Hakeem vs. Barkley offense only

[Doctor MJ]

I took the liberty of doing their "prime" statistics, Barkley wasn't a major contributor his rookie year:

Charles Barkley '86 - '96: 24.2 PPG, 4.1 APG, 4 ORPG, 55%
Hakeem Olajuwon '85 - '97: 24.1 PPG, 2.6 APG, 3.6 ORPG, 51.5%

Barkley did produce better statistics overall, but it was hardly a statistical blow-out. Comparable? Definitely.

Interesting. The definition of 'prime' is subjective so you're welcome to your own definition. Just so you know, most talk about primes in shorter increments than that. Typically 5 years or less. Anything beyond that is part of the longevity argument, and of course, the round mound isn't known for the longevity of his peak.

The 'comparable' part is interesting too. You're right it doesn't appear to be a blowout, but what's there to compare other than to say 'Olajuwon compares unfavorably to Barkley in every facet of measurable offense'.

[Loose Cannon]

Statistically comparing, Barkley surpasses Olajuwon but either way if I'm picking between the two players purely offensively I'm still picking Olajuwon for the position he plays and the way he plays. His efficiency in the low post is unmatched -- it's easier to operate a team around him this way (like I've said plenty of times). Because of this, his team has consistently been atop the league, both offensively and defensively, and he has the rings to back it up. They're different positions with different styles and different objectives, Olajuwon is always going to be at the mercy of Charles when you're comparing them this way. Is Malone better than Kareem offensively? Shaq? Forward vs. Center, stats don't account for everything.

Their primes are the years they peaked and I don't believe it's enough evidence to compare. But here you go:
Barkley '88 - '91: 26.7 PPG, 3.8 APG, 4.6 ORPG, 58%
Olajuwon '93 - '96: 27 PPG, 3.5 APG, 2.8 ORPG, 52%

As far as the Dream Team, well I'd hardly make the case for Barkley based on that alone, but it was the single greatest collection of talent in history and Barkley pretty clearly was head and shoulders ahead of anyone at that time. A lot more impressive than Anthony being the star on a team that when lucky can beat a bunch of sub-NBA scrubs. However I really bring it up because of its occurrence right before Barkley's league MVP and finals appearance. People don't often talk of it now, but when Barkley put it all together he was just a sliver below Jordan in his impact. The same can be said for Hakeem, but of course, that had a lot to do with his defensive impact.

Lucky to beat sub-NBA scrubs? The USA team? Get a hold of yourself. 'Melo outshined everyone on that team because guys like Kobe willingly deferred, as Jordan did with Barkley..it's not an accurate criteria by any means.

[nate33]

Can someone post pace-adjusted scoring numbers (PPG, TS%, ORPG) for both players during a five-year peak?

I'm interested in how their primes match up.

My spreadsheet doesn't caclulate ORtg. The best I could do was to pick their best seasons going by PER. These are pace-adjusted per-40 numbers:

Code: Select all

barkley,c  PTS  REB  AST  STL  BLK   TO eFG%  TS%  PER
1990-91   28.4 10.4  4.4  1.7  0.5  3.2 .589 .635 29.0
1989-90   24.3 11.1  3.8  1.8  0.6  3.0 .608 .661 27.0
1988-89   24.6 11.9  3.9  1.5  0.8  3.1 .594 .653 27.0
1987-88   27.2 11.4  3.1  1.2  1.2  3.7 .604 .665 27.6
Total -   26.0 11.3  3.7  1.5  0.8  3.2 .599 .654 27.6

olajuwon,  PTS  REB  AST  STL  BLK   TO eFG%  TS%  PER
1995-96   27.4 11.1  3.6  1.6  2.9  3.5 .515 .558 25.5
1994-95   27.4 10.6  3.5  1.8  3.3  3.2 .517 .563 26.1
1993-94   25.7 11.2  3.4  1.5  3.5  3.2 .530 .565 25.1
1992-93   25.3 12.8  3.5  1.8  4.1  3.1 .525 .573 27.0
Total -   26.4 11.5  3.5  1.7  3.5  3.3 .522 .565 26.0

It really isn't close. They're basically equal in points, assists and turnovers, but Barkley has a MUCH better TS%. Barkley's TS% is absolutely off the charts for a high volume scorer.

Let me put it this way: Since the 1979-80 season, there have been 682 instances where a player has averaged at least 20 points per game for a season. If you rank all 682 of those player-seasons by TS%, Barkley's top 4 seasons rank him 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 7th! He is easily the most efficient scorer in the modern era. Nobody even comes close. Not Jordan, not Bird, not Hakeem, not even sharpshooting specialists like Reggie Miller or Chris Mullin. In Hakeem's best season, he ranked 211th.

Barkley may have had some shortcomings as a player, but scoring wasn't one of them. In his prime, he was totally unstoppable. He either scored or got fouled on damn near every possession.

[Malinhion]

Seriously. Barkley's TS% is just baffling. When I was digging through his page and saw that, my jaw nearly hit the floor.

[Jordan23Forever]

Barkley's TS% are what Shaq's TS% would have been if he was a 75% FT shooter like Barkley was.

[Bank Shot]

27.2 points a game with a TS% OF .665 . Those are pretty much video game stats. Amazing.

[Malinhion]

Barkley's TS% are what Shaq's TS% would have been if he was a 75% FT shooter like Barkley was.

Yeah, he only shot better than 30% from deep twice, so that wasn't helping his numbers much.

[tsherkin]

OK, so let's have at this... offense-only.

My first problem with Barkley is that he and Mark Jackson are responsible for the 5-second rule; they took FOREVER to do anything and it was really frustrating and didn't build good offensive flow.

Barkley was a good and versatile scorer, explosive and had big-time takeover game but Dream's offense was faster and didn't have the benefit of being ONLY doubled. Olajuwon saw more triple-teams in a single season than Barkley saw his entire career (certainly after he went to Phoenix...) and so that means that despite the lower efficiency, you have to account for the fact that Olajuwon had less help because Houston management was way worse than what Barkley experienced (even in Philly). The deal is, pretty much after 1986, Hakeem didn't have a good team until the middle of the 94-95 season when the Rockets finally acquired Drexler. Barkley benefited from considerably more talent throughout his career.

So while direct statistical comparison is valuable to some extent, qualitative analysis of their situations is similarly important.

Another less-commonly discussed factor is that Olajuwon was pretty much nothing short of a demonic presence in the playoffs his entire career.

He's a career 21.8/11.1/2.5/3.1 guy (PTS, RBS, AST, BLK) in the regular season on 51.2% FG.

He's a 25.9/11.2/3.2/3.3 guy on 52.8% FG in the playoffs and has a number of especially notable postseason performances. Look at some of the single-series averages he posted in the 80s, or his 94-95 run through the playoffs where he dominated everyone so thoroughly that he embarassed an MVP and played 3rd-year Shaq as well as has ever been done. Or the year before where he took Patrick Ewing's dignity and crushed it in the palm of his hand. I mean, this is a guy who had some truly epic performances... and mostly against incredible defenders and team defenses that didn't care about his teammates, only stopping him.

Barkley has some very gaudy numbers on some offensively talented teams but he also spent a damned long time working to set up those high-efficiency shots and wasting a lot of time that would have been better spent moving the ball.

[jeahwe]

Olajuwon saw more triple-teams in a single season than Barkley saw his entire career (certainly after he went to Phoenix...)

Any prove? Books or webpages links?

and played 3rd-year Shaq as well as has ever been done.

Well...
Shaq
vs 1995 Rockets
59.4%FG, 28.0 ppg, 12.5 rpg, 6.2 apg, 2.5 bpg

vs 1994 Pacers
51.1% FG, 20.7 ppg, 13.3 rpg, 2.3 apg, 3.0 bpg

vs 1995 Celtics
53.7%FG, 22.5 ppg, 13.5 rpg, 1.0 apg, 1.5 bpg

vs 1995 bulls
48.4%FG, 24.3 ppg, 13.2 rpg, 4.0 apg, 2.0 bpg

vs 1996 Pistons
50.9%FG, 21.0 ppg, 6.7 rpg, 5.3 apg, 1.0 bpg

vs 1997 Blazers
53.4%FG, 33.0 ppg, 9.2 rpg, 3.2 apg, 1.7 bpg

vs 1997 Jazz
49.4%FG, 22.0 ppg, 11.6 rpg, 3.2 apg, 2.0 bpg

vs 1999 Spurs
49.2%FG, 23.7 ppg, 13.0 rpg, 0.5 apg, 1.7 bpg

[tsherkin]

Any prove? Books or webpages links?

I'll hunt around but I'm working based mainly off of observation; Olajuwon had bubkis on his squads after Sampson and before Drexler, so teams did nothing BUT swarm him in ways that Barkley, Shaq, et al have not had to handle on account of their rosters almost always being superior to anything Olajuwon faced during that timeframe.

and played 3rd-year Shaq as well as has ever been done.

Not what I meant, I was talking about matching up to him offensively, since this discussion isn't supposed to account for defense. I was talking about his 35-some ppg average in the '95 Finals.

[jeahwe]

Not what I meant, I was talking about matching up to him offensively, since this discussion isn't supposed to account for defense. I was talking about his 35-some ppg average in the '95 Finals.

Ok, but what's the point of talking about that? Shaq wasn't good defender then so it's not special to play very good against him if you are one of the best centers of all time.
And nobody except Hakeem played so good against him because in “Shaq era” O'Neal almost never faced good centers in playoffs, because there generally weren't any. Ewing and Zo never played against Shaq and Robinson never was the same after Duncan arrived.

Smits, Montross, Longley, Thorpe/West, Laettner, Sabonis, Ostertag, MciLvaine, Foster, Divac, MacCulloch, Rasho... those center Shaq faced in playoffs.

Plus Robinson/Duncan, Dikembe and Hakeem.

And if we look at stats those only very good centers Shaq played against, we will see:

Olajuwon 1995 vs Shaq
11.5 rpg, 5.5 apg, 2.0 bpg, 32.8 ppg 48.2%FG

Mutombo 2001 vs Shaq
12.2 rpg, 0.4 apg, 2.2 bpg, 16.8 ppg 60.0%FG (that's not great numbers, but really impressive if we look at his stats in rest of this playoffs: 13.1 ppg and 45.1%FG)

Duncan 2003 vs Shaq
11.8 rpg, 4.8 apg, 1.3 bpg, 28.0 ppg, 52.9%FG
(Tim also had very good series against O'Neal in 1999, but of course then there was Robinson)

[tsherkin]

Ok, but what's the point of talking about that? Shaq wasn't good defender then so it's not special to play very good against him if you are one of the best centers of all time.

He's still 7'1, 7'7 wingspan, massive in the post with his 300+ -pound frame and very mobile. Good shot-blocker, tough (nigh-impossible) to back down, etc. He was a good defender in the post and generally as a help defender as a younger guy but he was playing with Deke, Zo, Dream, Admiral and Ewing who were all-time greats defensively... that doesn't foster a great deal of recognition defensively.

And nobody except Hakeem played so good against him because in “Shaq era” O'Neal almost never faced good centers in playoffs, because there generally weren't any. Ewing and Zo never played against Shaq and Robinson never was the same after Duncan arrived.

Yeah but regular season battles are of some value here and Shaq generally dominated these guys, doing well against them even as a rookie.

Anyway, we're looking at Olajuwon here, not Shaq and Shaq is not the pivot point of my argument for Hakeem over Barkley on offense. My point is this: Olajuwon's performances have ranged against a variety of diferent defenses with weaker team support and he's come through as a monster... especially in the playoffs, when it counts the most anyway.

AND he's done all that while being a defensive monster, expending energy Barkley never did because he was a lazy rag on one end of the floor and undersized to boot.

I'm not saying there's a massive gap here but I'd take Dream's offense over Chuck's any time because it was faster, it was comparably versatile, still very efficient and because he was more effective against taller guys in the post. Barkley complemented his backdown game with a lot of face-up stuff and 2 3PA a game (on his career, more in some seasons), rarely good ones. Barkley was a hybrid player and Dream a classic center, of more value in my opinion.

I don't think raw stats really tell the story here.

[nate33]

OK, so let's have at this... offense-only.

My first problem with Barkley is that he and Mark Jackson are responsible for the 5-second rule; they took FOREVER to do anything and it was really frustrating and didn't build good offensive flow.

Barkley was a good and versatile scorer, explosive and had big-time takeover game but Dream's offense was faster and didn't have the benefit of being ONLY doubled. Olajuwon saw more triple-teams in a single season than Barkley saw his entire career (certainly after he went to Phoenix...) and so that means that despite the lower efficiency, you have to account for the fact that Olajuwon had less help because Houston management was way worse than what Barkley experienced (even in Philly). The deal is, pretty much after 1986, Hakeem didn't have a good team until the middle of the 94-95 season when the Rockets finally acquired Drexler. Barkley benefited from considerably more talent throughout his career.

So while direct statistical comparison is valuable to some extent, qualitative analysis of their situations is similarly important.

Another less-commonly discussed factor is that Olajuwon was pretty much nothing short of a demonic presence in the playoffs his entire career.

He's a career 21.8/11.1/2.5/3.1 guy (PTS, RBS, AST, BLK) in the regular season on 51.2% FG.

He's a 25.9/11.2/3.2/3.3 guy on 52.8% FG in the playoffs and has a number of especially notable postseason performances. Look at some of the single-series averages he posted in the 80s, or his 94-95 run through the playoffs where he dominated everyone so thoroughly that he embarassed an MVP and played 3rd-year Shaq as well as has ever been done. Or the year before where he took Patrick Ewing's dignity and crushed it in the palm of his hand. I mean, this is a guy who had some truly epic performances... and mostly against incredible defenders and team defenses that didn't care about his teammates, only stopping him.

Barkley has some very gaudy numbers on some offensively talented teams but he also spent a damned long time working to set up those high-efficiency shots and wasting a lot of time that would have been better spent moving the ball.

There are some valid points here, but I think you are thinking of "Phoenix Barkley", not "Philly Barkley". Those .650 TS% seasons took place in Philly. Phoenix Barkley did indeed back people down a la Mark Jackson and sometimes killed the offensive flow. But Philly Barkley did no such thing. Philly Barkley was so explosive that he just blew past guys and dunked on them. Opposing PF's were too slow to stay in front of him, and opposing SF's just couldn't deal with Barkley's strength.

[tsherkin]

There are some valid points here, but I think you are thinking of "Phoenix Barkley", not "Philly Barkley". Those .650 TS% seasons took place in Philly. Phoenix Barkley did indeed back people down a la Mark Jackson and sometimes killed the offensive flow. But Philly Barkley did no such thing. Philly Barkley was so explosive that he just blew past guys and dunked on them. Opposing PF's were too slow to stay in front of him, and opposing SF's just couldn't deal with Barkley's strength.

Philly Barkley was quite explosive, yes. He was also epic fail about protecting the ball for a large chunk of his Philly career, averaging 3.8 - 4.7 tpg for almost 40% of his time in Philly (3 of 8 seasons).

But even if you ignore that (which is legit, because Olajuwon had 1 season like that but generally replaced turnover problems with 9 seasons at 3.7+ fpg), the bigger problem is that Barkley's offense didn't translate across his whole career.

He got worse much sooner than did Hakeem. Sir Charles was especially efficient and awesome and what-not for 7 seasons. Then he turned 29, went to Phoenix, and was considerably less efficient from then on out and absolutely less valuable than Olajuwon.

By contrast, Olajuwon maintained his baseline level of offensive production for 13 consecutive seasons, including a 4-year peak in his early 30s... trending exactly OPPOSITE to Barkley. For four seasons from 30 to 33, Olajuwon averaged 27 ppg over 306 games. In the same period, Barkley (who was experiencing a 6%+ drop in his field goal efficiency and a notable drop in his offensive rebounding) declined from being an explosive 25-28 ppg scorer to scoring 25.6, 21.6, 23, 23.2 and 19.2 ppg (from 29 to 33).... although the 19 ppg was alongside Olajuwon in Houston (Dream averaged 23.2 ppg).

The problem? Overreliance on athleticism. Olajuwon's 6'10 and that means he's considerably more valuable offensively over a longer period of time. You get a peak from Sir Charles that has a higher TS%, sure... but then it goes away... rapidly. In 92-93, at 29, in Phoenix, he still posted a TS% of over 59%, which is great... but then he was never higher than 58.5% and only went higher than 57.2% twice... and under that in the other 4 remaining years of his career as his volume and efficiency decreased.

I don't know, again, I think that Barkley's offense was great and everything, even when he was an explosive, undersized 4 as opposed to a large-arsed undersized 4 with an improved jumper, but I'd rather rely on Olajuwon's post offense because of what it meant for floor spacing and because it was more reliable long-term.

A classic post scorer will almost always be superior to a more efficient wing scorer because of where a dominant low-block guy will drag the defense and how he warps the spread of the floor.