70sFan wrote:post wrote:70sFan wrote:
If your evaluation of passers is "I've seen both guys making similar passes" then there is no point to discuss this aspect further. It's not about flashy passes, it's about decision making, consistency, vision. That's what is important and Hakeem wasn't like Russell in these aspects. I'm not saying that Russell was Jokic or anything like that, but he's clealry better passer based on eye test.
So Hakeem's offensive peak is 3 first rounds exits? Why? Because he posted big numbers in very small sample of size? He was actually far worse passer, worse shooter and worse post scorer than in mid-90s. The only advantage he had over his older self is offensive rebounding.
Hakeem just isn't the best offensive center ever... he doesn't have any case in fact. Shaq and Kareem were clearly better, they led better offenses, had better numbers and impact metrics. Not to mention that there are others like Wilt, Moses and Duncan - all with excellent cases over Hakeem offensively. I get it that you like Hakeem's style the most, he's very fluid and he had a lot of moves but that doesn't make you better. Shaq, Kareem and Wilt actually fared better against the best defensive teams they faced than Hakeem (and they faced more elite defenses in playoffs careers).
If you mean DRtg, then Russell is clear GOAT and it's not close.
My numbers are not wrong, you can take them from BBallReference. Cousy was terrible scorer in 1960s, absolutely terrible.
I see that your analysis ends at "PPG", have you taken into account how much more efficient Drexler was than 1966 Hondo? Or maybe is it too hard to understand for you?
Thorpe was definitely an all-star level player but again you can't understand that because it requires more knowledge about the game than "PPG".
I don't think I'll have the time and patience for this debate. Believe in whatever you want, but you need to learn so much about basketball before starting threads like this here...
russell's pace adjusted assist stats are similar to hakeem's. i didn't say it's about flashy passes.
but flashy passes show a lot of skill in creating opportunity that might not have been there otherwise. if hakeem had to play russell's role in boston's offense he had enough vision and iq to play that role consistently based on eye test
a peak by definiton is a small sample size. hakeem was always a great post scorer.
and saying the only advantage his older self had is offensive rebounding is not intelligent when you just said you think he was a better passer in the 90's. it's also not smart because the stats clearly say he was a better offensive rebounder in the 80's. he had more athleticism in the 80's. you don't know what you are talking aboutwilt's numbers dropped a lot vs. the celtics. hakeem played against the number 1 rated defense once in the playoffs during his peak and so did kareem and they both lost. hakeem took bird's celtics to 6 games and kareem got swept by walton's blazers. kareem also never won anything without having a goat caliber pg, oscar and magic. hakeem dominated one of the goat offensive and defensive centers, david robinson, when both were in their prime in the playoffs. shaq was less dominate against an old robinson in the playoffs during shaq's peak and shaq had the good fortune of playing with a goat caliber sg in kobe so he never had to carry the offensive load hakeem did. and the nets in 02 had no center despite leading the league in defensive rating
no, there are not defensive rating stats for bill russell individually. his pace adjusted blocks are not that different than hakeem's
cousy was a great passer in the 60's and made it a lot easier for russell and everyone else to score. cousy shot 34.2% in the playoffs for his career. in his last two playoff years he shot 35.7 and 35.3. you are simply wrong
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/c/cousybo01.htmldrexler was much less efficient in the 96 playoffs when hakeem was going for the 3peat whereas havlicek increased his efficiency every year after the 66 playoffs. russell finished 4th, 5th, 2nd, 2nd, 1st, 3rd, 4th, 3rd, 3rd, 4th, and 7th on his team in playoff ppg in the years he won chips. that means on average he was the 3-4th best scorer on his team during chip runs. he was carried to an incredible degree as a scorer. it is almost impossible houston's rockets at any point in hakeem's career could've carried him to such an immense degree if at all
11 ppg and 10 rpg on 57%, what thorpe did in the 94 playoffs, is not all star level. it's very good role player level
Flashy passes don't show that... Consistency in finding good opportunities or even better - creating these opportunities are what makes player a great passer. Russell was never ATG passer, but he had that feel and he could find open guys in transition or in high post consistently. Hakeem didn't do that as well, especially early in his career. He missed a lot of good opportunities and he was quite turnover prone. He improved as a passer later, but we're talking about him replacing Russell so his early weaknesses are also important. Hakeem was never great passer, he was a poor one who developed into decent one.
Also, assist numbers don't tell anything about player's ability to pass the ball. You should know that.
I said that his only advantage OVER his older self is offensive rebounding, meaning that young Hakeem was worse at everything offensively except offensive rebounding. I'm not a native English speaker but I thought what I said is clear. Old Hakeem was better scorer, passer, playmaker and shooter. Younger Hakeem was better offensive rebounder. I got everything right here...
Here are numbers of 1960-68 Wilt, 1970-80 Kareem, 1986-96 Hakeem and 1994-04 Shaq against -4 rDRtg defenses or better:
Wilt Chamberlain (42 playoffs games): 47.5 mpg, 28.5 rpg, 4.3 apg, 28.1 ppg on 50.8% FG, 50.6% FT, 52.2% TS (+3.84 rTS%)
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (25 playoffs games): 44.1 mpg, 15.9 rpg, 4.1 apg, 33.3 ppg on 54.5% FG, 72.2% FT, 56.9% TS (+5.28 rTS%)
Shaquille O'Neal (48 playoffs games): 41.1 mpg, 13.3 rpg, 2.9 apg, 3.3 tov, 26.9 ppg on 55.8% FG, 53.5% FT and 56.9% TS (+4.59% rTS)
Hakeem Olajuwon (17 playoffs games): 42.0 mpg, 10.2 rpg, 3.1 apg, 3.4 tov, 24.1 ppg on 48.9% FG, 75.2% FT and 53.9% TS (+0.30% rTS)
Hakeem played by far the least amount of games against elite defenses, he also had clearly the weakest boxscore production against them. Funny that you mentioned 1986 finals, as Hakeem wasn't dominant in this series - 25 ppg on 53% and only 1.8 apg with almost 3 turnovers is nothing to dream about. Especially when you compare that Kareem dominated Blazers (and Kareem had much worse team).
We don't have Russell's blocks numbers, so you don't know that. I'm saying that Russell's teams were far more dominant defensively than Hakeem's, far more than any other in NBA history. Hakeem's defensive impact isn't close to Russell's.
So it's good for Cousy that he shot 35% FG because that's his playoffs average? What is this logic about? When you are always poor scorer, then you can be poor because it doesn't matter? No, I'm not wrong - Cousy had his value as a passer but his scoring was so terrible that it didn't make him elite (or even very good) offensive player.
If Russell's teammates were so good offensively then why Celtics were always among the worst offensive teams in the league? Certainly not because his HoF teammates were that great...
as a scorer if all you can do is make layups or wide open shots you're not a great scorer. because those shots are easier. as a passer if all you can do is make easier passes then you're not a great passer. i've seen bird make incredibly "flashy" or what i would more accurately call very not easy/hard passes, goat level passes, that create opportunity that would absolutely not be there otherwise. degree of difficulty matters
in his playoff career hakeem averaged 7.2 points per 36 minutes more than russell and russell averaged 1.8 assists more. 7 points is more valuable than 2 assists. 2 assists is only leading to 4 points which is less than 7. playing at a faster pace hakeem's numbers would be even higher if he played in russell's time
hakeem's playoff per 36 turnovers were 2.7 to tim duncan who had 2.4 per 36. nobody says duncan was turnover prone. it's an arbitrary cut off point when somebody becomes "prone" to something. there are no turnover numbers for russell so it's useless to even bring up hakeem's turnovers. pace adjusted turnovers say russell averaged 2.6. i guess we can't know for sure what they were but there are estimates out there which i provide below in the link on blocks and other stats. kareem's playoff per 36 turnovers were 2.8 which is higher than hakeem's while only averaging .2 more assists per 36 minutes than hakeem
i provided stats proving hakeem in the 80's had a higher 3 year peak scoring and true shooting percentage wise yet you continue to say 90's hakeem was a better scorer and shooter based on nothing
hakeem averaged 2.66 turnovers in the 86 finals. that's closer to 2.5 than 3.0. the celtics had a 9.06 srs and houston was 2.10. portland had a 5.39 srs and lakers had 2.64. so the lakers had a higher srs than houston and the gap between boston and houston was much larger than the gap between portland and lakers
all of wilt's stats are inflated due to pace so it's pretty pointless to use his raw numbers. i'd have to know more about the context of all those years in that 10 year stretch to know what happened every single year and have a better informed opinion about this issue of performance vs. "elite" rated defenses over a 10 year stretch. that's too complicated of an issue to simplify with stats. there is no context to those numbers
i don't know what rdrtg and rts are. like i said earlier in the thread, using all these infinite numbers is kind of insane because different numbers tell you different things and then next year someone will come up with a new stat that says something different about who is better
pace adjused block numbers for russell are here
https://doubledribble.wordpress.com/2012/09/13/nba-stars-of-1960s-pace-adjusted-stats/https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kOWQAe5Nx-6toTPUGi1O4Z3UlOQ_liIbJRTnilVEE8E/edit#gid=0eye test for me and adjusted rebound and block numbers give no reason to think russell was a defensive juggernaut way above hakeem's level regardless of what a team stat like defensive rating says. if you want another stat here is one
"Based on 20-years of RAPM data from the 3-point era, I credit him with about 6 points per game of impact on defense at his best. On a per possession basis, this is comparable to Hakeem Olajuwon."
https://backpicks.com/2018/04/02/backpicks-goat-3-bill-russell/ the quote comes from footnote 13 of the link. i don't know if it's a good stat. it's just some random thing i came across
the average league fg% in cousy's 13 years was 39.1%. his career regular season fg% was 37.5. his playoff career field goal percentage dropped to 34.2. so yes, he was a below average field goal % guy but so was jason kidd who could pass at a high level and is in the hall of fame
i don't know why boston had a low ranked offensive rating during russell's years. i do know he had a lot of guys that carried him on offense, a luxury hakeem didn't have
