David Robinson in Olajuwon's place 1993-1996

[migya]

Olajuwon won two championships in 1994-95 and Robinson is known for carrying low talented teams in his career, particularly before Duncan arrived. Would Robinson and the Rockets win any, how many, what years, if Robinson replaced Olajuwon from 1992-93 to 1995-96 season?

[70sFan]

I find it very hard to believe that the Rockets would have won any title in Hakeem's place. Keep in mind that Olajuwon had to beat the Jazz twice to win it all, which is rather unlikely with Admiral underperforming against them.

[penbeast0]

Robinson's more face-up offensive game does work a bit better with the skill sets of Otis Thorpe and Charles Barkley where Hakeem's more back-to-the-basket style was maximized by having Horry play the 4, so some of those years there might be an offset of some of Hakeem's superior playoff scoring by having Thorpe or Barkley picking up some of the differential. Because I too believe playoff Hakeem to be a thing and playoff Robinson not to be one, I think they might be better during the regular season during this era but not as effective in the playoffs.

[Ancalagon]

I find it very hard to believe that the Rockets would have won any title in Hakeem's place. Keep in mind that Olajuwon had to beat the Jazz twice to win it all, which is rather unlikely with Admiral underperforming against them.

I tend to think Robinson is underrated on this board and would have won a title in a lot of scenarios … BUT that 1995 Jazz series was a near-run thing. Could have gone either way with a couple of different bounces of the ball or whistles from the ref. With Robinson’s struggles vs. Utah, I have to agree Utah wins in both 1994 and 1995.

[migya]

I find it very hard to believe that the Rockets would have won any title in Hakeem's place. Keep in mind that Olajuwon had to beat the Jazz twice to win it all, which is rather unlikely with Admiral underperforming against them.

I tend to think Robinson is underrated on this board and would have won a title in a lot of scenarios … BUT that 1995 Jazz series was a near-run thing. Could have gone either way with a couple of different bounces of the ball or whistles from the ref. With Robinson’s struggles vs. Utah, I have to agree Utah wins in both 1994 and 1995.

This is likely true. Robinson wasn't too bad in 1996 against the Jazz but his style of play wasn't good against them. I think against every other team the story might be different.

[GSP]

Theres no point in even mentioning 93 or 94 like Robinson has any shot in hell winning a title w/ Vernon Maxwell as his 2nd option

[70sFan]

I find it very hard to believe that the Rockets would have won any title in Hakeem's place. Keep in mind that Olajuwon had to beat the Jazz twice to win it all, which is rather unlikely with Admiral underperforming against them.

I tend to think Robinson is underrated on this board and would have won a title in a lot of scenarios … BUT that 1995 Jazz series was a near-run thing. Could have gone either way with a couple of different bounces of the ball or whistles from the ref. With Robinson’s struggles vs. Utah, I have to agree Utah wins in both 1994 and 1995.

This is likely true. Robinson wasn't too bad in 1996 against the Jazz but his style of play wasn't good against them. I think against every other team the story might be different.

I'm pretty sure his 1996 performance against Jazz wouldn't be enough to beat Utah in Hakeem's place.

[lessthanjake]

Robinson had a worse supporting cast than Hakeem and did great in the regular season in this time period. He’s quite capable of doing well with a middling supporting cast and, if anything, Robinson’s Rockets probably would’ve done even better than Robinson’s Spurs in the regular season, since the supporting cast was better (though who knows if the fit would work).

The biggest issue is probably just that Robinson matches up badly against the Jazz and so it’s hard to imagine a Robinson-led team beating the Jazz. They’d probably need another team to take out the Jazz before the Robinson’s Rockets had to face them.

On this point, by the way, we should remember that if Robinson was on the Rockets, the Rockets would have been different in the regular season. Which means that they very likely wouldn’t have been the same playoff seed. This would’ve changed the whole playoff bracket in the Western Conference. So you shouldn’t just look at who the Rockets played in reality and think about whether Robinson’s Rockets would’ve won those series. It seems fairly likely that Robinson’s Rockets would’ve been a better seed since Robinson was pretty clearly the better regular season player. So, for instance, in 1995, it is unlikely that Robinson’s Rockets would’ve had to play the Jazz in the first round. Robinson’s superior regular season performance makes it more likely that the team could’ve avoided his bad playoff matchups.

[AEnigma]

Unfortunately for Robinson, at some point he would need to beat a good team to lead his team to a title, and at no point in his career did he ever show he could without elite support. Robinson had homecourt against the Jazz in both 1994 and 1996 and it was not competitive, and hypothetically leading the 1995 Rockets to the top seed still means he needs to beat two good teams to win a title — just like what actually happened in 1995.

[penbeast0]

Although, if Robinson were used as a second option with Thorpe (an efficient interior scorer) or Drexler and Barkley taking more shots than he was, he might perform defensively like he did with Duncan only better as his knees were in good shape. The different role might also free him up to be far more effective offensively, though Terry Cummings was a similar player to Thorpe, so probably not that great an effect. Still, those Rockets had considerably better spacing than most other NBA teams, and better than the relative Spurs teams through these years.

[lessthanjake]

Unfortunately for Robinson, at some point he would need to beat a good team to lead his team to a title, and at no point in his career did he ever show he could without elite support. Robinson had homecourt against the Jazz in both 1994 and 1996 and it was not competitive, and hypothetically leading the 1995 Rockets to the top seed still means he needs to beat two good teams to win a title — just like what actually happened in 1995.

I think you’re mostly just hand-waving away the question here. The question is basically whether Robinson could’ve won a title with a team that was better. Your post basically says that the answer is no because Robinson wasn’t able to beat good teams with the team he had. But the Rockets had a better supporting cast than Robinson’s Spurs did, so it would have been easier to beat a good team on the Rockets. He would’ve been more likely to be able to do it on the Rockets (assuming there weren’t significant fit issues). That’s basically the premise of the thread!

I agree that he’d have to have beaten good teams, and I also think he’d have been unlikely to beat the Jazz because he matched up badly against them. But could Robinson’s Rockets have beaten teams like the 1994/1995 Suns or 1994 Knicks or 1995 Magic? Maybe! Robinson would’ve had to perform better against those teams than he typically did against other good teams in the playoffs, but with a better team beside him maybe he would have.

[AEnigma]

Absolutely nothing suggests the Rockets were so much better that they could erase Robinson being a consistently less effective scorer and defender in the postseason, seeing as in both title seasons they were twice pushed to elimination games, including once by a team we know routinely gave Robinson trouble on both ends in a way that was never really applicable to Hakeem. That is what is being hand-waved here.

[lessthanjake]

Absolutely nothing suggests the Rockets were so much better that they could erase Robinson being a consistently less effective scorer and defender in the postseason, seeing as in both title seasons they were twice pushed to elimination games, including once by a team we know routinely gave Robinson trouble on both ends in a way that was never really applicable to Hakeem. That is what is being hand-waved here.

I think you’re not really understanding the point. Yes, the Rockets definitely struggled in their title runs and had some series that were close calls. Robinson probably gets them better playoff seeds so maybe they get some easier opponents on average, but you are right that they’d have to play some good teams. So it’s also true that if Robinson played substantially worse than Hakeem played for the Rockets in those years then they likely don’t win a title. And, for the Spurs, Robinson did play substantially worse in the playoffs than Hakeem played for the Rockets. So if he played like that, then you’re right. But part of the question here is whether prime Robinson would play better in the playoffs if he had a better team. Having a better team does make things easier.

I think a counterpoint here might be that he wasn’t exactly incredible in the playoffs when he did have a good team during the Duncan years. But he wasn’t quite the same player anymore at that point. And it’s notable that he didn’t have nearly the same falloff in production and impact from RS to the playoffs in 1998-2001 as he’d had earlier (indeed, the impact actually increased in the playoffs, while the box production was fairly similar to the RS overall but maybe slightly worse). It perhaps suggests that having a better team did have an effect on how much Robinson’s RS play was able to translate to the playoffs. If 1993-1996 Robinson only had the same kind of RS—>Playoffs falloff (or lack thereof) with the Rockets that 1998-2001 Robinson had with the Spurs, then it’s not very difficult to see Robinson being able to win with the Rockets. If you instead assume that 1993-1996 Robinson would have the same kind of RS—>Playoff falloff with the Rockets that 1993-1996 Robinson had with the Spurs, then it is definitely difficult to see Robinson being able to win with the Rockets. It’s just not certain that the latter is what would’ve happened.

[AEnigma]

I understand the point, and I understand it is an empty one that may as well be applied to any player ever if you are going to attenuate it to such an absurd degree. The Rockets were not a particularly good or special team without Hakeem, and the team’s own history pretty strongly suggests that the extent they were able to produce was based on Hakeem and not vice versa. Robinson’s scoring struggles were not dependent on “lack of spacing”; he was a worse postseason scorer than Hakeem outside this period too. The Rockets also lack the one player archetype that people have felt might have conceivably provided a disproportionate advantage to Robinson — a high volume pnr partner in the vein of how Tim Hardaway helped Mourning on the Heat — so instead we are left with a roster specifically built around Hakeem’s offensive strengths rather than one which can maximise Robinson’s more limited arsenal. And it is a similarly standard defensive roster which does not fix Robinson’s worse lateral movement, worse post defence, worse ability to read passing lanes or otherwise strip the ball…

I could more easily argue that someone like Hersey Hawkins would have won several titles in Jordan’s place on the Bulls, although it would require a similarly absurd degree of heavily couched hypothesising about how the effect of improving the team around you “is not certain”, and at that point why bother.

[lessthanjake]

I understand the point, and I understand it is an empty one that may as well be applied to any player ever if you are going to attenuate it to such an absurd degree. The Rockets were not a particularly good or special team without Hakeem, and the team’s own history pretty strongly suggests that the extent they were able to produce was based on Hakeem and not vice versa. Robinson’s scoring struggles were not dependent on “lack of spacing”; he was a worse postseason scorer than Hakeem outside this period too. The Rockets also lack the one player archetype that people have felt might have conceivably provided a disproportionate advantage to Robinson — a high volume pnr partner in the vein of how Tim Hardaway helped Mourning on the Heat — so instead we are left with a roster specific built around Hakeem’s offensive strengths rather than one which can maximise Robinson’s more limited arsenal. And it is a similarly standard defensive roster which does not fix Robinson’s worse lateral movement, worse post defence, worse ability to read passing lanes or otherwise strip the ball…

I could more easily argue that someone like Hersey Hawkins would have won several titles in Jordan’s place on the Bulls, although it would require a similarly absurd degree of heavily couched hypothesising about how the effect of improving the team around you “is not certain”, and at that point why bother.

I don’t think it’s remotely similar to your analogy about Hersey Hawkins, since it doesn’t rely on the idea that Robinson would be far better on the Rockets than he ever was in reality in any context. All it would take for Robinson to have a good chance of winning with the Rockets would be for him to play anywhere near as well on the Rockets as he did in the RS with the Spurs. Obviously a similar thing isn’t true for Hersey Hawkins. I think it’s a little odd to dismiss this as an “empty” point, when team context obviously does matter for player performance. I think your point is that it’s a speculative point, but this thread is inherently speculative! The idea that Robinson himself might perform differently on the Rockets is both obviously true and also a crucial part of what the thread is asking about.

That said, you do provide some reasons why you think the fit wouldn’t actually be there on the Rockets (and I’ll note I previously mentioned the possibility of fit issues). And you make some good points—which might tend to lead us to conclude that Robinson wouldn’t perform better on the Rockets. Those are fair points, which actually address the question, rather than outright dismissing the possibility of someone performing better on one team than another. And, on that point, one thing that’s always worth noting about questions like this is that replacing one star with another will probably *usually* result in worse team fit, since teams are generally built around their specific star. So that should perhaps be our default assumption here—in which case, Robinson would almost certainly not win a title with the Rockets. I will say, though, that I’m not sure we really know what fits best with Robinson, since I don’t know that we really saw him on a well-fitting team (which is maybe why he struggled in the playoffs). I don’t disagree with you about a good PnR partner probably being great for him, but we don’t know exactly whether that’s right or exactly how well other team constructions would work. For instance, as another poster has said, maybe having a really good wing like Drexler to take more of the scoring load off of him would’ve been extremely helpful to Robinson. He never had a player like that, so we don’t really know, and it does definitely seem plausible to me. After all, in a more general sense, Robinson later had someone taking a lot of the scoring load (i.e. Duncan) and ended up being really impactful in the playoffs even in non-prime years (though obviously even multi-year playoff impact is a small sample).

[AEnigma]

I understand the point, and I understand it is an empty one that may as well be applied to any player ever if you are going to attenuate it to such an absurd degree. The Rockets were not a particularly good or special team without Hakeem, and the team’s own history pretty strongly suggests that the extent they were able to produce was based on Hakeem and not vice versa. Robinson’s scoring struggles were not dependent on “lack of spacing”; he was a worse postseason scorer than Hakeem outside this period too. The Rockets also lack the one player archetype that people have felt might have conceivably provided a disproportionate advantage to Robinson — a high volume pnr partner in the vein of how Tim Hardaway helped Mourning on the Heat — so instead we are left with a roster specific built around Hakeem’s offensive strengths rather than one which can maximise Robinson’s more limited arsenal. And it is a similarly standard defensive roster which does not fix Robinson’s worse lateral movement, worse post defence, worse ability to read passing lanes or otherwise strip the ball…

I could more easily argue that someone like Hersey Hawkins would have won several titles in Jordan’s place on the Bulls, although it would require a similarly absurd degree of heavily couched hypothesising about how the effect of improving the team around you “is not certain”, and at that point why bother.

I don’t think it’s remotely similar to your analogy about Hersey Hawkins, since it doesn’t rely on the idea that Robinson would be far better on the Rockets than he ever was in reality in any context.

It does actually because they only won titles by Hakeem being exactly as good as he was — whereas with Hawkins I say most Bulls titles did not require Jordan to be as exactly as good as he was.

All it would take for Robinson to have a good chance of winning with the Rockets would be for him to play anywhere near as well on the Rockets as he did in the RS with the Spurs.

Which would require him to be a fundamentally different player. You could say exactly that about his time leading the Spurs. If he translated his game, he would be better, yes, but why would he suddenly be able to translate.

Obviously a similar thing isn’t true for Hersey Hawkins.

Interesting what you take as “obvious”. Seems far more obvious that a team like the 1991 Bulls had a massive margin for error, or that a team like the 1994 Bulls would have benefitted immensely from having Hawkins starting over Pete Myers.

I think it’s a little odd to dismiss this as an “empty” point, when team context obviously does matter for player performance. I think your point is that it’s a speculative point, but this thread is inherently speculative! The idea that Robinson himself might perform differently on the Rockets is both obviously true and also a crucial part of what the thread is asking about.

And at that scale universal to every player changing situations. Your speculation has no particular reason why Robinson would suddenly fix career long flaws in how he handled postseason competition; just a gesture at the fact the team is different.

[Ur big fat hero]

The answer is NO. Come on guys. Even I'm not that crazy

[lessthanjake]

All it would take for Robinson to have a good chance of winning with the Rockets would be for him to play anywhere near as well on the Rockets as he did in the RS with the Spurs.

Which would require him to be a fundamentally different player. You could say exactly that about his time leading the Spurs. If he translated his game, he would be better, yes, but why would he suddenly be able to translate.

How do you know it would require him to be a fundamentally different player? You only know what prime Robinson did in the playoffs on one particular team. The team context for a player often has a significant effect on how a player performs. It really wouldn’t be all that surprising for one of the best RS players in NBA history to be able to play great in the playoffs if put in a different (and better) team context. Playoff basketball is tougher, but it is still fundamentally the same game! David Robinson was extremely good at basketball. The fact that prime Robinson never shined against tough opponents in the playoffs may just be a function of his pretty disadvantageous team context (as well as perhaps a healthy dose of relatively small sample sizes). I’m not saying Robinson *definitely* would’ve shined in the playoffs on the Rockets—assuming he would would be very charitable to him, and you’ve brought up some fit arguments with the Rockets that seem like pretty good arguments otherwise—but I think the certainty that he wouldn’t is odd. Just because he didn’t shine in the playoffs on the Spurs really doesn’t mean that he was incapable of shining in the playoffs on any team. Again, this is one of the best basketball players ever, who probably could’ve played even a little worse than he did in the RS and still played well enough to win a title on those teams. How can you have certainty that his playoff drop on another team would be exactly the same, especially given that in his later years (when his team context did materially change) he actually didn’t drop nearly as much in the playoffs in terms of production and was hyper impactful?

[AEnigma]

All it would take for Robinson to have a good chance of winning with the Rockets would be for him to play anywhere near as well on the Rockets as he did in the RS with the Spurs.

Which would require him to be a fundamentally different player. You could say exactly that about his time leading the Spurs. If he translated his game, he would be better, yes, but why would he suddenly be able to translate.

How do you know it would require him to be a fundamentally different player? You only know what prime Robinson did on one particular team. The team context for a player often has a significant effect on how a player performs. It really wouldn’t be all that surprising for one of the best RS players in NBA history to be able to play great in the playoffs if put in a different (and better) team context. Playoff basketball is tougher, but it is still fundamentally the same game!

It is fundamentally more based in game-planning, where there is an even more specific focus on limiting the easiest source of baskets for the opponent on defence and repeatedly targeting their weakest defensive areas on offence. It is why versatility and adaptability matter so much. Robinson was a substantially less dynamic scorer and defender than Hakeen; there is no circumstance where directly replacing Hakeem means that would stop being true. And the Rockets did not have the personnel to maximise his scoring to any sufficiently offsetting degree. Again, 1996-00 Heat, sure, maybe. 2008-10 Magic, sure, maybe. Hey, maybe even in place of 1995 Shaq we could have a discussion about what it might look like with a centre who would have wanted Penny to take full control of the offence. But the Rockets were not a plug-and-play team to any degree beyond “yes Robinson would have likely had an easier time passing out of doubles on the Rockets”.

David Robinson was extremely good at basketball. The fact that prime Robinson never shined against tough opponents in the playoffs may just be a function of his pretty disadvantageous team context (as well as perhaps a healthy dose of relatively small sample sizes).

Which is again so abstracted that you can make the claim about almost anyone, and in any direction. Maybe Robinson would look like a worse scorer on the Rockets. Maybe Malone could have been a Dirk-level scorer on a different team, and Dirk would have looked like Malone if stuck on the Jazz, or maybe Malone’s production was inflated and he would have been more akin to a Lamarcus Aldridge scorer in a different circumstance while Dirk would have been the league’s most effective scorer in his place. Maybe Jordan’s style only worked well in the postseason when he could play off Pippen. Who can really say, right.

Maybe I’m not saying Robinson *definitely* would’ve shined in the playoffs on the Rockets—you’ve brought up some fit arguments with the Rockets that seem like pretty good arguments otherwise—but I think the certainty that he wouldn’t is odd. Just because he didn’t shine in the playoffs on the Spurs really doesn’t mean that he was incapable of shining in the playoffs on any team. Again, this is one of the best basketball players ever, who probably could’ve played even a little worse than he did in the RS and still played well enough to win a title on those teams. How can you have certainty that his playoff drop on another team would be exactly the same, especially when he actually didn’t drop nearly as much in terms of production and was hyper impactful in his later years when his team context did materially change?

Because “hyper impact” is more a reflection of role which does not apply to the Rockets. At best it is a suggestion of what he could offer as a defender in a different role with all-time defensive support alongside him… but instead of Duncan, he would have Thorpe and Horry. And then Robinson still had all the same scoring issues, but because he was operating in a lesser role, it did not hurt the team as much. But the Rockets as constructed needed Hakeem’s scoring, so there is no hypothetical where maybe he could be just good enough acting as a second option.

[lessthanjake]

Which would require him to be a fundamentally different player. You could say exactly that about his time leading the Spurs. If he translated his game, he would be better, yes, but why would he suddenly be able to translate.

How do you know it would require him to be a fundamentally different player? You only know what prime Robinson did on one particular team. The team context for a player often has a significant effect on how a player performs. It really wouldn’t be all that surprising for one of the best RS players in NBA history to be able to play great in the playoffs if put in a different (and better) team context. Playoff basketball is tougher, but it is still fundamentally the same game!

It is fundamentally more based in game-planning, where there is an even more specific focus on limiting the easiest source of baskets for the opponent on defence and repeatedly targeting their weakest defensive areas on offence. It is why versatility and adaptability matter so much. Robinson was a substantially less dynamic scorer and defender than Hakeen; there is no circumstance where directly replacing Hakeem means that would stop being true. And the Rockets did not have the personnel to maximise his scoring to any sufficiently offsetting degree. Again, 1996-00 Heat, sure, maybe. 2008-10 Magic, sure, maybe. Hey, maybe even in place of 1995 Shaq we could have a discussion about what it might look like with a centre who would have wanted Penny to take full control of the offence. But the Rockets were not a plug-and-play team to any degree beyond “yes Robinson would have likely had an easier time passing out of doubles on the Rockets”.

Okay, so if your position is that there’s other contexts where you might imagine Robinson doing meaningfully better in the playoffs, then I don’t think we are in significant disagreement. As I’ve said, I think you’ve given some good reasons why you think he wouldn’t have actually fit particular well with the Rockets. As I’ll discuss a bit more below, I do think you’re perhaps overly downplaying the potential ability for the Rockets to have Drexler take on a good deal of the scoring load for Robinson in the later years of this time period, but by and large I do think you make reasonable points about fit, though I would never have complete certainty about something inherently speculative (i.e. maybe Robinson would actually fit great with the Rockets despite the points you’ve made). What I was primarily concerned about is that it seemed like you were arguing that Robinson categorically could not have been better in the playoffs in a different team context. However, you’re acknowledging here that you can think of other contexts where you think he might’ve done much better in the playoffs. So you’re not really saying what I was thinking you were saying. In any event, I can give you another context I think Robinson would’ve excelled in: I have always thought that if we replaced Amare with Robinson on Nash’s Suns, those teams would’ve been almost unbeatable. That to me is almost certainly a better situation for Robinson than the Rockets.

Which is again so abstracted that you can make the claim about almost anyone. Maybe Malone could have been a Dirk-level scorer on a different team, and Dirk would have looked like Malone if stuck on the Jazz. Maybe Jordan’s style only worked well in the postseason when he could play off Pippen. Who can really say, right.

I mean, to some degree, yeah “Who can really say” is right. These are all inherently highly speculative questions. That’s just the nature of the type of hypotheticals people often discuss here, including in this thread. Of course, at a certain point, a speculative conclusion becomes so absurd that we can be extremely confident it wouldn’t happen. So, to take an extreme example, I think we can all agree that if we replaced Hakeem with Brian Scalabrine, then the Rockets would definitely not win a title. And we could use players better than Scalabrine of course and still be able to be extremely confident. I just think that with someone as good as Robinson we can’t really have extreme confidence that he couldn’t have been successful in a different context. I think when we’re talking about players of that level, you could engage in virtually any speculative exercise like this and you’d have to at least say yeah *maybe* they’d have been able to win in that context.

Because “hyper impact” is more a reflection of role which does not apply to the Rockets. At best it is a suggestion of what he could offer as a defender in a different role with all-time defensive support alongside him… but instead of Duncan, he would have Thorpe and Horry. And then Robinson still had all the same scoring issues, but because he was operating in a lesser role, it did not hurt the team as much. But the Rockets as constructed needed Hakeem’s scoring, so there is no hypothetical where maybe he could be just good enough acting as a second option.

And you don’t think that maybe having Drexler would’ve operated to take some of the scoring load off of Robinson in a way that would help him remain extremely impactful in the playoffs? I do think it’s likely that if the Rockets had Robinson, then Drexler’s scoring would’ve scaled up from what it was with Hakeem, and that he would’ve taken far more of the scoring load than any of Robinson’s Spurs teammates did before Duncan. Or at least that would’ve very likely been the smart thing for the Rockets to do. Even as it was, 1994-95 Drexler took on a very similar scoring load as 1998-99 Duncan (more points per 100 possessions in the RS but a little less in the playoffs). Without Drexler, the 1993 and 1994 Rockets teams would’ve needed to be more more reliant on Robinson’s scoring, so I think it’s reasonable to give them less of a chance of winning with Robinson. But I do think that the 1995 and 1996 Rockets are meaningfully different from Robinson’s Spurs teams in a way that we’d probably expect would help Robinson perform better in the playoffs.

As a minor note, I do also want to clarify that I don’t think Robinson’s defensive impact in the playoffs in those later years was specifically about having Duncan on the court alongside him. Or at least the on-off really doesn’t tell that story—with the Spurs doing great defensively in those years in the playoffs with Robinson on and Duncan off (including in the year Duncan missed the playoffs). So it’s definitely by no means clear that his defensive impact in those playoffs was a function of having a type of player alongside him that he wouldn’t have in Houston.