Did hakeem get screwed out of his chance at goat status?

[FuShengTHEGreat]

Jordan twice couldn't even get comparative/more talented teams above .500 twice in his Bulls career

That was his rookie and 2nd year though.

Wrong. That was his rookie and 3rd season. Doesn't look like Jordan's teams were anywhere better off winning wise than the 91-92 year Hakeem was critiqued here by another poster for missing the playoffs in.

[chuck_wagon44]

yes he did.

Imagine if Hakeem played for the Lakers, the way they speak of Bill Russell, Wilt, Kareem and even Mr. Underachiever Shaq, that would have been the talk around his legacy.

But then again, Lebron played for a mediocre/lower tier franchise like the Cavs....

[migya]

yes he did.

Imagine if Hakeem played for the Lakers, the way they speak of Bill Russell, Wilt, Kareem and even Mr. Underachiever Shaq, that would have been the talk around his legacy.

But then again, Lebron played for a mediocre/lower tier franchise like the Cavs....

Winning has the biggest impact on legacy. If Olajuwon's team had the best record in 93-95, he'd have three straight mvps and two championships.

[OhayoKD]

yes he did.

Imagine if Hakeem played for the Lakers, the way they speak of Bill Russell, Wilt, Kareem and even Mr. Underachiever Shaq, that would have been the talk around his legacy.

But then again, Lebron played for a mediocre/lower tier franchise like the Cavs....

Winning has the biggest impact on legacy. If Olajuwon's team had the best record in 93-95, he'd have three straight mvps and two championships.

if that was really the case I'd have expected Hakeem to win rookie of the year

[ShaqAttac]

people are saying hakeem is better than mj? wow

scottie pippen next ig

Hakeen is in a different league than pippen tho and i ssy this while i may be the biggest pippen fan on this board besides texaschuck

what is pippen impact like

[falcolombardi]

people are saying hakeem is better than mj? wow

scottie pippen next ig

Hakeen is in a different league than pippen tho and i ssy this while i may be the biggest pippen fan on this board besides texaschuck

what is pippen impact like

Very high imo, to put it in a comparision

Pippen good enough to be a borderline top 5 player in many seasons

But hakeem impact is a contender for 1 in nearly any season

[ShaqAttac]

Hakeen is in a different league than pippen tho and i ssy this while i may be the biggest pippen fan on this board besides texaschuck

what is pippen impact like

Very high imo, to put it in a comparision

Pippen good enough to be a borderline top 5 player in many seasons

But hakeem impact is a contender for 1 in nearly any season

did hakeem have more impact than mj

[falcolombardi]

what is pippen impact like

Very high imo, to put it in a comparision

Pippen good enough to be a borderline top 5 player in many seasons

But hakeem impact is a contender for 1 in nearly any season

did hakeem have more impact than mj

At their peaks i have them fairly close

[ShaqAttac]

Very high imo, to put it in a comparision

Pippen good enough to be a borderline top 5 player in many seasons

But hakeem impact is a contender for 1 in nearly any season

did hakeem have more impact than mj

At their peaks i have them fairly close

so hakeem n mj is like magic and bird?

[falcolombardi]

did hakeem have more impact than mj

At their peaks i have them fairly close

so hakeem n mj is like magic and bird?

Mmm, i probably would have jordan and hakeem peaks slightly ahead of bird/magic i think. But i think they are close

[70sFan]

Section 3) See I'd dispute that Shaq put up solid numbers versus Robinson. Solid in the sense that Kenyon Martin or Phil Chenier or other slightly better than league average players are solid sure, perhaps good even, I'd have to look closer. For O'Neal though, the passing isn't at a great level to put it gently, the scoring efficiency without checking game by game (just eyeballing each game's averages and the average thereof) seems fine in absolute terms, poor by his own standards. He's below his typical standard on the offensive glass and he isn't preventing Robinson from being a productive defender and likely his typical defensive anchor self by his gravity.

I don't have enough time to go in depth with this argument now, but I disagree that Shaq looks solid in sense that Kenyon Martin was solid, or that he was "poor by his own standards". Here are Shaq numbers in these 5 games he played against Robinson:

28.6 ppg, 13.4 rpg, 1.8 apg, 3.0 tov, 3.6 orb on 50.9 FG%, 54.9 TS% in 40.4 mpg

He played a bit more minutes than usually (40.4 vs 37.8), but his scoring volume is around the same as it was on average. He did have lower scoring efficiency, but the numbers are deflated by one poor shooting night (he scored 60.2 TS%, 53.5 TS%, 48.5 TS%, 55.7 TS% and 56.9 TS% in these games). Overall, these numbers are not poor at all, although they are a bit weaker than I remembered.

I think you exaggarated how bad Shaq numbers look like.

[DraymondGold]

But Hakeem has never been pushed as a top tier regular season player.

Then for him to be considered a GOAT candidate, his playoffs should be all the more valuable to make up for the fact that he's so much worse in the regular season.

Is he? What do the stats say?
In 1-yr peak PS BPM, 3-yr peak PS BPM, 1-yr peak PS PIPM, and 3-yr peak PS PIPM, LeBron, Jordan, Kareem, and Bird are universally above Hakeem. Duncan's ahead in 3/4 stats, and Curry's clearly ahead in PIPM while only being 0.1 behind in BPM. Hakeem's highest PS ranking in any of these stats is.. 6th out of the Top 12 peaks (while missing Wilt/Russell's numbers).

Where's this statistical dominance in the playoffs? Now you might say: "these stats underrate Hakeem's defense!" To which we could turn to the incomplete RAPM and more complete WOWY numbers, both of which suggest his defense and offense combined is not GOAT level. It's great stuff! But not GOAT level.

Ah yes, when faced with potential lack of postseason impact data outside the box score, we look at… regular season WOWY and fourteen game non-peak RAPM samples again.

You always get mad when I imply or even outright state that you are not being even-keeled when you do this type of analysis, but do you really not see the problem here?

To me, postseason Duncan should seem like the obvious analogy, but there too we encounter a player you tend to side against, so maybe the analogy is not one which comes to mind.

The argument for Hakeem has always been offensive postseason improvement more than defensive postseason improvement. That was the argument plenty of people made in the Greatest Peaks project, both this year and in previous years. If you'd like to go against that and suggest it's defensive improvement too, that's fine... but again, so far you lack much evidence at all lol

So the argument for Hakeem goes: defensive value (which again, is already captured in regular season RAPM/WOWY) + Postseason Offensive Improvement (which is relatively well captured in the BPM/PIPM, especially when much of Hakeem's offensive value comes from box-score-centric stuff vs off-ball value).

Am I saying it's perfect evidence? No. But I am saying it gives us a ballpark estimate of value...
This is pretty dang middle of the road "even keeled" analysis. I'm just saying you can use BPM/WOWY/RAPM/PIPM to get a ballpark estimate of a player, even when they're each noisy. People have been doing this on this board for years without trouble. And if this ballpark evidence suggests he's clearly sub-GOAT, then we're going to need stronger evidence suggesting that he is GOAT... which you've as of yet failed to provide.

I think film analysis of bigs versus offensive creators will never be weighed anything close to objectively, but I would think a Backpicks follower would be quite familiar with Hakeem’s film analysed against other bigs.

Well, at this point I've provided a fairly thorough evaluation of the available statistics and found no evidence that Hakeem's the GOAT, in either peak or career.

The titular question was whether a better situation would have or could have changed that.

If Hakeem is clearly sub-GOAT in the evidence we have so far (in both value and goodness), then... it would take quite the change of situation to suggest that he's suddenly the GOAT.

In terms of value: While a change in situation might change "value" / how he performs with better fit, most people would say the 94/95 Rockets were great fits for Hakeem (even if they could have been slightly boosted in talent). I'm definitely open to a better situation improving his value in previous seasons like 89-92... but basically nobody has those seasons as GOAT anyway, so it would take quite an improvement in fit to raise those to GOAT level.

Regardless, most people don't think changes in situation greatly change goodness that much (short of learning/focusing on new skills under better coaching/development). So the "better situation improving goodness to GOAT-level" would be quite an up-hill battle against the general consensus... unless you think some sort of better situation could suddenly not make him the clear-cut worst passer of the Top 12. Personally though, I just have trouble seeing that.

You've now said you wouldn't trust film analysis of Hakeem.

At this point you've offered no evidence that Hakeem has a GOAT level peak or GOAT-level career, while rejected my arguments that Hakeem isn't the GOAT.

To be blunt: I can't see any compelling argument that Hakeem has the GOAT peak or GOAT career. You can disagree with my arguments -- that's perfectly fine. But as you've yet to offer any evidence that Hakeem is the GOAT... well, that's not much of a starting point for a discussion.

To be blunt, you either need to read better, or more generously, consider in your mind why you think “film analysis” would comfortably show clear quality distinctions between all-time bigs and all-time creators.

If Hakeem has a film analysis argument for best big, then he has a film analysis argument for best player. And as I said, I would be surprised for such an avid Backpicks consumer to have no sense of any such film argument for him as the best big.

Ah, classic AEnigma needless passive aggression

Well, if we're going down that route, allow me to use a frequent strategy of yours. To straw man this, your argument goes: "there's film analysis that puts Hakeem in the general tier of top bigs" -> "the film analysis puts him as the GOAT Center" -> "that puts him as the GOAT of all positions".

That's... a pretty poor argument. There's plenty of analysis that puts Hakeem in the general tier of top bigs, so I agree with the first statement. You reference Thinking Basketball's film analysis: this puts Hakeem near the top tier.

However, there is little analysis I'm aware of that puts Hakeem as the clear-cut GOAT big (and again, you have yet to provide any examples of such analysis). Thinking Basketball puts him below Shaq in film analysis (and further below Jordan/LeBron), and with little separation above Kareem. 70sFan, another expert in historical film analysis, has used film in the past to put Kareem's peak over Hakeem's. Hakeem is not GOAT level in this film analysis.

And despite your attempts to say "nobody can accurately compare Bigs and wings/smalls on film", plenty of people both in and out of the NBA have been doing this for years. And those people, more often then not, put at least one of Jordan or LeBron's peak clearly over Hakeem. Does it take care and attention to detail? Sure. Is it impossible to accurately compare bigs and wings on film? Far from it.

Ah, well that's a different argument! Previously it seemed like the thread was focusing on whether Hakeem had a case for GOAT career (with GOAT peak being an important consideration when evaluating careers). But this is quite an interesting comparison, so let's discuss a bit more

You quoted my discussion with Luka, which was specifically framed around the contention that he would take 1988-93 Jordan over 1988-95 Hakeem.

Ah, my bad -- Thanks for clarifying! Point taken.

Thinking Basketball gives Hakeem the 4th best peak of all time, which is a clear step higher than the average (e.g. this 2022 GOAT Peaks project here had Hakeem 7th, and more casual rankings have Hakeem even lower). Per the link I sent, even if we take the least-friendly methodology for Jordan as we can and do a completely linear weighting of career value (so if we value longevity >> peak), Jordan still comes out ahead of Hakeem for his career.

The same is true when comparing 8-year primes. If we took Jordan's first 9 years vs Hakeem's first 11 and compared them linearly (again, this is the most anti-Jordan approach we can take), then Hakeem just barely edges out.... 212% CORP to 206.7% CORP. So basically any non-linear approach that weighted peaks more highly would push Jordan over Hakeem. Again, this is all approximate stuff using CORP as a ballpark-estimate.

Playing your hand here a bit by emphasising how Ben is higher on Hakeem than usual (by your own perception, too high) while also framing this as “the most anti-Jordan approach we can take”. In fact I find it very easy to take a much more “anti-Jordan approach”.

Well, it may be perfectly easy for you to take an even more pro-Hakeem / anti-Jordan approach. But that's just your personal opinion. The question is whether that's a reasonable opinion. To do this, you need to provide evidence to show that such an opinion is defensible. A person has the right to think JR-Smith is better than LeBron lol... but to take them seriously, they should have some pretty compelling evidence to support such a claim.

Saying that Hakeem has the GOAT peak and GOAT career is far from a consensus statement. This isn't that far from arguing Hakeem should have ranked 7 spots higher in the recent Greatest Peaks project or 9 spots higher in the previous Greatest peaks project. This isn't far from arguing that Hakeem should have ranked 9 spots higher in the recent Greatest Careers project, and the project before that, and the project before that.

You suggest there's film evidence to make this a clear argument.... yet there was plenty of film evidence used in all 5 of those projects. Where is this pro-Hakeem film evidence??

In sum: I'm open to discussion that 11 Hakeem years > 9 Jordan years. I still don't see any case for Hakeem being over MJ in peak or overall career... And since the thread was originally asking whether Hakeem's a GOAT level career, I similarly also don't see a case for taking him over LeBron or Kareem. Do you disagree here?

I disagree to various extents.

1. I think Hakeem absolutely has a peak (one year or three years) argument over Jordan.

2. I think had Hakeem been on a better team, that would also be a more common public take (even if Jordan’s scoring is ultimately too beloved for it to be a majority one).

3. I think Hakeem on a better team could have changed Jordan’s ring count, which would commonly reduce the public perception of his career while significantly spiking Hakeem’s.

4. I think there are good arguments that Jordan was not as impactful or innately valuable as the top two-way bigs, and while I personally tend to give him some amount of career legacy credit for his titles, that notion in itself could/would push him outside the top five in raw career, prime, or peak “CORP”.

5. While personally I could not put Hakeem’s career over Kareem’s or Lebron’s because of how I weigh longevity (or over Russell’s, for more abstract reasons), I think as an extended prime I would accept arguments for him at the top, and for many extended prime is more important than total career value.

So when the thread title asks if he has a chance at that status with better teammates improving his ring count, possibly decreasing Jordan’s own ring count, and potentially improving his own play and therefore “raw” value, yes, I think he absolutely would have a chance at that depending on the assessment and the person making the assessment. If he has a chance at being seen as better than Jordan, or as the #1 peak, then obviously he has a chance at being seen as the GOAT.

[/quote]

1. Disagree, but again would love to see any evidence to the contrary.

2-3. Would better team have made it more likely to win / improved public opinion on him? Sure thing! But there's quite the gap between Hakeem and Jordan, not just in public opinion (who we both presumably think over-value ringzzz) but also among NBA journalists, NBA players/coaches/organization-members, and NBA historical analysts including those on this board. An improvement does not necessarily mean he makes up enough ground to catch Jordan/LeBron... to do that, he would have to be sufficiently close behind. If you believe Point 1, sure than points 2-3 have merit. But again, I've yet to see you provide me any such evidence for point 1 besides your opinion.

4. Depends on how you value Jordan, but if you're significantly lower on him than the majority of this board, sure.

5. Not sure that pointing out Hakeem's substantial longevity gap beneath Kareem or LeBron makes his GOAT-case any stronger lol. But I'm glad to hear you at least agree Kareem and LeBron have better longevity

[AEnigma]

Then for him to be considered a GOAT candidate, his playoffs should be all the more valuable to make up for the fact that he's so much worse in the regular season.

Is he? What do the stats say?
In 1-yr peak PS BPM, 3-yr peak PS BPM, 1-yr peak PS PIPM, and 3-yr peak PS PIPM, LeBron, Jordan, Kareem, and Bird are universally above Hakeem. Duncan's ahead in 3/4 stats, and Curry's clearly ahead in PIPM while only being 0.1 behind in BPM. Hakeem's highest PS ranking in any of these stats is.. 6th out of the Top 12 peaks (while missing Wilt/Russell's numbers).

Where's this statistical dominance in the playoffs? Now you might say: "these stats underrate Hakeem's defense!" To which we could turn to the incomplete RAPM and more complete WOWY numbers, both of which suggest his defense and offense combined is not GOAT level. It's great stuff! But not GOAT level.

Ah yes, when faced with potential lack of postseason impact data outside the box score, we look at… regular season WOWY and fourteen game non-peak RAPM samples again.

You always get mad when I imply or even outright state that you are not being even-keeled when you do this type of analysis, but do you really not see the problem here?

To me, postseason Duncan should seem like the obvious analogy, but there too we encounter a player you tend to side against, so maybe the analogy is not one which comes to mind.

The argument for Hakeem has always been offensive postseason improvement more than defensive postseason improvement. That was the argument plenty of people made in the Greatest Peaks project, both this year and in previous years. If you'd like to go against that and suggest it's defensive improvement too, that's fine... but again, so far you lack much evidence at all lol

Perhaps I should have tracked plus/minus for a couple of games and used that to make sweeping statements.

So the argument for Hakeem goes: defensive value (which again, is already captured in regular season RAPM

Which based on those very legitimate samples suggests he is actually a middling impact defender.

/WOWY

Where he grades out in the top ten and better than Jordan, Kareem, and Duncan.

+ Postseason Offensive Improvement (which is relatively well captured in the BPM/PIPM, especially when much of Hakeem's offensive value comes from box-score-centric stuff vs off-ball value).

Am I saying it's perfect evidence? No. But I am saying it gives us a ballpark estimate of value...
This is pretty dang middle of the road "even keeled" analysis. I'm just saying you can use BPM/WOWY/RAPM/PIPM to get a ballpark estimate of a player, even when they're each noisy. People have been doing this on this board for years without trouble. And if this ballpark evidence suggests he's clearly sub-GOAT, then we're going to need stronger evidence suggesting that he is GOAT... which you've as of yet failed to provide.

… But you did not do any of that. You took some postseason numbers and compared them to primarily offensive players and then acted like that was a definitive case.

Taking his career as a regular starter, 1985-99, in the regular season he had an average 5.0 BPM, 2.5 OBPM, 2.6 DBPM. What happens in the postseason over the same period? 6.9 BPM, 3.9 OBPM, 3.1 DBPM. Wow, quite the leap. I wonder, could that conceivably elevate a top ten WOWY player? Especially when a few of the names ahead of him either had much shorter careers or were notable postseason fallers?

You've now said you wouldn't trust film analysis of Hakeem.

At this point you've offered no evidence that Hakeem has a GOAT level peak or GOAT-level career, while rejected my arguments that Hakeem isn't the GOAT.

To be blunt: I can't see any compelling argument that Hakeem has the GOAT peak or GOAT career. You can disagree with my arguments -- that's perfectly fine. But as you've yet to offer any evidence that Hakeem is the GOAT... well, that's not much of a starting point for a discussion.

To be blunt, you either need to read better, or more generously, consider in your mind why you think “film analysis” would comfortably show clear quality distinctions between all-time bigs and all-time creators.

If Hakeem has a film analysis argument for best big, then he has a film analysis argument for best player. And as I said, I would be surprised for such an avid Backpicks consumer to have no sense of any such film argument for him as the best big.

Ah, classic AEnigma needless passive aggression

Nah, mate, that is entirely your move. Personally not too interested in the passiveness. Bit craven if you ask me, but I guess for some reason you seem to think people will read it as a gesture to decorum rather than as what it is.

Well, if we're going down that route, allow me to use a frequent strategy of yours. To straw man this, your argument goes: "there's film analysis that puts Hakeem in the general tier of top bigs" -> "the film analysis puts him as the GOAT Center" -> "that puts him as the GOAT of all positions".

Characteristically odd passive-aggressive move. Why do this when one line earlier you had my own quotation directly set for you. “If Hakeem has a film analysis argument for best big, then he has a film analysis argument for best player.” The entire continuation of your thought here works just as well without the blatant projection.

That's... a pretty poor argument. There's plenty of analysis that puts Hakeem in the general tier of top bigs, so I agree with the first statement. You reference Thinking Basketball's film analysis: this puts Hakeem near the top tier.

However, there is little analysis I'm aware of that puts Hakeem as the clear-cut GOAT big (and again, you have yet to provide any examples of such analysis). Thinking Basketball puts him below Shaq in film analysis

Not especially, and Ben stresses that he assesses them near equally (“a coin flip”) but ultimately would give the slight edge to Shaq for portability reasons, but I recognise that honesty here would be inconvenient for this position you have set out for yourself.

and with little separation above Kareem.

Ah interesting, below Shaq — “a coin flip” — but little separation from Kareem, who is described as relatively interchangeable with Bird, Curry, and Garnett 5-8. Always such fun little language games with you!

70sFan, another expert in historical film analysis, has used film in the past to put Kareem's peak over Hakeem's.

Ooh, love this, hold that thought a moment.

And despite your attempts to say "nobody can accurately compare Bigs and wings/smalls on film", plenty of people both in and out of the NBA have been doing this for years. And those people, more often then not, put at least one of Jordan or LeBron's peak clearly over Hakeem. Does it take care and attention to detail? Sure. Is it impossible to accurately compare bigs and wings on film? Far from it.

And what are noted film expert 70sFan’s opinions on the question of all-time bigs versus perimetre players?

If I look past the transparent grasping at any antagonistic argument you can muster, what you seem to be arguing is that if no one specifically advocates Hakeem as the GOAT, then he cannot be. Reasonable enough, but what I am saying is that if multiple standards consistently would put Hakeem at say #3 or #4 while those above him shift off the standard, then consistency across those standards is itself a conceivable case for Hakeem.

If you personally think no big could have a case over Lebron or Jordan, great. If you personally think no big could have a case over Kareem, or in a peak/prime sense, Shaq, great. Advertise that myopia all you want. I myself do not see it as a given, even if my inclination is to favour Kareem’s longevity and to favour Lebron across the board, because I do not need to be 100% for the case to be able to see the case. Just because you are much more willing to lock yourself in does not mean we all need to be…

Thinking Basketball gives Hakeem the 4th best peak of all time, which is a clear step higher than the average (e.g. this 2022 GOAT Peaks project here had Hakeem 7th, and more casual rankings have Hakeem even lower). Per the link I sent, even if we take the least-friendly methodology for Jordan as we can and do a completely linear weighting of career value (so if we value longevity >> peak), Jordan still comes out ahead of Hakeem for his career.

The same is true when comparing 8-year primes. If we took Jordan's first 9 years vs Hakeem's first 11 and compared them linearly (again, this is the most anti-Jordan approach we can take), then Hakeem just barely edges out.... 212% CORP to 206.7% CORP. So basically any non-linear approach that weighted peaks more highly would push Jordan over Hakeem. Again, this is all approximate stuff using CORP as a ballpark-estimate.

Playing your hand here a bit by emphasising how Ben is higher on Hakeem than usual (by your own perception, too high) while also framing this as “the most anti-Jordan approach we can take”. In fact I find it very easy to take a much more “anti-Jordan approach”.

Well, it may be perfectly easy for you to take an even more pro-Hakeem / anti-Jordan approach. But that's just your personal opinion. The question is whether that's a reasonable opinion. To do this, you need to provide evidence to show that such an opinion is defensible. A person has the right to think JR-Smith is better than LeBron lol... but to take them seriously, they should have some pretty compelling evidence to support such a claim.

Okay, cool, Hakeem had better WOWY and a longer career than Jordan while elevating his level of play more or otherwise maintaining better in the postseason and taking teams farther with what many could assess as equivalent talent/support or similarly far with what many would assess as lesser talent/support.

Tangentially, this is quite the interesting comment for you specifically to make considering how frequently you ignore OhayoKD asking for compelling evidence from you.

Saying that Hakeem has the GOAT peak and GOAT career is far from a consensus statement. This isn't that far from arguing Hakeem should have ranked 7 spots higher in the recent Greatest Peaks project or 9 spots higher in the previous Greatest peaks project. This isn't far from arguing that Hakeem should have ranked 9 spots higher in the recent Greatest Careers project, and the project before that, and the project before that. You suggest there's film evidence to make this a clear argument.... yet there was plenty of film evidence used in all 5 of those projects.

Were you ignoring all the arguments against Curry when you voted for him 7 spots higher than he went in the recent project and 11 spots higher than he went in the previous project?

Where is this pro-Hakeem film evidence??

Watch on YouTube

In sum: I'm open to discussion that 11 Hakeem years > 9 Jordan years. I still don't see any case for Hakeem being over MJ in peak or overall career... And since the thread was originally asking whether Hakeem's a GOAT level career, I similarly also don't see a case for taking him over LeBron or Kareem. Do you disagree here?

I disagree to various extents.

1. I think Hakeem absolutely has a peak (one year or three years) argument over Jordan.

2. I think had Hakeem been on a better team, that would also be a more common public take (even if Jordan’s scoring is ultimately too beloved for it to be a majority one).

3. I think Hakeem on a better team could have changed Jordan’s ring count, which would commonly reduce the public perception of his career while significantly spiking Hakeem’s.

4. I think there are good arguments that Jordan was not as impactful or innately valuable as the top two-way bigs, and while I personally tend to give him some amount of career legacy credit for his titles, that notion in itself could/would push him outside the top five in raw career, prime, or peak “CORP”.

5. While personally I could not put Hakeem’s career over Kareem’s or Lebron’s because of how I weigh longevity (or over Russell’s, for more abstract reasons), I think as an extended prime I would accept arguments for him at the top, and for many extended prime is more important than total career value.

So when the thread title asks if he has a chance at that status with better teammates improving his ring count, possibly decreasing Jordan’s own ring count, and potentially improving his own play and therefore “raw” value, yes, I think he absolutely would have a chance at that depending on the assessment and the person making the assessment. If he has a chance at being seen as better than Jordan, or as the #1 peak, then obviously he has a chance at being seen as the GOAT.

1. Disagree, but again would love to see any evidence to the contrary.

2-3. Would better team have made it more likely to win / improved public opinion on him? Sure thing! But there's quite the gap between Hakeem and Jordan, not just in public opinion (who we both presumably think over-value ringzzz) but also among NBA journalists, NBA players/coaches/organization-members, and NBA historical analysts including those on this board. An improvement does not necessarily mean he makes up enough ground to catch Jordan/LeBron... to do that, he would have to be sufficiently close behind. If you believe Point 1, sure than points 2-3 have merit. But again, I've yet to see you provide me any such evidence for point 1 besides your opinion.

Unfortunately I guess we will need to wait for Squared2020 to do ten games of RAPM from 1993 to know for sure.

5. Not sure that pointing out Hakeem's substantial longevity gap beneath Kareem or LeBron makes his GOAT-case any stronger lol. But I'm glad to hear you at least agree Kareem and LeBron have better longevity

Because general public consensus has been to ignore longevity, and even in this specific board Lebron only narrowly topped Jordan for the career listing while fresh off a title.

I recognise the cases people make for Jordan even though for my own assessments I do not think those cases are reasonable by comparison with Lebron, Russell, or Kareem. Which is why I think Falco’s question about generational perception is key. Maybe Hakeem never could be the GOAT anymore than Tim Duncan could be, but if this thread were simply a matter of, “No, people are generally too biased toward scoring and offence, and those who are not would still take players with fuller careers,” then we would not be seven pages of discussion in.

[Owly]

Section 3) See I'd dispute that Shaq put up solid numbers versus Robinson. Solid in the sense that Kenyon Martin or Phil Chenier or other slightly better than league average players are solid sure, perhaps good even, I'd have to look closer. For O'Neal though, the passing isn't at a great level to put it gently, the scoring efficiency without checking game by game (just eyeballing each game's averages and the average thereof) seems fine in absolute terms, poor by his own standards. He's below his typical standard on the offensive glass and he isn't preventing Robinson from being a productive defender and likely his typical defensive anchor self by his gravity.

I don't have enough time to go in depth with this argument now, but I disagree that Shaq looks solid in sense that Kenyon Martin was solid, or that he was "poor by his own standards". Here are Shaq numbers in these 5 games he played against Robinson:

28.6 ppg, 13.4 rpg, 1.8 apg, 3.0 tov, 3.6 orb on 50.9 FG%, 54.9 TS% in 40.4 mpg

He played a bit more minutes than usually (40.4 vs 37.8), but his scoring volume is around the same as it was on average. He did have lower scoring efficiency, but the numbers are deflated by one poor shooting night (he scored 60.2 TS%, 53.5 TS%, 48.5 TS%, 55.7 TS% and 56.9 TS% in these games). Overall, these numbers are not poor at all, although they are a bit weaker than I remembered.

I think you exaggarated how bad Shaq numbers look like.

I mainly just reported numbers.

Now slightly more fine grain I've checked OBPM, DBPM splits and for the 94-96 sample (not so much if you include '93) and it's positive for Shaq average OBPM is a "good" 3.1 but below his averages for those seasons (5.4) by a significant distance (inc '93 it's 0.828571429 versus an average of 4.4). Good. And in that light the Martin, Chenier comps are harsh (especially if one understood them to be offense specific in Martin's case, really just looking at players with average-y metrics - but less so if one includes the awful offensive '93 sample).

On details, as above no complaints about volume but it's less useful if it's not that efficient and not leading to playmaking.
Sure if you cut the worst night the numbers look better. If you cut the best one they look worse too. Overall it's 0.549155146. His average is .590 for the spell. League average is low enough that that numbers is a positive but small one (based off Reference team page the average of league averages is 0.537666667).

12.8 Oreb% average over the years goes down to 10.04. 13 assist% goes way down to 8.06. Even turnover percentage is very marginally up and his TS% is artificially boosted by better than his average .630 versus .530) free throw percentage (Robinson's FT% is also "hot", but much less so 0.807692308 versus a .761 norm)


And If this defense is single coverage, as you hypothesized it would be in the playoffs, Robinson is single-handedly taking a big chunk out of Shaq's efficiency with less help than others whilst allowing a system that stymies his playmaking.

One can quibble at the margins depending on years and focusing on a specific end and the sample, especially without '93, is limited, but the numbers I've looked at in absolute terms or versus expectations seem like a very substantial win for Robinson in the particular matchup. Not, as I've said, that this is something I look at in evaluating players overall.

[70sFan]

Section 3) See I'd dispute that Shaq put up solid numbers versus Robinson. Solid in the sense that Kenyon Martin or Phil Chenier or other slightly better than league average players are solid sure, perhaps good even, I'd have to look closer. For O'Neal though, the passing isn't at a great level to put it gently, the scoring efficiency without checking game by game (just eyeballing each game's averages and the average thereof) seems fine in absolute terms, poor by his own standards. He's below his typical standard on the offensive glass and he isn't preventing Robinson from being a productive defender and likely his typical defensive anchor self by his gravity.

I don't have enough time to go in depth with this argument now, but I disagree that Shaq looks solid in sense that Kenyon Martin was solid, or that he was "poor by his own standards". Here are Shaq numbers in these 5 games he played against Robinson:

28.6 ppg, 13.4 rpg, 1.8 apg, 3.0 tov, 3.6 orb on 50.9 FG%, 54.9 TS% in 40.4 mpg

He played a bit more minutes than usually (40.4 vs 37.8), but his scoring volume is around the same as it was on average. He did have lower scoring efficiency, but the numbers are deflated by one poor shooting night (he scored 60.2 TS%, 53.5 TS%, 48.5 TS%, 55.7 TS% and 56.9 TS% in these games). Overall, these numbers are not poor at all, although they are a bit weaker than I remembered.

I think you exaggarated how bad Shaq numbers look like.

I mainly just reported numbers.

Now slightly more fine grain I've checked OBPM, DBPM splits and for the 94-96 sample (not so much if you include '93) and it's positive for Shaq average OBPM is a "good" 3.1 but below his averages for those seasons (5.4) by a significant distance (inc '93 it's 0.828571429 versus an average of 4.4). Good. And in that light the Martin, Chenier comps are harsh (especially if one understood them to be offense specific in Martin's case, really just looking at players with average-y metrics - but less so if one includes the awful offensive '93 sample).

On details, as above no complaints about volume but it's less useful if it's not that efficient and not leading to playmaking.
Sure if you cut the worst night the numbers look better. If you cut the best one they look worse too. Overall it's 0.549155146. His average is .590 for the spell. League average is low enough that that numbers is a positive but small one (based off Reference team page the average of league averages is 0.537666667).

12.8 Oreb% average over the years goes down to 10.04. 13 assist% goes way down to 8.06. Even turnover percentage is very marginally up and his TS% is artificially boosted by better than his average .630 versus .530) free throw percentage (Robinson's FT% is also "hot", but much less so 0.807692308 versus a .761 norm)


And If this defense is single coverage, as you hypothesized it would be in the playoffs, Robinson is single-handedly taking a big chunk out of Shaq's efficiency with less help than others whilst allowing a system that stymies his playmaking.

One can quibble at the margins depending on years and focusing on a specific end and the sample, especially without '93, is limited, but the numbers I've looked at in absolute terms or versus expectations seem like a very substantial win for Robinson in the particular matchup. Not, as I've said, that this is something I look at in evaluating players overall.

Yeah, I also remembered Shaq being more efficient in Robinson matchups, so I think we both went too far with our opposite takes. It does seem that Robinson did a fair job on Shaq, although it contradicts what I have seen in some of these games.

[ShaqAttac]

I don't have enough time to go in depth with this argument now, but I disagree that Shaq looks solid in sense that Kenyon Martin was solid, or that he was "poor by his own standards". Here are Shaq numbers in these 5 games he played against Robinson:

28.6 ppg, 13.4 rpg, 1.8 apg, 3.0 tov, 3.6 orb on 50.9 FG%, 54.9 TS% in 40.4 mpg

He played a bit more minutes than usually (40.4 vs 37.8), but his scoring volume is around the same as it was on average. He did have lower scoring efficiency, but the numbers are deflated by one poor shooting night (he scored 60.2 TS%, 53.5 TS%, 48.5 TS%, 55.7 TS% and 56.9 TS% in these games). Overall, these numbers are not poor at all, although they are a bit weaker than I remembered.

I think you exaggarated how bad Shaq numbers look like.

I mainly just reported numbers.

Now slightly more fine grain I've checked OBPM, DBPM splits and for the 94-96 sample (not so much if you include '93) and it's positive for Shaq average OBPM is a "good" 3.1 but below his averages for those seasons (5.4) by a significant distance (inc '93 it's 0.828571429 versus an average of 4.4). Good. And in that light the Martin, Chenier comps are harsh (especially if one understood them to be offense specific in Martin's case, really just looking at players with average-y metrics - but less so if one includes the awful offensive '93 sample).

On details, as above no complaints about volume but it's less useful if it's not that efficient and not leading to playmaking.
Sure if you cut the worst night the numbers look better. If you cut the best one they look worse too. Overall it's 0.549155146. His average is .590 for the spell. League average is low enough that that numbers is a positive but small one (based off Reference team page the average of league averages is 0.537666667).

12.8 Oreb% average over the years goes down to 10.04. 13 assist% goes way down to 8.06. Even turnover percentage is very marginally up and his TS% is artificially boosted by better than his average .630 versus .530) free throw percentage (Robinson's FT% is also "hot", but much less so 0.807692308 versus a .761 norm)


And If this defense is single coverage, as you hypothesized it would be in the playoffs, Robinson is single-handedly taking a big chunk out of Shaq's efficiency with less help than others whilst allowing a system that stymies his playmaking.

One can quibble at the margins depending on years and focusing on a specific end and the sample, especially without '93, is limited, but the numbers I've looked at in absolute terms or versus expectations seem like a very substantial win for Robinson in the particular matchup. Not, as I've said, that this is something I look at in evaluating players overall.

Yeah, I also remembered Shaq being more efficient in Robinson matchups, so I think we both went too far with our opposite takes. It does seem that Robinson did a fair job on Shaq, although it contradicts what I have seen in some of these games.

shaq was better than robinson right?

[70sFan]

I mainly just reported numbers.

Now slightly more fine grain I've checked OBPM, DBPM splits and for the 94-96 sample (not so much if you include '93) and it's positive for Shaq average OBPM is a "good" 3.1 but below his averages for those seasons (5.4) by a significant distance (inc '93 it's 0.828571429 versus an average of 4.4). Good. And in that light the Martin, Chenier comps are harsh (especially if one understood them to be offense specific in Martin's case, really just looking at players with average-y metrics - but less so if one includes the awful offensive '93 sample).

On details, as above no complaints about volume but it's less useful if it's not that efficient and not leading to playmaking.
Sure if you cut the worst night the numbers look better. If you cut the best one they look worse too. Overall it's 0.549155146. His average is .590 for the spell. League average is low enough that that numbers is a positive but small one (based off Reference team page the average of league averages is 0.537666667).

12.8 Oreb% average over the years goes down to 10.04. 13 assist% goes way down to 8.06. Even turnover percentage is very marginally up and his TS% is artificially boosted by better than his average .630 versus .530) free throw percentage (Robinson's FT% is also "hot", but much less so 0.807692308 versus a .761 norm)


And If this defense is single coverage, as you hypothesized it would be in the playoffs, Robinson is single-handedly taking a big chunk out of Shaq's efficiency with less help than others whilst allowing a system that stymies his playmaking.

One can quibble at the margins depending on years and focusing on a specific end and the sample, especially without '93, is limited, but the numbers I've looked at in absolute terms or versus expectations seem like a very substantial win for Robinson in the particular matchup. Not, as I've said, that this is something I look at in evaluating players overall.

Yeah, I also remembered Shaq being more efficient in Robinson matchups, so I think we both went too far with our opposite takes. It does seem that Robinson did a fair job on Shaq, although it contradicts what I have seen in some of these games.

shaq was better than robinson right?

That's my opinion.

[ShaqAttac]

Yeah, I also remembered Shaq being more efficient in Robinson matchups, so I think we both went too far with our opposite takes. It does seem that Robinson did a fair job on Shaq, although it contradicts what I have seen in some of these games.

shaq was better than robinson right?

That's my opinion.

was shaq a better passer

[DraymondGold]

Ah yes, when faced with potential lack of postseason impact data outside the box score, we look at… regular season WOWY and fourteen game non-peak RAPM samples again.

You always get mad when I imply or even outright state that you are not being even-keeled when you do this type of analysis, but do you really not see the problem here?

To me, postseason Duncan should seem like the obvious analogy, but there too we encounter a player you tend to side against, so maybe the analogy is not one which comes to mind.

The argument for Hakeem has always been offensive postseason improvement more than defensive postseason improvement. That was the argument plenty of people made in the Greatest Peaks project, both this year and in previous years. If you'd like to go against that and suggest it's defensive improvement too, that's fine... but again, so far you lack much evidence at all lol

Perhaps I should have tracked plus/minus for a couple of games and used that to make sweeping statements.

So the argument for Hakeem goes: defensive value (which again, is already captured in regular season RAPM

Which based on those very legitimate samples suggests he is actually a middling impact defender.

/WOWY

Where he grades out in the top ten and better than Jordan, Kareem, and Duncan.

+ Postseason Offensive Improvement (which is relatively well captured in the BPM/PIPM, especially when much of Hakeem's offensive value comes from box-score-centric stuff vs off-ball value).

Am I saying it's perfect evidence? No. But I am saying it gives us a ballpark estimate of value...
This is pretty dang middle of the road "even keeled" analysis. I'm just saying you can use BPM/WOWY/RAPM/PIPM to get a ballpark estimate of a player, even when they're each noisy. People have been doing this on this board for years without trouble. And if this ballpark evidence suggests he's clearly sub-GOAT, then we're going to need stronger evidence suggesting that he is GOAT... which you've as of yet failed to provide.

… But you did not do any of that. You took some postseason numbers and compared them to primarily offensive players and then acted like that was a definitive case.

Taking his career as a regular starter, 1985-99, in the regular season he had an average 5.0 BPM, 2.5 OBPM, 2.6 DBPM. What happens in the postseason over the same period? 6.9 BPM, 3.9 OBPM, 3.1 DBPM. Wow, quite the leap. I wonder, could that conceivably elevate a top ten WOWY player? Especially when a few of the names ahead of him either had much shorter careers or were notable postseason fallers?

To be blunt, you either need to read better, or more generously, consider in your mind why you think “film analysis” would comfortably show clear quality distinctions between all-time bigs and all-time creators.

If Hakeem has a film analysis argument for best big, then he has a film analysis argument for best player. And as I said, I would be surprised for such an avid Backpicks consumer to have no sense of any such film argument for him as the best big.

Ah, classic AEnigma needless passive aggression

Nah, mate, that is entirely your move. Personally not too interested in the passiveness. Bit craven if you ask me, but I guess for some reason you seem to think people will read it as a gesture to decorum rather than as what it is.

I’ll trust the moderators in deciding which one of us sets a worse tone in discussion, since only one of us have gotten in trouble with the moderators for passive aggression and outright aggression towards the other

Well, if we're going down that route, allow me to use a frequent strategy of yours. To straw man this, your argument goes: "there's film analysis that puts Hakeem in the general tier of top bigs" -> "the film analysis puts him as the GOAT Center" -> "that puts him as the GOAT of all positions".

Characteristically odd passive-aggressive move.

My apologies. Seriously

Why do this when one line earlier you had my own quotation directly set for you. “If Hakeem has a film analysis argument for best big, then he has a film analysis argument for best player.” The entire continuation of your thought here works just as well without the blatant projection.

… except that a possible argument for being the best big =/= the clear cut best big =/ the clear cut best player.

And remember: this uses peak-only analysis, with Hakeem performing worse in full-career film analysis

That's... a pretty poor argument. There's plenty of analysis that puts Hakeem in the general tier of top bigs, so I agree with the first statement. You reference Thinking Basketball's film analysis: this puts Hakeem near the top tier.

However, there is little analysis I'm aware of that puts Hakeem as the clear-cut GOAT big (and again, you have yet to provide any examples of such analysis). Thinking Basketball puts him below Shaq in film analysis

Not especially, and Ben stresses that he assesses them near equally (“a coin flip”) but ultimately would give the slight edge to Shaq for portability reasons, but I recognise that honesty here would be inconvenient for this position you have set out for yourself.

… except that near equal =/= equal. Ben has never chosen peak Hakeem over peak Shaq, in any ranking or film analysis. Ever.

and with little separation above Kareem.

Ah interesting, below Shaq — “a coin flip” — but little separation from Kareem, who is described as relatively interchangeable with Bird, Curry, and Garnett 5-8. Always such fun little language games with you!

And it’s worth mentioning: this is using 77-79 for Kareem’s peak (when Ben has said that 74-77 could rank higher), this is marking both Curry and Bird down for health concerns, and this is not counting Wilt or Russell.

Again: Thinking Basketball film analysis does not support the idea that Hakeem is GOAT level, in either peak or career. And again: Thinking Badketball is higher on Hakeem than just about any other standard reputable source of film analysis (e.g. other NBA analysts, other NBA journalists, this board, etc.)

70sFan, another expert in historical film analysis, has used film in the past to put Kareem's peak over Hakeem's.

Ooh, love this, hold that thought a moment.

And despite your attempts to say "nobody can accurately compare Bigs and wings/smalls on film", plenty of people both in and out of the NBA have been doing this for years. And those people, more often then not, put at least one of Jordan or LeBron's peak clearly over Hakeem. Does it take care and attention to detail? Sure. Is it impossible to accurately compare bigs and wings on film? Far from it.

And what are noted film expert 70sFan’s opinions on the question of all-time bigs versus perimetre players?

If I look past the transparent grasping at any antagonistic argument you can muster, what you seem to be arguing is that if no one specifically advocates Hakeem as the GOAT, then he cannot be. Reasonable enough, but what I am saying is that if multiple standards consistently would put Hakeem at say #3 or #4 while those above him shift off the standard, then consistency across those standards is itself a conceivable case for Hakeem.

If you personally think no big could have a case over Lebron or Jordan, great. If you personally think no big could have a case over Kareem, or in a peak/prime sense, Shaq, great. Advertise that myopia all you want. I myself do not see it as a given, even if my inclination is to favour Kareem’s longevity and to favour Lebron across the board, because I do not need to be 100% for the case to be able to see the case. Just because you are much more willing to lock yourself in does not mean we all need to be…

1) If Hakeem is always 3rd/4th in film analysis, and 2) if there isn’t a consistent player who’s always above him), then you could indeed at least make an argument for Hakeem.

Except neither of those statements 1–2 are true: for the first, you only need to look at basically every past peak project on this site to see this.

For the second, I’ve already shown how other players are consistently ranked over Hakeem for peak and career.

And regardless, the entire logic is also imperfect: if no normal criteria put hakeem as the GOAT (not Thinking Basketball, not 70sFan, not this board, not historical journalists like The Athletic, not coaches/players, not the public), then it again seems unreasonable to have him as the goat based on the film analysis of those people, even if some average of many criteria make him rank slightly better for peak-only (while still being sub-GOAT in this average too).

Playing your hand here a bit by emphasising how Ben is higher on Hakeem than usual (by your own perception, too high) while also framing this as “the most anti-Jordan approach we can take”. In fact I find it very easy to take a much more “anti-Jordan approach”.

Well, it may be perfectly easy for you to take an even more pro-Hakeem / anti-Jordan approach. But that's just your personal opinion. The question is whether that's a reasonable opinion. To do this, you need to provide evidence to show that such an opinion is defensible. A person has the right to think JR-Smith is better than LeBron lol... but to take them seriously, they should have some pretty compelling evidence to support such a claim.

Okay, cool, Hakeem had better WOWY and a longer career than Jordan while elevating his level of play more or otherwise maintaining better in the postseason and taking teams farther with what many could assess as equivalent talent/support or similarly far with what many would assess as lesser talent/support.

Tangentially, this is quite the interesting comment for you specifically to make considering how frequently you ignore OhayoKD asking for compelling evidence from you.

Saying that Hakeem has the GOAT peak and GOAT career is far from a consensus statement. This isn't that far from arguing Hakeem should have ranked 7 spots higher in the recent Greatest Peaks project or 9 spots higher in the previous Greatest peaks project. This isn't far from arguing that Hakeem should have ranked 9 spots higher in the recent Greatest Careers project, and the project before that, and the project before that. You suggest there's film evidence to make this a clear argument.... yet there was plenty of film evidence used in all 5 of those projects.

Were you ignoring all the arguments against Curry when you voted for him 7 spots higher than he went in the recent project and 11 spots higher than he went in the previous project?

Except I provided a mountain of statistical, film, team, and contextual evidence to justify my unpopular opinion, while you have still yet to provide much evidence at all in favor of your vastly unpopular opinion

The problem is not having an unpopular opinion; it’s complaining about the problems in the evidence for near-complete-consensus opinions (as near-consensus as we get in GOAT debates), while providing absolutely no evidence for your own extremely unpopular opinions.

Where is this pro-Hakeem film evidence??

Watch on YouTube

Aha! Our first substantial piece of direct evidence!

… except this doesn’t support the claim you’re making. Again, this does not portray Hakeem as the GOAT.

I disagree to various extents.

1. I think Hakeem absolutely has a peak (one year or three years) argument over Jordan.

2. I think had Hakeem been on a better team, that would also be a more common public take (even if Jordan’s scoring is ultimately too beloved for it to be a majority one).

3. I think Hakeem on a better team could have changed Jordan’s ring count, which would commonly reduce the public perception of his career while significantly spiking Hakeem’s.

4. I think there are good arguments that Jordan was not as impactful or innately valuable as the top two-way bigs, and while I personally tend to give him some amount of career legacy credit for his titles, that notion in itself could/would push him outside the top five in raw career, prime, or peak “CORP”.

5. While personally I could not put Hakeem’s career over Kareem’s or Lebron’s because of how I weigh longevity (or over Russell’s, for more abstract reasons), I think as an extended prime I would accept arguments for him at the top, and for many extended prime is more important than total career value.

So when the thread title asks if he has a chance at that status with better teammates improving his ring count, possibly decreasing Jordan’s own ring count, and potentially improving his own play and therefore “raw” value, yes, I think he absolutely would have a chance at that depending on the assessment and the person making the assessment. If he has a chance at being seen as better than Jordan, or as the #1 peak, then obviously he has a chance at being seen as the GOAT.

1. Disagree, but again would love to see any evidence to the contrary.

2-3. Would better team have made it more likely to win / improved public opinion on him? Sure thing! But there's quite the gap between Hakeem and Jordan, not just in public opinion (who we both presumably think over-value ringzzz) but also among NBA journalists, NBA players/coaches/organization-members, and NBA historical analysts including those on this board. An improvement does not necessarily mean he makes up enough ground to catch Jordan/LeBron... to do that, he would have to be sufficiently close behind. If you believe Point 1, sure than points 2-3 have merit. But again, I've yet to see you provide me any such evidence for point 1 besides your opinion.

Unfortunately I guess we will need to wait for Squared2020 to do ten games of RAPM from 1993 to know for sure.

Well, that would still be 10 more games of research than you’ve done to support your argument

5. Not sure that pointing out Hakeem's substantial longevity gap beneath Kareem or LeBron makes his GOAT-case any stronger lol. But I'm glad to hear you at least agree Kareem and LeBron have better longevity

Because general public consensus has been to ignore longevity, and even in this specific board Lebron only narrowly topped Jordan for the career listing while fresh off a title.

I recognise the cases people make for Jordan even though for my own assessments I do not think those cases are reasonable by comparison with Lebron, Russell, or Kareem. Which is why I think Falco’s question about generational perception is key. Maybe Hakeem never could be the GOAT anymore than Tim Duncan could be, but if this thread were simply a matter of, “No, people are generally too biased toward scoring and offence, and those who are not would still take players with fuller careers,” then we would not be seven pages of discussion in.

I actually like this point a lot.

Agree that the public generally underrated longevity, and agree on the point of perception (even if I disagree with the specific rankings).

Question: how much do you think the public value cumulative stats? Certainly not as much as peak, but do you see them valuing this at all?

I’ve seen plenty of public debates that cite that Kareem’s the all-time leading scorer as evidence for his all time rankings. It’s basically guaranteed that casual fans will cite LBJ being the al-time scorer to argue for LeBron over Jordan/others once he passes Kareem.

[LukaTheGOAT]

Then for him to be considered a GOAT candidate, his playoffs should be all the more valuable to make up for the fact that he's so much worse in the regular season.

Is he? What do the stats say?
In 1-yr peak PS BPM, 3-yr peak PS BPM, 1-yr peak PS PIPM, and 3-yr peak PS PIPM, LeBron, Jordan, Kareem, and Bird are universally above Hakeem. Duncan's ahead in 3/4 stats, and Curry's clearly ahead in PIPM while only being 0.1 behind in BPM. Hakeem's highest PS ranking in any of these stats is.. 6th out of the Top 12 peaks (while missing Wilt/Russell's numbers).

Where's this statistical dominance in the playoffs? Now you might say: "these stats underrate Hakeem's defense!" To which we could turn to the incomplete RAPM and more complete WOWY numbers, both of which suggest his defense and offense combined is not GOAT level. It's great stuff! But not GOAT level.

Ah yes, when faced with potential lack of postseason impact data outside the box score, we look at… regular season WOWY and fourteen game non-peak RAPM samples again.

You always get mad when I imply or even outright state that you are not being even-keeled when you do this type of analysis, but do you really not see the problem here?

To me, postseason Duncan should seem like the obvious analogy, but there too we encounter a player you tend to side against, so maybe the analogy is not one which comes to mind.

The argument for Hakeem has always been offensive postseason improvement more than defensive postseason improvement. That was the argument plenty of people made in the Greatest Peaks project, both this year and in previous years. If you'd like to go against that and suggest it's defensive improvement too, that's fine... but again, so far you lack much evidence at all lol

So the argument for Hakeem goes: defensive value (which again, is already captured in regular season RAPM/WOWY) + Postseason Offensive Improvement (which is relatively well captured in the BPM/PIPM, especially when much of Hakeem's offensive value comes from box-score-centric stuff vs off-ball value).

Am I saying it's perfect evidence? No. But I am saying it gives us a ballpark estimate of value...
This is pretty dang middle of the road "even keeled" analysis. I'm just saying you can use BPM/WOWY/RAPM/PIPM to get a ballpark estimate of a player, even when they're each noisy. People have been doing this on this board for years without trouble. And if this ballpark evidence suggests he's clearly sub-GOAT, then we're going to need stronger evidence suggesting that he is GOAT... which you've as of yet failed to provide.

Well, at this point I've provided a fairly thorough evaluation of the available statistics and found no evidence that Hakeem's the GOAT, in either peak or career.

The titular question was whether a better situation would have or could have changed that.

If Hakeem is clearly sub-GOAT in the evidence we have so far (in both value and goodness), then... it would take quite the change of situation to suggest that he's suddenly the GOAT.

In terms of value: While a change in situation might change "value" / how he performs with better fit, most people would say the 94/95 Rockets were great fits for Hakeem (even if they could have been slightly boosted in talent). I'm definitely open to a better situation improving his value in previous seasons like 89-92... but basically nobody has those seasons as GOAT anyway, so it would take quite an improvement in fit to raise those to GOAT level.

Regardless, most people don't think changes in situation greatly change goodness that much (short of learning/focusing on new skills under better coaching/development). So the "better situation improving goodness to GOAT-level" would be quite an up-hill battle against the general consensus... unless you think some sort of better situation could suddenly not make him the clear-cut worst passer of the Top 12. Personally though, I just have trouble seeing that.

You've now said you wouldn't trust film analysis of Hakeem.

At this point you've offered no evidence that Hakeem has a GOAT level peak or GOAT-level career, while rejected my arguments that Hakeem isn't the GOAT.

To be blunt: I can't see any compelling argument that Hakeem has the GOAT peak or GOAT career. You can disagree with my arguments -- that's perfectly fine. But as you've yet to offer any evidence that Hakeem is the GOAT... well, that's not much of a starting point for a discussion.

To be blunt, you either need to read better, or more generously, consider in your mind why you think “film analysis” would comfortably show clear quality distinctions between all-time bigs and all-time creators.

If Hakeem has a film analysis argument for best big, then he has a film analysis argument for best player. And as I said, I would be surprised for such an avid Backpicks consumer to have no sense of any such film argument for him as the best big.

Ah, classic AEnigma needless passive aggression

Well, if we're going down that route, allow me to use a frequent strategy of yours. To straw man this, your argument goes: "there's film analysis that puts Hakeem in the general tier of top bigs" -> "the film analysis puts him as the GOAT Center" -> "that puts him as the GOAT of all positions".

That's... a pretty poor argument. There's plenty of analysis that puts Hakeem in the general tier of top bigs, so I agree with the first statement. You reference Thinking Basketball's film analysis: this puts Hakeem near the top tier.

However, there is little analysis I'm aware of that puts Hakeem as the clear-cut GOAT big (and again, you have yet to provide any examples of such analysis). Thinking Basketball puts him below Shaq in film analysis (and further below Jordan/LeBron), and with little separation above Kareem. 70sFan, another expert in historical film analysis, has used film in the past to put Kareem's peak over Hakeem's. Hakeem is not GOAT level in this film analysis.

And despite your attempts to say "nobody can accurately compare Bigs and wings/smalls on film", plenty of people both in and out of the NBA have been doing this for years. And those people, more often then not, put at least one of Jordan or LeBron's peak clearly over Hakeem. Does it take care and attention to detail? Sure. Is it impossible to accurately compare bigs and wings on film? Far from it.

Ah, well that's a different argument! Previously it seemed like the thread was focusing on whether Hakeem had a case for GOAT career (with GOAT peak being an important consideration when evaluating careers). But this is quite an interesting comparison, so let's discuss a bit more

You quoted my discussion with Luka, which was specifically framed around the contention that he would take 1988-93 Jordan over 1988-95 Hakeem.

Ah, my bad -- Thanks for clarifying! Point taken.

Thinking Basketball gives Hakeem the 4th best peak of all time, which is a clear step higher than the average (e.g. this 2022 GOAT Peaks project here had Hakeem 7th, and more casual rankings have Hakeem even lower). Per the link I sent, even if we take the least-friendly methodology for Jordan as we can and do a completely linear weighting of career value (so if we value longevity >> peak), Jordan still comes out ahead of Hakeem for his career.

The same is true when comparing 8-year primes. If we took Jordan's first 9 years vs Hakeem's first 11 and compared them linearly (again, this is the most anti-Jordan approach we can take), then Hakeem just barely edges out.... 212% CORP to 206.7% CORP. So basically any non-linear approach that weighted peaks more highly would push Jordan over Hakeem. Again, this is all approximate stuff using CORP as a ballpark-estimate.

Playing your hand here a bit by emphasising how Ben is higher on Hakeem than usual (by your own perception, too high) while also framing this as “the most anti-Jordan approach we can take”. In fact I find it very easy to take a much more “anti-Jordan approach”.

Well, it may be perfectly easy for you to take an even more pro-Hakeem / anti-Jordan approach. But that's just your personal opinion. The question is whether that's a reasonable opinion. To do this, you need to provide evidence to show that such an opinion is defensible. A person has the right to think JR-Smith is better than LeBron lol... but to take them seriously, they should have some pretty compelling evidence to support such a claim.

Saying that Hakeem has the GOAT peak and GOAT career is far from a consensus statement. This isn't that far from arguing Hakeem should have ranked 7 spots higher in the recent Greatest Peaks project or 9 spots higher in the previous Greatest peaks project. This isn't far from arguing that Hakeem should have ranked 9 spots higher in the recent Greatest Careers project, and the project before that, and the project before that.

You suggest there's film evidence to make this a clear argument.... yet there was plenty of film evidence used in all 5 of those projects. Where is this pro-Hakeem film evidence??

In sum: I'm open to discussion that 11 Hakeem years > 9 Jordan years. I still don't see any case for Hakeem being over MJ in peak or overall career... And since the thread was originally asking whether Hakeem's a GOAT level career, I similarly also don't see a case for taking him over LeBron or Kareem. Do you disagree here?

I disagree to various extents.

1. I think Hakeem absolutely has a peak (one year or three years) argument over Jordan.

2. I think had Hakeem been on a better team, that would also be a more common public take (even if Jordan’s scoring is ultimately too beloved for it to be a majority one).

3. I think Hakeem on a better team could have changed Jordan’s ring count, which would commonly reduce the public perception of his career while significantly spiking Hakeem’s.

4. I think there are good arguments that Jordan was not as impactful or innately valuable as the top two-way bigs, and while I personally tend to give him some amount of career legacy credit for his titles, that notion in itself could/would push him outside the top five in raw career, prime, or peak “CORP”.

5. While personally I could not put Hakeem’s career over Kareem’s or Lebron’s because of how I weigh longevity (or over Russell’s, for more abstract reasons), I think as an extended prime I would accept arguments for him at the top, and for many extended prime is more important than total career value.

So when the thread title asks if he has a chance at that status with better teammates improving his ring count, possibly decreasing Jordan’s own ring count, and potentially improving his own play and therefore “raw” value, yes, I think he absolutely would have a chance at that depending on the assessment and the person making the assessment. If he has a chance at being seen as better than Jordan, or as the #1 peak, then obviously he has a chance at being seen as the GOAT.

1. Disagree, but again would love to see any evidence to the contrary.

2-3. Would better team have made it more likely to win / improved public opinion on him? Sure thing! But there's quite the gap between Hakeem and Jordan, not just in public opinion (who we both presumably think over-value ringzzz) but also among NBA journalists, NBA players/coaches/organization-members, and NBA historical analysts including those on this board. An improvement does not necessarily mean he makes up enough ground to catch Jordan/LeBron... to do that, he would have to be sufficiently close behind. If you believe Point 1, sure than points 2-3 have merit. But again, I've yet to see you provide me any such evidence for point 1 besides your opinion.

4. Depends on how you value Jordan, but if you're significantly lower on him than the majority of this board, sure.

5. Not sure that pointing out Hakeem's substantial longevity gap beneath Kareem or LeBron makes his GOAT-case any stronger lol. But I'm glad to hear you at least agree Kareem and LeBron have better longevity [/quote]

I think the argument for Hakeem's PS defense rising is potentially there.

Like from 88-94, Hakeem held opposing all-star centers 3.6 points per 36 minutes below their season averages, on efficiency with around a 3.5 rTS% drop in efficiency as well per Ben Taylor's GOAT Peaks vid. If you think PS series are won by stars, I could see an argument that Hakeem's defense is proportionally more important in the PS than the RS, because of the drop he can make stars have.

A direct example is

Patrick Ewing vs Hakeem Olajuwon in the 1994 Finals (IA per 75):

•) 19.6 points
•) 12.9 rebounds
•) 1.7 assists
•) 1.3 steals
•) 4.5 blocks
•) -10.7 opponent-adjusted rTS%
•) Rockets were a -4.9 defense (really good)

Ewing’s scoring in the 1994 playoffs before facing Hakeem:

▪️Averaged 23.1 PPG on 54% TS

How Ewing scored in the ‘94 Finals vs Hakeem: Averaged 18.9 PPG on 39%(!) TS

Hakeem shut down an elite center; you usually don't see 1 on 1 defense lead to stars getting locked down, but I think this is one of those special cases where Hakeem's defense was that special.

Ewing-ball leading to so many lost possessions possibly hurt the Knicks more than anything.


Also, per Ben's video, Hakeem registered at least 5 blocks in 35% of his playoff games from 1986 to 1984...and in 93 and 94, he had at least 5 in nearly HALF of his PS games. This suggests that perhaps 93 and 94 Hakeem isn't quite as far away from his peak on defense as some might believe; he likely had a lower motor in the RS these years than his 89 and 90 versions, but I am not sure how great of a difference there is in the PS.

That being said, I don't really think Hakeem would be the GOAT in a different situation. But information that I just provided, along with his offensive rise, is enough for me to put him ahead of Duncan all-time and possibly Shaq in terms of peak and in terms of career value, I would also have him ahead of Duncan and maybe Shaq....this is despite the plus-minus we do have suggesting he might be a bit below those 2.