Who's higher on your all time list? Larry Bird, Shaq O'Neal or Hakeem

[mdonnelly1989]

All 3 peaks IMO are very close.

Larry Bird is a Top 5-10 passer of all time, AND a top 5-10 perimeter shooter of all time. And a Top 10 playmaker of all time. With just above average defense for career value.

Shaq is a top 2 most dominant player of all time in terms of pure will. With a Top 3-5 Peak of all time.

(Shaq is the only player who's "skillset" doesn't match his impact. Call it bullying, call it overpowering everyone else, but bottom line is he impacted winning in his prime so much so that he was one shy of unanimous MVP. Apparently the voters didn't care that he was 'skilled' in the conventional sense. And nor did the 3 ring he got.

Hakeem is a Top 2 defensive center / player of all time, depending on your take of Bill Russell. I place Bill Russell #1, given that he's a top 10 player of all time and his offense by todays standards are straight trash. Defense & rebounding is what counts for his impact on winning.

On top of being top 2 defensively. He was borderline top 5 offensive center of all time. And top 10 rebounding center of all time. 2 rings imo hurts him the most in this discussion, and love it or hate it but rings are taken into account majorly. (BTW, I don't take his head to head matchup VS Orlando Shaq that much into account, everyone knows Peak Shaq came after Hakeem was out of his prime.)

So who do you have...

[KyRo23]

Larry
Shaq
Hakeem

In that order

[NZB2323]

I think most people would have Hakeem last on this list, but he had worse teammates than Shaq and Bird and was a better defender.

[FarBeyondDriven]

Larry Bird is the 2nd best basketball player in history behind only Michael Jordan

[Maxthirty]

Larry, Hakeem, Shaq

[Lalouie]

it's not close and bird shouldn't even be in THIS company

[iggymcfrack]

Definitely Hakeem for me.

By skills:
Scoring: Shaq > Hakeem > Bird
Defense: Hakeem >>> Shaq = Bird
Passing: Bird >> Shaq = Hakeem

Hakeem's edge defensively is the biggest in any category, and makes a significantly bigger impact difference than any other player's edge in any particular skill.

[Capn'O]

Shaq and Hakeem i rate similarly. One might rise above the other depending on whether i wake up feeling dainty and nimble or like throwing my **** at someone.

Larry Bird rises well above these two on all days because he's Larry **** Bird.

[pipfan]

I have GOAT tiers
MJ/LBJ (LeBron's longevity moved KAJ to tier 2)
KAJ/Wilt/Russell/Shaq/Duncan
Bird/Magic/Curry/Hakeem/Kobe (Joker moving in soon)
KG/West/Big O/Dr J/Moses/KD

I loved Hakeem, was ok w/Bird and couldn't stand Shaq-but O'Neil was the most impactful of the 3

[SHAQ32]

Definitely Hakeem for me.

By skills:
Scoring: Shaq > Hakeem > Bird
Defense: Hakeem >>> Shaq = Bird
Passing: Bird >> Shaq = Hakeem

Hakeem's edge defensively is the biggest in any category, and makes a significantly bigger impact difference than any other player's edge in any particular skill.

Hakeem over Bird as a scorer? No way.

[iggymcfrack]

Definitely Hakeem for me.

By skills:
Scoring: Shaq > Hakeem > Bird
Defense: Hakeem >>> Shaq = Bird
Passing: Bird >> Shaq = Hakeem

Hakeem's edge defensively is the biggest in any category, and makes a significantly bigger impact difference than any other player's edge in any particular skill.

Hakeem over Bird as a scorer? No way.

Not in the regular season, but definitely in the playoffs:

Hakeem ('86-97): 27.5 PPG on .578 TS%
Bird ('80-'91): 24.1 PPG on .552 TS%

That's significantly better volume and efficiency for Hakeem even though '80-'85 were faster paced higher scoring years than '92-'97.

[Sane]

How can Shaq be higher on this list when Hakeem swept his ass in the finals? That’s stupid. Hakeem has decisively won that battle.

Meanwhile, lol @ Bird being on this list. He’s not in this tier. For half the game (defense) Bird is a mediocre player. There is not one second on the floor on offense or defense that you can call Hakeem or Shaq’s presence mediocre.

[SHAQ32]

Definitely Hakeem for me.

By skills:
Scoring: Shaq > Hakeem > Bird
Defense: Hakeem >>> Shaq = Bird
Passing: Bird >> Shaq = Hakeem

Hakeem's edge defensively is the biggest in any category, and makes a significantly bigger impact difference than any other player's edge in any particular skill.

Hakeem over Bird as a scorer? No way.

Not in the regular season, but definitely in the playoffs:

Hakeem ('86-97): 27.5 PPG on .578 TS%
Bird ('80-'91): 24.1 PPG on .552 TS%

That's significantly better volume and efficiency for Hakeem even though '80-'85 were faster paced higher scoring years than '92-'97.

I would hope Hakeem has a better TS% than Bird because he was a Center and Bird was a SF. And Bird didn't have the luxury of coming from an era where he could spam 3's and wasn't getting to the line 12 times/game to pad his True Shooting. But besides that, Bird and the Celtics were consistently making deep playoff runs in one of the toughest eastern conferences in history. Hakeem was losing in the first round for a large chunk of his career. When comparing the two, there's a clear gap in competition faced.

Just look at what Bird did to the Hawks. There's levels to this. Hakeem was great and all as a scorer, very aesthetically pleasing, but he's not in Bird's league.

[70sFan]

Hakeem
Shaq
Bird

[SlimShady83]

Bird
Shaq
Hakeem

[Masigond]

How can Shaq be higher on this list when Hakeem swept his ass in the finals? That’s stupid. Hakeem has decisively won that battle.

Hakeem only scored slightly more than Shaq in the 1995 finals (32.8 ppg to Shaq's 28.0 ppg) on significantly more shots taken (116 FGAs to Shaq's 74 FGAs). And he didn't turn over the ball as much and he hit a reasonable amount of his free-throws (but Shaq failing at making FTs isn't due to Hakeem, right?).

I really don't know how that narrative that Olajuwon was way superior to Shaq is still holding up. Yes, Hakeem's Rockets swept Shaq's Magic, but those two superstars were quite neck-to-neck. The bigger difference was how their teammates played. While most of the Rockets played good, some Magic players failed hard, especially in game 4, and game 1 was also close (won in overtime).

The narrative should be that Shaq could not dominate Hakeem like he did with so many other big men. Which is quite a testament for Olajuwon's quality in itself. That guy could not be broken and was very resilient.
But the narrative that Hakeem dominated him like he did with David Robinson (who was truly outplayed in volume and efficiency) or Ewing the year before (who had abysmal shooting percentages and scored only 132 points in 7 games while taking a whopping 160 shots to achieve that) is simply wrong and should finally be ended. Winning with his team against all three other great centers of that era is good enough without the exaggeration of what allegedly happened in the 1995 finals.

[12footrim]

it's not close and bird shouldn't even be in THIS company

Shaq and Bird are back to back in my rankings. Hakeem is the one that isn't even close when you look at his BPM, PER, MVP's, Championships etc.

[TheGeneral99]

Over an 9 year span from 1980-1988 (Bird's prime until his back gave out) look at his resume:

3 MVPs, 2 FMVPs, 3 championships, 9 all NBA 1st teams, 3 all NBA defensive 2nd teams, and not to mention the dude was runner up MVP four times during that span.

Look at his 1988 stats, his last year of his prime before back surgery: 30ppg, 9rpg and 6apg on 53%fg, 41%3fg and 92%ft...just incredible...putting up near Jokic type numbers on even better efficiency on a 50/40/90 season.

He did this all before the age of 31. If his career hadn't been cut short due to injury, I wouldn't have been surprised if he won another 1-2 MVPs and chips.

[dhsilv2]

I think most people would have Hakeem last on this list, but he had worse teammates than Shaq and Bird and was a better defender.

Yeah but he was also the worst passer here and our views on his teammates are likely somewhat biased due to that as well.

[dhsilv2]

Definitely Hakeem for me.

By skills:
Scoring: Shaq > Hakeem > Bird
Defense: Hakeem >>> Shaq = Bird
Passing: Bird >> Shaq = Hakeem

Hakeem's edge defensively is the biggest in any category, and makes a significantly bigger impact difference than any other player's edge in any particular skill.

Shaq is on a whole other level or 10 than Hakeem as a passer.