Hakeem Olajuwon or Tim Duncan

[jzmagik]

Yea I would really pay attention to a homer Rockets mod regarding whether Hakeem is overrated or not.

PUH-LEEZE.

Statistics are half the story, good or bad. Overall I rank Hakeem slightly above the likes of Barkley, Malone, DRobinson, but let's not act like he was some super-imposing dominant force in the league.

I loved his poise, his quiet leadership, his clutch defense, and his array of moves in the post, but the guy had a relatively short prime, a very forgettable twilight of his career, and an unremarkable early career capped by an absolute DOMINATION by Larry Bird in the Finals.


I'd say he's quite arguably top 10 (I mean the guy is in the top 5 steals as a CENTER for God's sakes), but some people have tried to argue he was better than Bird or Magic, which is just preposterous.

I can't count the number of times you were wrong in that post. I suggest you actually read Palmer's post, and he's a Toronto fan, not a Rocket's fan.

[#1KnicksFan]

^ Palmer is the biggest Hakeem fan out there.


I shouldnt even have defended myself, youre obviously a newb.

[jzmagik]

^ Palmer is the biggest Hakeem fan out there.


I shouldnt even have defended myself, youre obviously a newb.

Ok, I think this post finishes off your contributions in this thread quite nicely.

[shawngoat23]

I loved his poise, his quiet leadership, his clutch defense, and his array of moves in the post, but the guy had a relatively short prime, a very forgettable twilight of his career, and an unremarkable early career capped by an absolute DOMINATION by Larry Bird in the Finals.


I'd say he's quite arguably top 10 (I mean the guy is in the top 5 steals as a CENTER for God's sakes), but some people have tried to argue he was better than Bird or Magic, which is just preposterous.

As far as I know, no one has argued that he was better than Bird or Magic, other than those ridiculous posters who compared Bird to Morrison or Kapono. And if you ask me, making it to the 1986 NBA Finals by beating the defending champs is pretty remarkable. No shame in losing in 6 to Larry Bird and the Celtics, especially with the cast he had.

[Harry Palmer]

Yea I would really pay attention to a homer Rockets mod regarding whether Hakeem is overrated or not.

PUH-LEEZE.

Ummm...okay? Solid argument, rebutted my points well, etc.

Statistics are half the story, good or bad.

Right. However they happen to be the only half we can objectively correlate...the other half being 'I say X, you say Y.'

I saw them both play a ton, I think X. You probably saw them both play too, you think Y. Short of statistics...what do we have to fall back on?

And the stats aren't really just half the story when applied to ANY TEAMMATE they may have had. Wins and losses are stats, which are arrived by by an accumulation of points, another stat, which are in teurn arrived at by virtue of rebounds, assists, and other stats.

And I demonstrated that, contrary to your assertion, the guys Robinson had supporting him contributed more stats that lead to more other stats (wins) than the guys Hakeem had.

You responded by calling me a homer.

Oh-kay then. I see where we stand.

Overall I rank Hakeem slightly above the likes of Barkley, Malone, DRobinson, but let's not act like he was some super-imposing dominant force in the league.

Well, certainly not after you made that empty assertion to the contrary, no.

I loved his poise, his quiet leadership, his clutch defense, and his array of moves in the post, but the guy had a relatively short prime, a very forgettable twilight of his career, and an unremarkable early career capped by an absolute DOMINATION by Larry Bird in the Finals.

Argh. Question: did Kevin Garnett learn to play a lot better this past off-season?

I'd say he's quite arguably top 10 (I mean the guy is in the top 5 steals as a CENTER for God's sakes), but some people have tried to argue he was better than Bird or Magic, which is just preposterous.

In your opinion.

[#1KnicksFan]

Lol wtf.

You think Hakeem is BETTER than top 10?

Yup, you're def. a homer. I'm sorry bro, but Hakeem is in the "Shaq" tier all time, and that's outside the top 6, which is frankly altogether agreed upon:


Wilt
MJ
Kareem
Bird
Magic
Russell


You wanna throw Hakeem at 7, sure fine. That's stretching it for me, but whatever. Not a chance is he higher than that though.

[WadeKnicks2010]

Very very tough.

This is as close as you can get..

I'll go with Duncan simply because of his extra rings. But it could go etiher way.

[kooldude]

Lol wtf.

You think Hakeem is BETTER than top 10?

Yup, you're def. a homer. I'm sorry bro, but Hakeem is in the "Shaq" tier all time, and that's outside the top 6, which is frankly altogether agreed upon:


Wilt
MJ
Kareem
Bird
Magic
Russell


You wanna throw Hakeem at 7, sure fine. That's stretching it for me, but whatever. Not a chance is he higher than that though.

There's a difference between "better" and "greater". I think Magic/Bird are greater than Hakeem but I think Hakeem was the better player of the 3. Hakeem dominated both sides of ball and how many big man can you call clutch. not many

[SuigintouEV]

Hakeem/Sampson beat the defending champ lakers, then won 2 games against the 67 win Bird/McHale/Parish/Walton/DJ in the finals.

Duncan has never even faced a 65+ win team in the playoffs, the closest being when he and robinson got swept out of the WCF by the underachieving-in-the-regular-season 56 win lakers in 01 and losing 4-1 vs the 58 win lakers the next year. I guess you've also got the 1999 Trailblazers... in a year when Robinson was very much playing at an All-NBA level.

Matter of fact, duncan in his career outside of those 3 aformentioned matchups hasn't had to face truly elite teams. Of the teams that won 60+ games (or had a similar expected win %) in the regular season you've got

2003 Mavericks - Dirk injury, not really that great a team
2005 Suns - Joe Johnson injury, backcourt matchup issues, no interior
2007 Suns - won it 4-2, but his team had an overall edge at multiple positions, C with him vs amare, SG with ginobili vs bell, pg/SF with bowen/nash and marion/tony parker
2006 Mavs - Lost 3-4

And quite frankly, the knock on all of those teams except the 06 mavs was that they simply were not good defensive teams. That's not a knock on duncan, it's just that he's glorified for all his winning sometimes too much.

In comparision, here's the ~60 win-or expected- teams hakeem faced:


1986 Lakers - Upset them, outplayed KAJ
1986 Celtics - Lost 4-2 to arguably the best team ever
1990 Lakers - Lost 3-1
1991 Lakers - Lost 3-0
1993 Sonics - Lost 3-4
1994 Knicks - Won 4-3
1995 Jazz - Won 3-2
1995 Suns - Won 4-3
1995 Magic - Won 4-0
1996 Sonics - Lost 4-0
1997 Sonics - Won 4-3
1997 Jazz - Lost 4-3
1998 Jazz - Lost 3-2

To be honest, I don't see any of Duncan's Post 2000 teams winning any of those series except the knicks one. Maybe I'd bet on the 99 Spurs against a couple of those teams that hakeem's team beat, but that's because they had two top 15 players playing excellent.

All I'm saying is , duncan has won when his team was better, as has olajuwon. But, besides the talent, he's also had many more opportunities ITO the teams he's been matched with. And you can blame that on seeding, but either way, many of duncan's championships have been on "lucky" years - 2005 when the heat suffered injuries to virtually thier entire starting lineup including wade, shaq, haslem, and eddie jones.

I'm gunna get flamed for what I just said, since you shouldn't say a such thing as a "lucky" championship, but the fact of the matter is, the last ~5 years, we've had the following happen:

2003 - Lakers scrape by and win 50 games based on just kobe, fisher, and shaq - no help whatsoever
2003 - Dirk injured - WCF
2004 - Sam Cassell injured - WCF
2004 - Karl Malone injured - the Finals
2005 - Joe Johnson injured - WCF
2005 - Wade and Shaq play injured - ECF
2006 - Mavs - Completely choke despite showing elite poise in the WC playoffs
2007 - Mavs - Meet the one team in the NBA that had really thier number
2007 - Pistons - not sure what happened

In 2003, the spurs were the best team. It was probably the weakest year in recent memory as far as the top tier.
In 2005, the spurs may have been the best team, but HUGE injuries kept us from seeing the team that was playing like it deserved to be in the finals. And they still got taken to 7 games by the offensively weak pistons.

[pballa]

I can see how Duncan is the more fundamental player but Hakeem has to be more skilled because his freakish athleticism allows him to do certain things that Duncan can't even dream of.

Hakeem ftw. He beat one of the best Showtime Lakers and almost beat the best Bird Celtics team.

correct.

[DwayneSchintzus]

if he was half as good as you people claim he would have won 10 championships and 8 mvps.

hakeem is the most overrated player on these boards. i watched his career myself - he mailed in a ton of games, and quit on his team i believe in the late 80s - demanding a trade.

no one ever brings this up.

[pballa]

if he was half as good as you people claim he would have won 10 championships and 8 mvps.

hakeem is the most overrated player on these boards. i watched his career myself - he mailed in a ton of games, and quit on his team i believe in the late 80s - demanding a trade.

no one ever brings this up.

he would have, but there was this other guy named Michael Jordan, he was pretty good at dis here basketball thing.

the guy put the ball THROUGH the net a lot of times, it was fantastic, i hope you watched this michael guys career too, he was a pretty amazing player buddy!

he has a website too jumpman23.com CHECK IT OUT!

[nyu3]

if he was half as good as you people claim he would have won 10 championships and 8 mvps.

By your logic, if Hakeem was half as good as claimed, he'd be better than Jordan/Russel/Wilt. In other words, people here claim Hakeem is more than twice as good as Jordan/Russel/Wilt.

[tkb]

he would have, but there was this other guy named Michael Jordan, he was pretty good at dis here basketball thing.

If Jordan was the sole reason why Hakeem didn't win more championships than he did, one would expect the Rockets to be in the finals more often than they actually were so that argument doesn't fly at all.

Lack of a great supporting cast earlier in his prime does though.

Edit: Hakeem and MJ actually never met in the playoffs, so MJ being in the league is kind of an irrelevant argument to why Hakeem doesn't have more rings than he does when the Rockets couldn't make it out of the western conference to even face MJ.

[Harry Palmer]

Lol wtf.

You think Hakeem is BETTER than top 10?

What does that even mean?

Yup, you're def. a homer. I'm sorry bro, but Hakeem is in the "Shaq" tier all time, and that's outside the top 6, which is frankly altogether agreed upon:


Wilt
MJ
Kareem
Bird
Magic
Russell

Oh, well, if you say it's agreed upon, I guess it must be. Hey, where's Oscar? Jerry West?

Woops.

You wanna throw Hakeem at 7, sure fine. That's stretching it for me, but whatever. Not a chance is he higher than that though.

Again, in your opinion. I also think you are confusing 2 separate discussions...who had the better career, and who was the better player.

For the former, the list you gave probably fits some, though Oscar and West and possibly Hakeem/Shaq are somehow forgotten, and we don't need to consider issues like how MJ did before Pippen et al arrived, how Bird would have done with Mad Max as his 2nd star instead of Kevin McHale, etc.

But in terms of who was the better actual player, those factors DO matter, and your list isn't nearly as important as you think it is, imo.

[MysteriousMystery]

Duncan better career. Hakeem better prime.

[Joker]

Discussions of who had the best career aren't that interesting. It's mostly based on quantitative numbers, and is often a function of who was the most healthy and who had the best teammates.

It's much more interesting to debate who was the best player, which reveals more about the players' athleticism, skill, bball IQ, drive, killer instinct, etc.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

It's much more interesting to debate who was the best player, which reveals more about the players' athleticism, skill, bball IQ, drive, killer instinct, etc.

consistency is part of being the best player.