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Hakeem still has great playoff numbers but he loses the 94 finals to Patrick Ewing and the Knicks despite outplaying him head to head (same individual stats), then in 95 he loses to MVP David Robinson and the Spurs again with the historically better head to head numbers. How much does he drop on the 100 GOAT list? (fwiw, Spurs then win the 95 finals)

(Fixed the years, thanks Owly for catching that.)

Fwiw, it was Knicks '94, Spurs '95.

Personal inclination is he is a bit overrated based on the titles, but then I can't get comfortable for myself with how to account for playoffs (I'll say notionally standard of play, though other factors may come in for some) and am not sure I clearly understand how others are doing it.

For me, around 10-15 spots

For me he only drops 5 ish spots. Probably moves him below curry, kobe and robinson. He is still right there with kg

It is interesting that up until 1994 his resume was pretty similar to someone like Patrick Ewing, which shows just how much rings can color people's perception of players regardless of how good they actually were.

capfan33 wrote:It is interesting that up until 1994 his resume was pretty similar to someone like Patrick Ewing, which shows just how much rings can color people's perception of players regardless of how good they actually were.

Even then, his regular season numbers went up in the playoffs I believe, not a common thing. Possibly because of coaching, possibly because his offensive game was very resilient. So, while as a regular season player he was below David Robinson and close to Ewing, his playoffs would still move him up a bit as we are keeping his great performances great. I'd still have him probably in the 11-15 area instead of the 9-11 area because I do look at results and then try to see what caused them and I'd probably assume that either (a) his passing wasn't really elevating his teammates as much offensively or (b) his defensive impact on players other than his man wasn't as high since either his overall team did worse offensively or defensively.

I think it was due to resiliency, but this also put a cap on his efficiency to an extent because of the difficulty of his shot attempts. And I'd like to think I would still rank him similarly regardless. I do think if you ran his career over 1000 times there are quite a few scenerios where he ends up with 0 rings, but I don't think that necessarily makes him a worse player.

jdzimme3 wrote:For me he only drops 5 ish spots. Probably moves him below curry, kobe and robinson. He is still right there with kg

What is your list a measurement of?

capfan33 wrote:It is interesting that up until 1994 his resume was pretty similar to someone like Patrick Ewing, which shows just how much rings can color people's perception of players regardless of how good they actually were.

Except for the fact that he'd led his team to the NBA Finals in only his second season. Ewing never had a individual playoff run as impressive as that.

Imho the beating he (and pre injury Ralph) led underdog Houston to over Showtime Los Angeles in 1986 is the most impressive underdog series win in NBA history.

Maybe he'd drop a few spots, but I'm not really sure why he should. Assuming he played identical way, he should be still ranked inside top 10.

He’d be around David Robinson and KG

70sFan wrote:Maybe he'd drop a few spots, but I'm not really sure why he should. Assuming he played identical way, he should be still ranked inside top 10.

Yeah but almost nobody holds that kind of view. Rings seem to impact NBA fans player ranking more than in other sports.

Conversely if Charles Barkley had two rings would that impact your ranking of him?

Hard to say exactly though this scenario sort of confuses me since it has him losing to the Knicks in the 95 finals. I think he drops about 5-8 spots though.

Is there any other players in the top 10 without multiple rings. I think Wilt is the other player with only 2 rings in the top 10 and his place in the top 10 is questioned all the time....

D.Brasco wrote:

70sFan wrote:Maybe he'd drop a few spots, but I'm not really sure why he should. Assuming he played identical way, he should be still ranked inside top 10.

Yeah but almost nobody holds that kind of view. Rings seem to impact NBA fans player ranking more than in other sports.

Conversely if Charles Barkley had two rings would that impact your ranking of him?

Ya, more so with Barkley because he played on very mediocre teams from 87-92. Maybe people think that since he had his chance in 93 and couldn't do it that he also wouldn't have in Philly but I think he was better in Philly and most atg's lost at least once in the finals. So I think the point is that rings simply matter despite how much we might try to minimize them on here. Its funny too because West got his while probably having the worst playoffs of his career or close to it but at the end of the day he got his ring. Winning does cover up a lot of perceived flaws even in an individual series. Like imagine if MJ's teammates don't sort of cover for him in the 93 ecf or the 96 finals. Instead of 6-0 MJ would have a big black spot on his prime resume but winning changes everything in how we view a player. Similarly, the way that Hakeem performed in the 94/95 playoffs and it ending in b2b fmvps leaves a lasting impression of how great he was.

FuShengTHEGreat wrote:

capfan33 wrote:It is interesting that up until 1994 his resume was pretty similar to someone like Patrick Ewing, which shows just how much rings can color people's perception of players regardless of how good they actually were.

Except for the fact that he'd led his team to the NBA Finals in only his second season. Ewing never had a individual playoff run as impressive as that.

Imho the beating he (and pre injury Ralph) led underdog Houston to over Showtime Los Angeles in 1986 is the most impressive underdog series win in NBA history.

Honestly forgot about that and point taken, you're obviously right. With that being said, if you look at his resume and playoff runs outside of that it is pretty underwhelming for a top-10 player ever until 1994.

A few spots maybe, rings are a part of it but no rings wouldn’t have changed him being arguably the best C of all time from a talent / skill perspective

70sFan wrote:Maybe he'd drop a few spots, but I'm not really sure why he should. Assuming he played identical way, he should be still ranked inside top 10.

You're absolutely right. It shouldn't effect anything.

Championships are mostly dependent on how great your teammates, coaching, ownership, infrastructure, etc. etc. is.

I.e., things out of an individual player's control.

D.Brasco wrote:

70sFan wrote:Maybe he'd drop a few spots, but I'm not really sure why he should. Assuming he played identical way, he should be still ranked inside top 10.

Yeah but almost nobody holds that kind of view. Rings seem to impact NBA fans player ranking more than in other sports.

Conversely if Charles Barkley had two rings would that impact your ranking of him?

Ranking/assessing players by teammates strength and team accomplishments (RINGS) is lazy, facile, and usually totally misleading.

To butcher a quote, All players are 1/5, but some players are more 1/5 than others.