RealGM

Same idea as the greatest primes project but with a new player.

Odinn21 wrote:Things to follow;
- Reg. season and postseason play, both are included in evaluations.
- A simple 12/11/.../2/1 point system will be used for the project.
Evaluations will be based on the seasons, not the players direclty as an outcome of a single vote.
- Explanations are needed, even in short forms. (Though for a project like this, I'd appreciate long posts personally. Saying this as a voter, not the commissioner.)

Without going too deep into it I'd say

1. 94 Hakeem
2. 93 Hakeem
3. 95 Hakeem
4. 95 David
5. 94 David
6. 91 David
7. 90 Hakeem
8. 86 Hakeem
9. 96 Hakeem
10. 89 Hakeem
11. 92 David
12. 96 David

Hakeem's playoff runs are overall just so much better that its hard not to give him the advantage in a lot of these seasons.

1.93 Hakeem
2.94 Hakeem
3.95 Hakeem
4.96 Robinson
5.95 Robinson
6.94 Robinson
7.91 Robinson
8.90 Hakeem
9.87 Hakeem
10.89 Hakeem
11.98 Robinson
12.88 Hakeem

Hakeem's top seasons:

1993
1994
1995
1989
1990
1987
1997
1996
1986

Robinson's top seasons:

1995
1994
1996
1993
1991
1990
1998

My list:

1. 1993 Hakeem Olajuwon - just far more resilient offensive player than Robinson and I have Hakeem's defensive peak above Robinson.
2. 1994 Hakeem Olajuwon - the same as 1993.
3. 1995 Hakeem Olajuwon - that's tough, because Hakeem had much worse RS than Robinson. That said, I can't see David replicating Hakeem's postseason performance, even with Rockets supporting cast.

4. 1995 David Robinson - very close between Robinson and 1989 Hakeem, but I decided to give Admiral the edge for his RS carryjob. He was quite good in the playoffs as well.
5. 1989 Hakeem Olajuwon - although his RS was clearly worse than Robinson's, Admiral underperformed heavily in the playoffs and I don't see younger Hakeem struggling against Karl Malone so much.
6. 1994 David Robinson - I would probably pick 1990 Hakeem over that version of Robinson as well, but Olajuwon underperformed against the Lakers offensively and his RS wasn't as good either.
7. 1996 David Robinson - same thing, worse RS than 1994 and comparable playoffs.
8. 1990 Hakeem Olajuwon - unreal defensive season, but slightly down offensive season for him.

9. 1987 Hakeem Olajuwon - again, more resilient scoring is enough over better passing from Robinson to me.
10. 1993 David Robinson - not nearly as good of a passer as later versions.
11. 1991 David Robinson - more raw, but higher motor than old Hakeem. Much better in RS as well.
12. 1997 Hakeem Olajuwon - much more experienced than rookie David.

HM: 1990 Robinson

Don’t have a list but think I’d be higher on Robinson/lower on Olajuwon than the lists given.

For clarity I do skew a lot more towards RS than the norm.
My rationale:
Robinson’s substantial RS production (box composite) lead.
Robinson’s larger body of data supporting (huge) impact.

Robinson’s data supporting huge impact.
Robinson’s late career playoff supporting him sustaining huge impact into playoffs.


Internal logic wise (and noting as somewhat of a premise the large evidence of impact, even when not huge boxscore e.g. later career) rookie (’90) Robinson has a better Reference composite box year than ’90 Olajuwon … he has a more productive playoffs than Olajuwon and advances deeper than him.

Gaps can be small, reasoning will differ. But thus far there has been a consensus on Olajuwon ’90 7th or 8th and Robinson ’90 as outside the 12 list. And given the consensus support for Olajuwon collaring all the top 3 slots (and mostly absences of ’92 Robinson where he’s set to miss as best I can tell, circa the first 1.5 playoff rounds) I assume lists are tilting towards playoffs. So I think I’ve got to be missing something. Not saying this ranking is wrong, just that I'm not seeing how to get there.

this is hard because the real reason we have olajuwon clearly ahead of robinson is the playoffs

but hakeem and his teams are not any more of a threat than robinson ones for most of his prime (87-92~) so how do we evaluate olajuwon those years?

do we assume he had the ability to go full 94-95 mode and only lacked the team support or go by what actuallt happened in the 87~92 period (which was robinson very arguably being the best regular season player and neither standing out in the post season)?

Robinson Hakeem is one of the most interesting ATG comparisons. Three reasons it always comes up is:

1. Near contemporaries.
2. Regular Season vs Post-Season
3. 1995 WCF

And an underdiscussed topic
1. Neither one of these guys played with elite talents during most of their prime. Who do we think pairs better with elite talents?

sp6r=underrated wrote:Robinson Hakeem is one of the most interesting ATG comparisons. Three reasons it always comes up is:

1. Near contemporaries.
2. Regular Season vs Post-Season
3. 1995 WCF

And an underdiscussed topic
1. Neither one of these guys played with elite talents during most of their prime. Who do we think pairs better with elite talents?

Had San Antonio doubled Olajuwon like Houston did Robinson things could be very different.

migya wrote:

sp6r=underrated wrote:Robinson Hakeem is one of the most interesting ATG comparisons. Three reasons it always comes up is:

1. Near contemporaries.
2. Regular Season vs Post-Season
3. 1995 WCF

And an underdiscussed topic
1. Neither one of these guys played with elite talents during most of their prime. Who do we think pairs better with elite talents?

Had San Antonio doubled Olajuwon like Houston did Robinson things could be very different.

San Antonio's defensive strategy was very sound. They had by far the best defensive performance of any team against the 95 Rockets. If Rodman didn't go full moron they probably win.

1995 WC1 HOU ORTG: 120.6
1995 WCS HOU ORTG: 115.9
1995 WCF HOU ORTG: 110.6
1995 FIN HOU ORTG: 117.1

1995 Rockets are with the 2006 Heat the weakest NBA champion I ever saw. But they played well above their head offensively for those 2 months with just absurdly high shooting that they never replicated again.

sp6r=underrated wrote:

migya wrote:

sp6r=underrated wrote:Robinson Hakeem is one of the most interesting ATG comparisons. Three reasons it always comes up is:

1. Near contemporaries.
2. Regular Season vs Post-Season
3. 1995 WCF

And an underdiscussed topic
1. Neither one of these guys played with elite talents during most of their prime. Who do we think pairs better with elite talents?

Had San Antonio doubled Olajuwon like Houston did Robinson things could be very different.

San Antonio's defensive strategy was very sound. They had by far the best defensive performance of any team against the 95 Rockets. If Rodman didn't go full moron they probably win.

1995 WC1 HOU ORTG: 120.6
1995 WCS HOU ORTG: 115.9
1995 WCF HOU ORTG: 110.6
1995 FIN HOU ORTG: 117.1

1995 Rockets are with the 2006 Heat the weakest NBA champion I ever saw. But they played well above their head offensively for those 2 months with just absurdly high shooting that they never replicated again.

Robinson was defended beer than Olajuwon because of the doubling. It is the big difference.

migya wrote:

sp6r=underrated wrote:

migya wrote:

Had San Antonio doubled Olajuwon like Houston did Robinson things could be very different.

San Antonio's defensive strategy was very sound. They had by far the best defensive performance of any team against the 95 Rockets. If Rodman didn't go full moron they probably win.

1995 WC1 HOU ORTG: 120.6
1995 WCS HOU ORTG: 115.9
1995 WCF HOU ORTG: 110.6
1995 FIN HOU ORTG: 117.1

1995 Rockets are with the 2006 Heat the weakest NBA champion I ever saw. But they played well above their head offensively for those 2 months with just absurdly high shooting that they never replicated again.

Robinson was defended beer than Olajuwon because of the doubling. It is the big difference.

It's part of the box difference between the two individuals certainly.

But regardless of how it came about (and Rodman has said he wouldn't do some of the things he was asked to in that series - and in some instances doesn't seem to help defend inside or out) there is a fair argument (such as in the numbers above, though small samples etc) that letting Olajuwon try to beat you by himself was better than facing a barrage from the Rocket launchers (Horry, Cassell, Smith, Elie, Drexler, Chilcutt) from the shorter line.

falcolombardi wrote:this is hard because the real reason we have olajuwon clearly ahead of robinson is the playoffs

but hakeem and his teams are not any more of a threat than robinson ones for most of his prime (87-92~) so how do we evaluate olajuwon those years?

do we assume he had the ability to go full 94-95 mode and only lacked the team support or go by what actuallt happened in the 87~92 period (which was robinson very arguably being the best regular season player and neither standing out in the post season)?

The main reason Olajuwon is rated over Drob is the 94 and 95 playoff performance and a nod to what he did in 88.

But if we took only the RS's that would definitely make this a much more difficult comparison.

The problem is, there is the other narrative that winning in the playoffs should not matter as much. The small sample size of the playoffs is not indicative of the quality of the player.

This is why there is pushback on inconsistent arguments.

How much do we rate the RS vs the PS and then does the team results matter....

G35 wrote:But if we took only the RS's that would definitely make this a much more difficult comparison.

From some of the above I don't think it would particularly difficult in terms of the general trends.

I'll do the Reference box composites because of ease, familiarity etc people can add more recent refined metrics if they wish
Robinson has all but one season of 90-98 above 26 PER (not '93 and throw out '97 because only 6 games), so 7 years.
Olajuwon has 1 season over ('93) and one exactly at ('95).

Robinson has all bar two seasons above .200 WS/48, so 11 years (plus '97)
Olajuwon has 3 years above that threshold ('93, '94 and narrowly, '91)

Robinson has 6 years of BPM above eight to Olajuwon's 0. Or 8 above six point five to Olajuwon's 2. Or 9 (plus '97) above six to Olajuwon's 3.

The thresholds above are arbitrary but I haven't aggressively picked to cut out Olajuwon (if you count the 26.0 season Olajuwon has the worst included season in PER and two of the worst 3 included; has the worst included WS/48 season etc).

Pelton's WARP gives Olajuwon a narrow career total lead but Robinson the better rate player (enough so that, informed by a weighted model using mostly RS data, but acknowledging differences in apparent playoff resilience "Despite all that, [Pelton's] ultimate conclusion is that Robinson has been the best of the group of elite centers in the NBA the last quarter-century [this from 2008 comparing Robinson, Olajuwon, Shaq and Ewing]") and gives Robinson the two best seasons then one for Hakeem, three more for Robinson, one for Hakeem, one more for Robinson, one for Hakeem then two more for Robinson)

Robinson's 94-96 on-off is better every year (by at least 5 points each year - and fairly clear leads in the attempt to reverse engineer a faux-RAPM from those numbers). His impact era data is substantially better though that is no longer against Olajuwon's prime.

Granting that there's less data pre-94 (and people may generalize differently or not at all from the data available later), I haven't covered every tool and people vary in what they value ... RS only Robinson would, I think, tend to dominate these lists.

Cavsfansince84 wrote:Without going too deep into it I'd say

1. 94 Hakeem
2. 93 Hakeem
3. 95 Hakeem
4. 95 David
5. 94 David
6. 91 David
7. 90 Hakeem
8. 86 Hakeem
9. 96 Hakeem
10. 89 Hakeem
11. 92 David
12. 96 David

Hakeem's playoff runs are overall just so much better that its hard not to give him the advantage in a lot of these seasons.

Never understood 1993 over 1995 Hakeem. It's like ranking 2010 Lebron over 2012 Lebron or 1988 Jordan over 1993 Jordan.

JordansBulls wrote:

Cavsfansince84 wrote:Without going too deep into it I'd say

1. 94 Hakeem
2. 93 Hakeem
3. 95 Hakeem
4. 95 David
5. 94 David
6. 91 David
7. 90 Hakeem
8. 86 Hakeem
9. 96 Hakeem
10. 89 Hakeem
11. 92 David
12. 96 David

Hakeem's playoff runs are overall just so much better that its hard not to give him the advantage in a lot of these seasons.

Never understood 1993 over 1995 Hakeem. It's like ranking 2010 Lebron over 2012 Lebron or 1988 Jordan over 1993 Jordan.

Hakeem was much better defensively in that season and comparable offensively. He won the title because he had much better supporting cast.

70sFan wrote:

JordansBulls wrote:

Cavsfansince84 wrote:Without going too deep into it I'd say

1. 94 Hakeem
2. 93 Hakeem
3. 95 Hakeem
4. 95 David
5. 94 David
6. 91 David
7. 90 Hakeem
8. 86 Hakeem
9. 96 Hakeem
10. 89 Hakeem
11. 92 David
12. 96 David

Hakeem's playoff runs are overall just so much better that its hard not to give him the advantage in a lot of these seasons.

Never understood 1993 over 1995 Hakeem. It's like ranking 2010 Lebron over 2012 Lebron or 1988 Jordan over 1993 Jordan.

Hakeem was much better defensively in that season and comparable offensively. He won the title because he had much better supporting cast.

I've gone back and forth with regards to 93/95 and I think there's little doubt that 93 was his best rs. 95 obviously deserves consideration due to his huge playoffs and it would be more consistent within my own methodology to probably give that season preference though his 93 playoffs were nothing to sneeze at but I also think its worth noting that in 93 his team lost a game 7 to Seattle in ot where he played 50 minutes but only attempted 15fg. I think that loss may have led him to realize that he needed to shoot more in the playoffs and maybe given him the resolve to shoot more in big games. The Hakeem in 94&95 was a Hakeem who was determined to take over and win/lose based on his play. So on that basis its easier to justify 95 over 93 imo even if his defense wasn't as good. I also have always believed in rewarding playoff play even if you can say it was due in part to playing on a stronger team.

Cavsfansince84 wrote:

70sFan wrote:

JordansBulls wrote:Never understood 1993 over 1995 Hakeem. It's like ranking 2010 Lebron over 2012 Lebron or 1988 Jordan over 1993 Jordan.

Hakeem was much better defensively in that season and comparable offensively. He won the title because he had much better supporting cast.

I've gone back and forth with regards to 93/95 and I think there's little doubt that 93 was his best rs. 95 obviously deserves consideration due to his huge playoffs and it would be more consistent within my own methodology to probably give that season preference though his 93 playoffs were nothing to sneeze at but I also think its worth noting that in 93 his team lost a game 7 to Seattle in ot where he played 50 minutes but only attempted 15fg. I think that loss may have led him to realize that he needed to shoot more in the playoffs and maybe given him the resolve to shoot more in big games. The Hakeem in 94&95 was a Hakeem who was determined to take over and win/lose based on his play. So on that basis its easier to justify 95 over 93 imo even if his defense wasn't as good. I also have always believed in rewarding playoff play even if you can say it was due in part to playing on a stronger team.

Hmmm ...
I think, for me, there's an over generalization based on one game. And and a focus on team level (binary title/no title) outcome rather than process (and repeatability). Depending on whether Chilcutt and Brown are considered rotation (circa 16mpg, vast majority but not all games) Hakeem is last or second to last among the rotation in TS% and Ortg (2nd in both to Brown in each instance). Now that isn't to say he's bad in this respect and combining this with passing, low turnovers and high load he's second in OBPM and (with minutes load helping here) 3rd in OWS. He helps create good looks but that model was reliant on the shooters shooting well. I don't see that Carl Herrera having a bad game (-15.3 BPM), should make us say Olajuwon's approach that year or that game was the lesser choice. The Reference composites suggest he was as good or often significantly better in the '93 playoffs (as he was in the RS where he aslo played more minutes).

Fwiw, I'd also argue 15fga would seem to under-represent his usage as his atypically high free throw rate (.667) is ignored.

Cavsfansince84 wrote:

70sFan wrote:

JordansBulls wrote:Never understood 1993 over 1995 Hakeem. It's like ranking 2010 Lebron over 2012 Lebron or 1988 Jordan over 1993 Jordan.

Hakeem was much better defensively in that season and comparable offensively. He won the title because he had much better supporting cast.

I've gone back and forth with regards to 93/95 and I think there's little doubt that 93 was his best rs. 95 obviously deserves consideration due to his huge playoffs and it would be more consistent within my own methodology to probably give that season preference though his 93 playoffs were nothing to sneeze at but I also think its worth noting that in 93 his team lost a game 7 to Seattle in ot where he played 50 minutes but only attempted 15fg. I think that loss may have led him to realize that he needed to shoot more in the playoffs and maybe given him the resolve to shoot more in big games. The Hakeem in 94&95 was a Hakeem who was determined to take over and win/lose based on his play. So on that basis its easier to justify 95 over 93 imo even if his defense wasn't as good. I also have always believed in rewarding playoff play even if you can say it was due in part to playing on a stronger team.

I can understand that point, but you have to keep in mind that:

- Hakeem didn't face Seattle defense in 1995, which was the best swarming defense of that era (which reduced Hakeem's attempts),
- Hakeem took 19.4 TSA in that game 7 in all-time low pace game (only 79.4 with OT), I wouldn't say that's low number and he also had 9 assists.

70sFan wrote:I can understand that point, but you have to keep in mind that:

- Hakeem didn't face Seattle defense in 1995, which was the best swarming defense of that era (which reduced Hakeem's attempts),
- Hakeem took 19.4 TSA in that game 7 in all-time low pace game (only 79.4 with OT), I wouldn't say that's low number and he also had 9 assists.

Its all different sides of things to consider. I think players like Hakeem tend to learn from all losses and it often makes them into better players. Players learn how to better utilize their own skills and so forth and that is what allows them to have the sort of playoff performances that we saw from him, LeBron and Dirk later in their careers. They get a better sense of when its their time to take over.

Owly wrote:Hmmm ...
I think, for me, there's an over generalization based on one game. And and a focus on team level (binary title/no title) outcome rather than process (and repeatability). Depending on whether Chilcutt and Brown are considered rotation (circa 16mpg, vast majority but not all games) Hakeem is last or second to last among the rotation in TS% and Ortg (2nd in both to Brown in each instance). Now that isn't to say he's bad in this respect and combining this with passing, low turnovers and high load he's second in OBPM and (with minutes load helping here) 3rd in OWS. He helps create good looks but that model was reliant on the shooters shooting well. I don't see that Carl Herrera having a bad game (-15.3 BPM), should make us say Olajuwon's approach that year or that game was the lesser choice. The Reference composites suggest he was as good or often significantly better in the '93 playoffs (as he was in the RS where he aslo played more minutes).

Fwiw, I'd also argue 15fga would seem to under-represent his usage as his atypically high free throw rate (.667) is ignored.

Its not an entirely a usage thing or based just on one game. Keep in mind I had 93 over 95 above. I don't think there's really a wrong way to order these two seasons. 93 has its reasoning and so does 95 I think given what a huge load he took on offense and all the comebacks and title as a 6 seed through 3 straight loaded teams.