.8 minutes per playoff game before his last 3 postseasons

moofs wrote:- Those early season Spurs you mentioned performed pretty well, until they started getting injured in Robinson's third season with the players not recovering. Either way, arguing a single player's effectiveness based on his team's results is a dubious position at best, especially if you were trying to point at the Spurs' playoff results there, too.

I only brought them up because you asked if i looked at the rosters of those teams implying Hakeem had a better supporting cast in his championships vs the supporting cast in david's championships, which is obviously false.

Sorry Moofs,
On this one I have to give it to Dream. In Robinson's MVP year,Dream destroyed him in the Playoffs,just totally broke Robinson's spirit. Head to head,when it counted,Dream dominated the Admiral.
Just as Russell never put up Wilt-type regular season numbers,but come the Finals,Russell beat Wilt like a drum.

In a sense it comes down to do you value regular season stats over Playoff performances?

For me,watching the Hakeem,even from a game I taped,you could sense his will to win,to dominate. I never got that vibe from the Admiral.
Hakeem was the guy on his championship teams,Davis was a complementary player on his.

Honestly, despite the Rockets championship run in 94-95 where Hakeem did make Robinson his little rag toy for their conference final series, Hakeem and DRob have had over 30+ games against one another from 89-90 to 95-96. According to Wikipedia,

"From the 1989–90 season to the 1995–96 season, when both Olajuwon and Robinson were considered to be in their primes, in their 30 head–to–head matchups Olajuwon averaged 26.3 ppg, shooting 47.6% from the field. Robinson averaged 22.1 ppg, at 46.8% from the field."

Whilst Hakeem definitely had a better series than the Admiral in 94-95, the Admiral also had to pull single coverage on Hakeem, where as Hakeem had doubling help throughout the series. (What? You're gonna leave Elie, Drexler, Horry, Cassell and Kenny Smith alone? Doubling isn't an option, not when Hakeem became an adept passer in 90-91 and pushed his assists to 3.5/game.)

One of the things that made Olajuwon shine more than Robinson was that the spurs had a better team througout the early 90s. This no doubt raised Olajuwon's statistical numbers.

What really makes the sell for me as Olajuwon being the better player is actually not who won titles with less talent or who had the better numbers. David Robinson is an unearthly athletic specimen. He was taller, was more chisled, and was just amazingly fast from free throw line to free throw line. He made most of his career scoring 20+ points a game a season without one single go to move. Hakeem was shorter, less physically imposing, not as fast, but if you watch the guy move... If I had to put an instructional video together as to how a center should play in today's game, I'd take most of my footage of Russell, Kareem and Olajuwon. Olajuwon's greatest contribution to the game of basketball was that he broke the mold of the position with his uncanny grace and co-ordination.

It is unfortunate that David Robinson's lasting legacy in the NBA is that history is seemingly regarding him as a trampoline for Olajuwon's career. It's not fair. Robinson is one of the top 20 to ever play the position. However, Olajuwon in my opinion deserves to mention in the same breath as Mikan, Wilt, Russell and Kareem. Unfortunately, there's just this huge chasm between the top 5 and everyone else.

I think part of what makes Hakeem less talked about nowadays is that he's decided to seclude himself from the rest of the basketball world, only coming out when he has to. He's furthering his education in Jordan as a muslim. Due to the current political climate and his own wishes to stay out of the spot light, it's only normal to talk less and less about people you don't see everyday.

I'm so glad we took Hakeem over Jordan after reading this
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=a ... &type=lgns

killermamba wrote:Hey Guys. Please show some love to the Olajuwon thread I made in the General NBA Forum. It's labeled: "Hakeem Olajuwon made David Robinson his personal B____!"

I am seriously fed up with all these people putting Robinson and Ewing in the same class as Hakeem. it's just very disrespectful and degrading to the Dream.

Here's the link for those who are too lazy to look up the thread. Please show some love and rep!:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=943167&p=20714102#p20714102

You need to relax. The majority of people easily consider Hakeem to be the best out of those three. Most people put him in the same class as Duncan and Shaq.

As usual, I can't disagree with spolgar (short of including Mikan). The main selling point being "He made most of his career scoring 20+ points a game a season without one single go to move". Maybe more to come.

Also argued myself into a bit of a weird position with

Those early season Spurs you mentioned performed pretty well, until they started getting injured in Robinson's third season with the players not recovering. Either way, arguing a single player's effectiveness based on his team's results is a dubious position at best, especially if you were trying to point at the Spurs' playoff results there, too.

But eh. I think I was trying to lean it toward "decent players, but they had no depth", but not really sure. The argument doesn't look very coherent.

Moofs,
No need to explain why "The argument doesn't look very coherent."
After all,"It's a Realgm post. It doesn't have to make sense."

Only if you want your posts to be as good as PT's posts were.

I generally prefer to purple monkey dishwasher.

I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey strong bowels were girded with strength like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung.