#5 Highest Peak of All Time (Hakeem '94 wins)

[drza]

Duncan in 02 and 03 clearly surpassed Hakeem in terms of production from what I see with the SPM. In terms of impact, I haven't seen anything to prove that Hakeem had more impact than Duncan. It's small sample sizes for sure, but comparing the with/without of 91 (should be better defensively than 94) and 95 Hakeem (comparable to 94) to 05 Duncan, and 05 Duncan (clearly not his peak) still clearly surpassed Hakeem.

So what gives, why is it so ridiculous to rank Duncan over Hakeem? The best argument for Hakeem is that he played great during the 94 Finals and shut down Ewing. Awesome for him, but that's still only 7 games out of a whole season, and holistically speaking, I think I'm leaning Duncan over Hakeem. At minimum, I'd take Hakeem but barely, and they'll probably go right after each other.

And since I think LeBron/Magic/Bird/Kareem and possibly Walton/Dr. J peaked higher than either of them, that's why I'm not taking Hakeem.

Speaking as someone who'd love to vote Magic here but is finding himself more and more impressed by the bigs when I look at peak...what is it that makes you so certain that Magic/Bird/LeBron peaked higher than both of them?

IMO, I honestly think it's personal preference, because as other people have said, the top 13 can go in almost any order. So I'm not certain about anything lol.

But I think LeBron/Bird/Magic were significantly better offensive players than Duncan and Hakeem, and imo, I don't think their defense totally compensates for that. Very close, but especially considering I think they were all positive impact defenders anyway, especially Bird and even moreso LeBron, I feel more comfortable taking their peaks over Duncan and Hakeem.

LeBron is currently the most intriguing one to me, because I think I can build a historic level offense with the right pieces around him, and I think I can simultaneously build an elite defense around him. So overall, I think he gives me the chance at building the best overall team around his abilities at his peak.

I'll engage you, if you don't mind, because I really want to get to the heart of this. Especially that middle paragraph. You aren't comfortable with placing the bigs over Bird or LeBron, because they are positive impact defenders anyway...but on the flip side, aren't the bigs quite a bit more than positive impact on offense? Aren't they, in fact, elite offensive players?

Taking it to LeBron and Duncan, for example. As you often point out, Duncan was the centerpiece for one of the best defensive dynasties we've seen. So obviously you can build a historic defense around him. But couldn't you also build an elite offense as well? I mean, to build an elite defense around LeBron would require some really good defensive pieces. So if you put good offensive pieces around peak Duncan, say, like a prime Parker and Ginobili with attending shooters to fill in the gaps, couldn't you also have the #1 offense in the league?

I mean, I get your original point. A lot of this will be preference. But you've been rock-solid consistent that you believe the perimeter players to have peaked higher...is that all just preference, or do you have anything more tangible that you're basing it on?

[C-izMe]

For a vote I'll put in Hakeem 94.

I'm still wondering why more aren't voting for him. What more could you ask for in a season.

Just curious, how strongly do you feel about 94 over 95 Hakeem? It seems like 94 Hakeem was definitely better defensively and in the regular season but I find myself more impressed by the clutch playoff exploits of the 95 iteration...

It has to do with his supporting cast in the PS IMO. Not only did he have the better regular season (better defender in 94) he also didn't have Clyde to back him up (Clyde was great in the PS in 95).

In the first round in 94 (against Clyde and the Blazers) he averaged 34/11/5/2.5/4 on 56TS. Next highest scorer scored 17 a game.
In the second round (against Chuck and the Suns) he averaged 28.5/13.5/4.5/1/4 on 61.5TS. Next highest scorer put up 14 a game.
In the WCF (against Malone and the Jazz) he averaged 28/10/4.5/2.5/4.5 on 57TS. Next highest scorer put up 15 a game.
In the Finals he had the better performance of the two years by far IMO. He held Patrick Ewing to 19ppg on 39TS. Meanwhile he averaged 27/9(he was outrebounded by a distance)/3.5/1.5/4 on 55.5TS. Next highest scorer scored 13.5 a game (nearly half of Hakeem's) on 44TS. Third scorer put up 10ppg on 43TS.
The 94 Knicks also happen to be the best non Russell defensive team ever.

Meanwhile in 95 Clyde averaged 20.5/7/5 on 58.5TS and also put up 23.1/7.7/5.3 on 61TS in wins. He also played great in elimination games putting up 36/9.5/4.5 on 79.5TS to close out the Utah series and (after a terrible game 5) put up 24.5/8/4 on 59TS.

Going from your second best scorer putting up 14 on 47TS (total PS) to 20.5 on 58.5TS is major.

[therealbig3]

^Good points drza. It's more personal preference than anything.

And to be honest, I actually had LeBron a little higher, and I did have Duncan/Hakeem/KG ahead of Bird and Magic for a bit. I've been moving them back and forth, and I think I've settled in on Magic and Bird ahead of the big men because they've been talked about more and I've heard compelling arguments for them. I've made a case for Duncan a little bit, other people have mentioned Hakeem, and I do expect a lot of great KG arguments, but these three have been the least talked about so far, so maybe I'm not appreciating them as much.

But to your LeBron vs Duncan point...building that elite defense around Duncan was rightly pointed out as having required arguably the GOAT coach and very good defensive role players. So it's not like he took a broken defense and made them historically great. I think LeBron can take a supporting cast that isn't that talented (but fits him well) and make them historically great. I mean I think if he had someone like Pau Gasol or Amare Stoudemire in Cleveland, I think those become historically great offenses, and I still wouldn't consider the supporting cast as a whole to be all that talented.

Overall, maybe saying building around LeBron would give me the best team isn't exactly true, because technically, you could build a GOAT-caliber team around any of the candidates being mentioned right now...but I don't think he needs as much talent on his squad to take them to the same heights as the other players. For example, as I said with the Pau Gasol/Amare Stoudemire hypothetical, I don't think that's all that talented of a supporting cast, but it would be an all-time great offense. They were already top 5 defensively in 09, and maybe Amare makes them worse, but by how much? And Gasol most certainly would make them better.

I understand the concerns over Miami's offense, with Wade and Bosh, but I feel pretty strongly that it's an unusual situation of redundancy that no other superstar has ever really dealt with, and there isn't much depth to the team outside of the big 3. It's actually one of the reasons I'm looking forward to this season, because I think Miami is deeper, and with Ray Allen, Miami has a player that I think fits LeBron perfectly. So we'll see.

[C-izMe]

Personally I don't think there many guards you can build a team around and has a team that could be the first ranked offense or defense. If you replaced today's Tim Duncan with old school Tim Duncan and Manu with prime Manu I honestly believe that team could be the first ranked offense or defense if it wanted to.

[ThaRegul8r]

For a vote I'll put in Hakeem 94.

I'm still wondering why more aren't voting for him. What more could you ask for in a season.

Just curious, how strongly do you feel about 94 over 95 Hakeem? It seems like 94 Hakeem was definitely better defensively and in the regular season but I find myself more impressed by the clutch playoff exploits of the 95 iteration...

It has to do with his supporting cast in the PS IMO. Not only did he have the better regular season (better defender in 94) he also didn't have Clyde to back him up (Clyde was great in the PS in 95).

I've always been curious about this. What difference does it make what his teammates did when it's his own performance that is in question? If Drexler stepped up while Hakeem regressed, then I could see it coming up as a knock against him, but you can't fault Hakeem's actual performance, so where's the problem?

Not to mention the fact that Robinson and Shaq are better than Ewing. Robinson was the MVP of the league. Ewing was not. I have quotes of people reassessing Hakeem's all-time ranking, and they were not talking that way in '94 as they were in '95.

And as far as Hakeem holding down Ewing in the Finals, how many people other than me know that Hakeem averaged 33 points on 53.2 percent shooting, 16.5 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 2.5 blocks and 2 steals in the '93-94 regular season against the Knicks, and held Ewing to 12 points on 25.7 percent shooting, 9.5 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 blocks? Hakeem didn't do anything different to Ewing than he'd done all year. It was simply a continuation. But people don't look at the entire season. Just that Ewing's rebounding and blocks went up in the postseason while Hakeem's rebounding decreased as well as his scoring average.

I'm looking at quotes from '95 of people saying they've never seen a player play better than Hakeem did that postseason. I'm looking at Drexler saying he'd never seen anyone play better, and he was on the court against Jordan in '92. In '94 Hakeem got his first ring, which helped his career, but what he did in '95 was historic. He was the first player since Russell in '69 to win without HCA in any round of the playoffs.

The play of Hakeem Olajuwon throughout the 1995 playoffs has several basketball folks rethinking the talented center's place in the history of the game.

Olajuwon's name is currently being mentioned in the same sentence as Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in discussions of the best bigmen to have ever played in the National Basketball Association.

So it seems odd to me that people advocating for Hakeem wouldn't even mention it, since it was '95 Hakeem drawing historical comparisons, not '94 Hakeem. No one was saying he was on the level of Wilt, Russell, and Kareem in '94, but he's retroactively supposed to be 18 years later?

[C-izMe]

Well I believe no matter what he was on that level in 94. Its really a toss up IMO but I just find 94 more impressive because he did it by himself. He also had a better regular season that year and no matter what the difference is its minuscule.

[fatal9]

Hakeem probably peaked offensively/scoring wise in 1995 but he had clearly lost something as a defender and rebounder in comparison to 1993 and 1994. His overall activity level (outside of scoring) was also a little bit down in comparison. I think his '93 season is probably one of the most underrated seasons ever (clear MVP over Barkley for me), and I've perhaps never seen him play better than he did in the second half of that season. That would be his defensive peak to me (and the start of his offensive one), slightly edging out '94 though I wouldn't argue if you said '94 was his best defensive year.

Pretty sure Rockets had the best record in the league in the second half of the season when Hakeem and the offense just began clicking to the new "4 around 1" strategy. On top of that he was unreal in the playoffs, 26/14/5/5 on 57 TS%. In the do or die games, he had 31/21/3/3/7 and 23/17/9/3/3, and Rockets should have been the team in the WCF but pretty much got screwed in game 7 by terrible calls with the game on the line.

The Rockets series against Seattle he set the record for most recorded blocks in a 7 game series. His defense was simply spectacular. Here's a sample of it from game 7:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEGvKVNoJ8E[/youtube]

He is everywhere on defense, like he was all series and all year. This is a game which showcases Hakeem's offensive evolution as a player that year which we're all aware of. Seattle known for its suffocating trapping and double teams did that to Hakeem all game, but he had become the master of reading defenses and doubles by this time (also while Hakeem may not have been the most naturally talented passing center, is any other elite center who was a more dynamic playmaker than him?). While forcing shots over double teams was a criticism of him in his early career, by this time he had began picking apart even the most sophisticated defenses in the league with his decision making.

I guess I'd give '94 season the edge because it was more consistent from start to finish. But IMO he was a better player in both seasons than in '95. '95 was the most impressive playoff run, but again consistency matters when you are voting for the #5 peak all time (missed 10 games, clearly not as good of a RS as previous two years and saw a slight decline in some parts of his game).

Regardless, whichever year you pick, I don't think you can say anyone did more than Hakeem did for his teams in his prime. You always have the "but he didn't..." for other centers in their primes. You can say Shaq didn't hit FTs or play great defense outside of shot blocking or couldn't take over at the end of games sometimes, or that Russell couldn't hit FTs or score like the other elite Cs or that Wilt's scoring in a team setting had questionable impact or couldn't hit FTs or come through in big games, or that KAJ didn't have the motor/hustle/defense of the other top Cs or didn't outplay rivals enough.

What do you say about Hakeem? He had it all, and not only did he just "have it", he did everything at an elite level for his position and he peaked in pretty much all areas of his game simultaneously in '93 and '94. Score 25-30 a night, absolutely shut down the lane with his shot blocking, go out and pressure guards, defend pick and rolls, patrol passing lanes, rebound, win big games, outplay hall of fame opponents by huge margins, faced and defeated incredibly tough competition, a center who actually made his FTs, a leader with the hustle of a 12th man, outstanding playmaking and cerebral decision making to create shots for teammates (averaged 4.5 apg to go along with the 30 ppg he averaged from '93-'95 playoffs...goes to show how much of the offensive load he had to carry considering he played with pretty much no reliable playmakers/shot creators), a guy who delivered every single time his team needed him to, someone you could not predictably plan for defensively because he could kill you in so many ways from so many different spots and on and on. There's nothing you could realistically expect more from a center than what he did at his peak. This is the most flawless center we've ever seen. It's bizzare to me how comfortably people ranked Shaq, Russell and Wilt's peak over Hakeem.

[colts18]

But can we be sure that Hakeem is a portable player? Here is a passage from Bill Simmons books on Hakeem:

My one historical nitpick: you could argue that Hakeem’s prime (1992–95) worked so well because he didn’t play with another transcendent guy. Hakeem was something of a ball stopper: he caught the entry pass, thought about it, checked the defense, thought about it some more, made sure he wasn’t getting double-teamed, tried to get a feel for which way his defender was leaning, then picked an In-N-Out Burger move to exploit the situation. 23As weird as this sounds, he was better off playing with a band of three-point shooters and quality role players; he didn’t need help from a second scorer like Dominique or Kobe, nor did he need an elite point guard to keep hooking him up the way Stockton helped Malone. He just needed some dudes to spread the floor and one other rebounder

[ElGee]

So in the 3-pt era, who else has offenses like the ones you listed for a 5-year stretch? Magic's Lakers, Jordan's Bulls, Nash's Suns. That's about it, no? And obviously, in the context of determining an individual player, we need to make subtle accounts for offense/defense strategy (I agree Boston was more defensively-inclined, look at the OREB% numbers) and for their teammates. And yes, I think assuming the 3-point line doesn't matter is wrong, and I've posted numbers on the matter in this very project.

But that just means that the offenses were consistently elite, but none of them were truly historic. And Nash/Jordan/Magic led clearly better offenses on a consistent basis, so why do you consider Bird above Nash and Jordan as an offensive player?

I can agree with the idea that the focus of being more defensively-minded sacrificed some offense, but like you said, that's a subtle difference, and I don't think that was the difference between historic-looking offenses and "merely" elite offenses. I think 88 had more to do with the fact that Bird had the best offensive regular season of his career, imo, instead of simply a change in focus.

And regarding the 3pt line, from what I remember of what you posted, there were an equal amount of +6 offenses before and after the mid-90s (with the shorter 3pt line), in an equal amount of seasons. So I'm not sure how that shows the 3-point line has caused offenses to have greater separation from the average.

Context matters though. When I post team ORtgs, these are broad strokes for (hopefully) obvious reasons. If they weren't, I'd call Nash the offensive GOAT and be done with it. Part of context is not only scheme (Boston's WAS more defense), but teammates (see below) and competition (see below).

If a player is consistently +5 in the RS and +10 in the PS, whether from effort, concentration, motivation, rule changes, defensive scheme or whatever, then they are basically a +10 player.

They aren't a +7.5 player, or a +6 player or a +9 player. They are basically a +10 player. The PS data needs to be weighed accordingly in this story. There's no right answer, it's really about ironing out what is luck and what is a trend, but in Bird's case we have 5 years with 101 PS games, and the PS results are consistently excellent. We could post the "healthy Bird PS results" as

84 +6.4
85 +7.2
86 +8.2
87 +8.5
88 +8.5

The Celtics competition at this time was fierce: The Bucks, Hawks, Pistons and 76ers were all viable challengers. Grueling series wear teams down. Grueling series are tiring. Grueling series lead to nagging injuries and less rest while your opponent relaxes on the beach. Facing better teams changes your own offensive strategy if you have to focus more on defense/matchups.

84-88 Celtics EC Opp by SRS:
1984 -2.3, 4.0, 3.8
1985 -2.3, 2.7, 4.2
1986 -3.1, 2.6, 8.7
1987 1.3, 4.1, 3.5
1988 0.1, 4.0, 5.5 (L)

Avg. SRS = 2.5. Team over 3.0 = 8

Compare to LA:
84-88 Lakers WC Opp by SRS
1984 -1.6, 0.2, 0.7
1985 -2.3, 2.8, 2.1
1986 -2.1, 0.7, 2.1 (L)
1987 -1.4, -2.5, 0.1
1988 -5.0, 3.0, 3.6

Avg. SRS = 0.0. Team over 3.0 = 1

For Bird we have 101 PS games from 84-88. He breaks his hand in 85 early Philly series and the end of the PS is in the tank. His bone spurs begin against Detroit in 88 and he goes in the tank. Both these events coincide with the Celtics offense going in the tank. For all of the other data (some 85 games) over 5 years, we have +6 to +8 PS offenses. In his peak year, 1986, the numbers are outrageous until they travel to Houston -- this is the same year McHale missed a bunch of games and nothing changed. Think about that -- not saying 15g is a definitive sample of anything, but +9 SRS stretches aren't normal...and Parish-Superstar-Wedman-Ainge-DJ, does that sound like a +9 SRS team?

Bird's individual stats for the 15 "injured" games I outlined:
85/88 Injuries: 21.3 ppg 49% TS 5.5 apg 2.5 TOV
84-88 Health: 27.2 ppg 59% TS 6.7 apg 2.2 TOV

Correlation to the team?
-The first 11 games of the 85 PS they were +7.2. The last 10 they were +0.6.
-The first 11 games of the 88 PS they were +8.4. The last 6 v Det they were -4.3.

[Only 4.2 points per game can be directly explained by Bird's drop in shooting. The rest is the team around him (or implicitly, how a healthy Bird impacts the team around him. Notice the assists go down and the TOV goes up as well).]

This hurts Bird in an all-time list, but for a peak season (86) we know he's healthy. We can use all this to infer how important he was in the offense AND how good the offense was. When you say that strategy differences are "subtle," well, yeah that's the difference between a RS +4.3 offense and +6.0 offense. Teammate differences might be subtle too -- the difference between +6.0 or +7.0.

The Celtics played way better defenses in the East too during the RS. That'll make another small difference. Let's just compare 86 and 87 against actual opponents, not league average.

86 Celtics relative ORtg to league: +4.6 vs actual Opp: +5.2
87 Laker relative ORtg to leage: +7.3 vs actual Opp: +7.1

TLDR: There are adjustments that need to be made for all these contextual factors. And when you say "none were truly historic," I'd love to see how many team were better than 88 Celtics with bottom of the league offensive rebounding. Off the top, I'd call that "truly historic."

EDIT: The 3-pt line data slightly favors a wider distribution around the 3-pt era when you consider the 95-97 shortened line as well.

[ElGee]

Question back: Physically, I think Hakeem more matches Russell than Walton, but mentally I'm more sold on Walton. How do other people see this?

Do you mean you are more mentally sold on Walton, or that Walton has a better defensive mentality than Hakeem?

Whether or not Hakeem was well suited to lead high-level offenses, leading offenses playing at high-level IS the reason why he won two titles.

So to me this was either legit or fluky. And twice in row using a new strategy that now is basically the norm doesn't sound like fluky to me. Hakeem may not have been build to lead great offenses before the upgrade of role player scoring that's come with the 3, but I think he could do it now. Not going to say he's an offensive GOAT candidate, but I'm pretty reluctant to see an unreasonably low ceiling for his teams here.

First, let me say that 95 Hakeem is clearly his offensive peak for me because of the short 3-point line helping the role players. Those Rockets were devastating with this strategy combined with Hakeem's scoring/passing. But in 94 I disagree with what the picture you've painted here, and I feel we have another issue of "how good WAS that team actually."

In the postseason...
1993 Hou was +1.3 on offense (37% 3's)
1994 Hou was +5.2 on offense (39% 3's)
1995 Hou was +8.2 on offense (39% 3's)
1996 Hou was -1.2 on offense (33% 3's)

Olajuwon obviously wasn't the same in 96 as 95, be it age, coming off a late-season injury or just having to play that Seattle defense. But I consider this to be a bit of high-variance strategy (live/die by the 3). And Houston was very lucky to me -- they were no where near a dominant or large-margin champion. I'm not calling Hakeem's impact a "fluke," I just think this needs to be put into perspective (I would feel exactly the same about him if they won 0 titles, and I'd be here convincing people from the opposite point of view).

It should be noted that Houston beat SEVEN really good teams in two years with this strategy. So I agree with you about the low ceiling, I just think people need to do more evaluation about what was actually happening in Houston (including in years like 1993) outside of simply "they won the title!" (eg best RS offense of the 3 was 1993 at 1.7)

OH and let me be crystal clear: I don't think the Houston teams around Hakeem were very good!

[ElGee]

One more thing while I'm here: Can someone please make the case for Magic Johnson beyond box score numbers or the basic team stats we know? Why would he be ahead of Bird, for instance.

[PTB Fan]

One more thing while I'm here: Can someone please make the case for Magic Johnson beyond box score numbers or the basic team stats we know? Why would he be ahead of Bird, for instance.

It's very hard to because Bird was equally awesome. It all just depends on the criteria you're using. They did it both in their own way and their teams benefited from their amazing play.

[colts18]

Question back: Physically, I think Hakeem more matches Russell than Walton, but mentally I'm more sold on Walton. How do other people see this?

Do you mean you are more mentally sold on Walton, or that Walton has a better defensive mentality than Hakeem?

Whether or not Hakeem was well suited to lead high-level offenses, leading offenses playing at high-level IS the reason why he won two titles.

So to me this was either legit or fluky. And twice in row using a new strategy that now is basically the norm doesn't sound like fluky to me. Hakeem may not have been build to lead great offenses before the upgrade of role player scoring that's come with the 3, but I think he could do it now. Not going to say he's an offensive GOAT candidate, but I'm pretty reluctant to see an unreasonably low ceiling for his teams here.

First, let me say that 95 Hakeem is clearly his offensive peak for me because of the short 3-point line helping the role players. Those Rockets were devastating with this strategy combined with Hakeem's scoring/passing. But in 94 I disagree with what the picture you've painted here, and I feel we have another issue of "how good WAS that team actually."

In the postseason...
1993 Hou was +1.3 on offense (37% 3's)
1994 Hou was +5.2 on offense (39% 3's)
1995 Hou was +8.2 on offense (39% 3's)
1996 Hou was -1.2 on offense (33% 3's)

Olajuwon obviously wasn't the same in 96 as 95, be it age, coming off a late-season injury or just having to play that Seattle defense. But I consider this to be a bit of high-variance strategy (live/die by the 3). And Houston was very lucky to me -- they were no where near a dominant or large-margin champion. I'm not calling Hakeem's impact a "fluke," I just think this needs to be put into perspective (I would feel exactly the same about him if they won 0 titles, and I'd be here convincing people from the opposite point of view).

It should be noted that Houston beat SEVEN really good teams in two years with this strategy. So I agree with you about the low ceiling, I just think people need to do more evaluation about what was actually happening in Houston (including in years like 1993) outside of simply "they won the title!" (eg best RS offense of the 3 was 1993 at 1.7)

OH and let me be crystal clear: I don't think the Houston teams around Hakeem were very good!

How much of the offensive success in the 95 playoffs was Hakeem and how much was it due to his role players finally stepping up? If you look at the top 7 Rockets player in playoff MPG, all 6 of those guys had better TS% than Hakeem in the playoffs. In fact they did it by a significant margin. The closest to Hakeem was Clyde and he was ahead of Hakeem by 2.7 TS%. Those guys combined for a .601 TS% and Hakeem's whole cast contributed a .603 TS% in the Finals while Hakeem was lagging behind at around .530 TS%. Obviously Hakeem created a lot of those shots, but how much credit does he get for his teammates stepping it up in 95?

[semi-sentient]

I would argue that Magic had a larger impact on his teams offense by way of the position he played. He was the guy that dictated the tempo and largely responsible for the Lakers high octane offense, and quite frankly, Bird never led an offense as good as Magic's '87 Lakers.

How many times was the Lakers offense contained in the playoffs with Magic running the show in the mid-80's? The closest that we saw was probably the Rockets series in '86, but even then the Lakers shot better than 50% for the series with Magic averaging 22.2 pts (.632 ts%), 16.2 ast and 8.0 reb (imagine how much hype any other player would have gotten had he put up those numbers...). No team could stop their attack. If they lost it was because they couldn't stop the other team (Rockets murdered them on the glass) or they just flat out threw games away (like in '84).

[ElGee]

@colts There's no easy or correct way to numerically isolate this information. The best that I can think of is my stat opportunities created and helped offense -- this would help gauge how much self-creation these players have. I'm not going to go through the tape though...

In general, Global Impact overrides Self-Impact. So Hakeem could shoot 0% if he helps everyone else a lot and still be a huge positive. That he shot 7% less than his supporting cast has nothing to do with how much he helped the supporting cast. And as I've said, other guys still need to make shots, but the creator should be getting plenty of credit for giving them open looks.

[ElGee]

Btw, Here's as much lineup data around the peaks of the big guys that I can muster up:

91 Olajuwon +1.4 to 3.7 SRS (26g) -1.9 DRtg change
92 Olajuwon +11.7 to -0.2 SRS (12g) -10.8 DRtg change
93 Rockets w/out Thorpe were +1.6 SRS (12g) +3.9 w/Thorpe
95 Olajuwon w/Drexer In +6.0 to 1.7 SRS (8g) -4.8 DRtg change

00 Duncan +PS +0.6 to 3.7 SRS (12g)
04 Duncan w/Parker in +3.1 to 8.5 SRS (10g)
05 Duncan +10.0 to 9.1 SRS (16g)
06 Spurs w/out Ginobili were +3.1 SRS (17g) +7.7 w/Ginobili

02 Wolves pre-Brandon injury +6.9 SRS (22g) +5.6 ORtg
02 Wolves pre-Brandon return +7.3 SRS (37g) +7.3 ORtg
02 Wolves post-Brandon return +0.5 SRS (45g) +3.1 ORtg
03 Wolves w/out Szczerbiak were +0.4 SRS (30g) +3.7 w/Szczerbiak
05 Wolves w/out Cassell were -1.5 SRS (33g) +2.8 w/Cassell
06 Wolves w/out Wally and Garnett in were -3.5 SRS (42g) +0.5 w/Szczerbiak

77 Walton -3.4 to +7.9 SRS (18g)
78 Walton -2.8 to +9.5 SRS (24g)

75 Jabbar -4.2 to +1.4 SRS (17g)
77 Lakers after Washington injury were -0.9 SRS (28g) +4.5 before
78 Jabbar -1.7 to +4.1 SRS (21g)

So chew on this:

The 77 Lakers were +4.5 SRS around
Big
Ford/Washington
Tatum
Russell
Allen

The 93-94 Rockets were ~+4 around
Big
Thorpe
Horry
Maxwell
Smith

The 02 Wolves were +7 for half a year around
Rasho
J. Smith
Big
Szczerbiak
Competent PG

The 03 Wolves were +4 around
Rasho
Big
Wally
Gill/Peeler
Hudson

The 04 WOlves were +6 around
Johnson/Olowokandi
Big
Hassell
Sprewell
Cassell


The 77-78 Blazers were ~+8.5 around
Big
Mo Lucas
Gross
Twardzik
Hollins

The 03 Spurs +6 around
Robinson
Big
Bowen
Jackson/Ginobili
Parker

The 04 Spurs were +8.5 around
Rasho
Big
Bowen
Ginobili/Turkoglu
Parker

The 05 Spurs were +9 around
Rasho
Big
Bowen
Ginobili
Parker

[AnaheimRoyale]

Unsurprised Duncan 03 hasn't gotten the cred he deserves yet. That was one of the greatest seasons of all time, and one of the greatest one man carry jobs maybe ever. The Spurs team just sucked, something I'm sure most people here already know. Obviously the smaller voting block here is skewing the results a little, how can Wilt be top 4 on this thread, and not top 4 in the all-time list? Just strange.

[C-izMe]

Unsurprised Duncan 03 hasn't gotten the cred he deserves yet. That was one of the greatest seasons of all time, and one of the greatest one man carry jobs maybe ever. The Spurs team just sucked, something I'm sure most people here already know. Obviously the smaller voting block here is skewing the results a little, how can Wilt be top 4 on this thread, and not top 4 in the all-time list? Just strange.

Or maybe Wilt hit his potential for the year he won his first ring?

[Doctor MJ]

Personally I don't think there many guards you can build a team around and has a team that could be the first ranked offense or defense. If you replaced today's Tim Duncan with old school Tim Duncan and Manu with prime Manu I honestly believe that team could be the first ranked offense or defense if it wanted to.

Sorry if it comes across like I'm picking on you here but...

I feel like the Spurs resurgence the last couple years has made analysis of Duncan and Parker (and Ginobili a bit in the opposite direction) go crazy. People keep seeming to be in a rush to credit whichever individual player they focus, when to me it seems pretty clear that what Pop has done is create an ensemble offense where no player actually has to be an offensive superstar in order for it to work.

In that sense, yes Pop clearly can make a #1 offense out of prime Duncan since he made one using non-all-star Duncan. For anyone who thought there was a firm ceiling on what you could do with Duncan, very clearly, the ceiling doesn't exist like they thought it did. Probably the most dangerous thing you could do though with that piece of information is to say "Every other glass ceiling I imagined still exists, but Duncan has no ceiling". What that's doing, is basically giving Duncan yet another boost simply because he played under one of the most brilliant minds the game has ever seen over a period of stability no superstar in history has ever had the fortune to play with before.

(Incidentally, this isn't even what bothers me the most about the discussion last season. The craziest stuff was this revisionist personality people attached to Duncan whereby him standing around and not complaining signified his transcendant leadership abilities which were deemed the true reason why the Spurs were so good. Wrong on so many levels...)

So yes, I think Duncan can be on a #1 offense, but let's not forget about what Duncan was actually doing while in his prime. He was a very good offensive player no doubt, but no one considered him a candidate for best offensive player in the game. He scored in minor volume, with middling efficiency, and dominated on defense. Does anyone think he was capable of high volume high efficiency like a truly great scorer? If so, why wasn't he doing it?

[Doctor MJ]

Question back: Physically, I think Hakeem more matches Russell than Walton, but mentally I'm more sold on Walton. How do other people see this?

Do you mean you are more mentally sold on Walton, or that Walton has a better defensive mentality than Hakeem?

The latter.

Whether or not Hakeem was well suited to lead high-level offenses, leading offenses playing at high-level IS the reason why he won two titles.

So to me this was either legit or fluky. And twice in row using a new strategy that now is basically the norm doesn't sound like fluky to me. Hakeem may not have been build to lead great offenses before the upgrade of role player scoring that's come with the 3, but I think he could do it now. Not going to say he's an offensive GOAT candidate, but I'm pretty reluctant to see an unreasonably low ceiling for his teams here.

First, let me say that 95 Hakeem is clearly his offensive peak for me because of the short 3-point line helping the role players. Those Rockets were devastating with this strategy combined with Hakeem's scoring/passing. But in 94 I disagree with what the picture you've painted here, and I feel we have another issue of "how good WAS that team actually."

In the postseason...
1993 Hou was +1.3 on offense (37% 3's)
1994 Hou was +5.2 on offense (39% 3's)
1995 Hou was +8.2 on offense (39% 3's)
1996 Hou was -1.2 on offense (33% 3's)

Olajuwon obviously wasn't the same in 96 as 95, be it age, coming off a late-season injury or just having to play that Seattle defense. But I consider this to be a bit of high-variance strategy (live/die by the 3). And Houston was very lucky to me -- they were no where near a dominant or large-margin champion. I'm not calling Hakeem's impact a "fluke," I just think this needs to be put into perspective (I would feel exactly the same about him if they won 0 titles, and I'd be here convincing people from the opposite point of view).

It should be noted that Houston beat SEVEN really good teams in two years with this strategy. So I agree with you about the low ceiling, I just think people need to do more evaluation about what was actually happening in Houston (including in years like 1993) outside of simply "they won the title!" (eg best RS offense of the 3 was 1993 at 1.7)

OH and let me be crystal clear: I don't think the Houston teams around Hakeem were very good!

Boy I tell you, it really makes me uncomfortable essentially arguing that Hakeem had an unrealistic supporting cast run twice in a row, particularly when it's based on a strategy now common place, and where the %s they had isn't really that out there compared to modern standards.

I would completely agree that Hakeem was INCREDIBLY fortunate that Tomjanovich arrived on the scene, in the sense that he could have easily had a coach who didn't use a strategy at all like this. How to factor all that in in the context of this project though is tricky. In one sense, I find it absurd to look skeptically around any player season which was based off a strategy we now consider normal, but on the other hand, how would we view the '90s centers today, if it had been Robinson, Ewing, or Shaq who had had the coach with the strategic edge?