#4 Highest Peak of All Time (Wilt '67 wins)

[Josephpaul]

Kareem 71

[PTB Fan]

Guess Lebron's gonna win?

I'm still going 03 Duncan for my vote. Basically played every role but perimeter defender. And as impressive as Lebron's 09 PS was he didn't bring it on one end (very nitpicky I know) and his crazy high impact numbers don't translate to balanced teams at all.

I may vote for him later on...

but for now...

Vote: '67 Wilt Chamberlain

[lorak]

I'm not even clearly siding with Duncan lol. I just don't think Hakeem has separated himself from the Duncan/KG tier, so I'm objecting to his name being thrown around, while those two are being ignored. I haven't seen anything that clearly gives him the edge over those two

I haven't seen anything that clearly gives Russell edge over Hakeem or KG or Duncan... yet, he is already voted in ;/

[Lightning25]

^lol, then vote for 2012 LeBron if you think he should go here. Nobody's saying you have to agree on the year.

How does the voting system work? I was in the #2 thread but not the #3 and there was controversy over which year each player gets voted in. If I vote for 2012 LeBron, does it still apply to Lebron or is it an entirely different vote?

[colts18]

Biggest SRS dropoff in history:
1. 99 Bulls -15.82 (MJ/Pippen/Rodman)
2. 11 cavs -15.05 (LeBron)
3. 97 Spurs -13.91 (Drob injured)
4. 91 Nuggets -11.88 (English)
5. 83 Rockets -10.73 (Moses)

How do you list the Bulls lost 3 players and the Cavs only Lebron when the Cavs lost half it's team as well including Shaq, Big Z, etc. Not saying Lebron wasn't the most important piece but it goes without saying they lost more than just him. Not to mention the Spurs didn't only lose Robinson but Elliot was out as well.

Because the other losses for the Cavs weren't important. For one, Ramon Sessions was much better than Delonte West. Ryan Hollins and Big Z are basically on the same level. While Shaq wasn't much of a loss considering they played better without him when he was on Cleveland. I think a full year of Antawn Jamison more important than having Shaq.

[bastillon]

colts,
those drop offs were completely irrelevant - all of those teams were in tank-mode because great players were available in the draft. I mean Rockets tanked so hard after Moses left that they changed the draft formula into a lottery. kinda tells you all you need to know. at the time when those things were happening, everybody knew they're tanking. it's a revisionist history to suggest otherwise.

I'm not even clearly siding with Duncan lol. I just don't think Hakeem has separated himself from the Duncan/KG tier, so I'm objecting to his name being thrown around, while those two are being ignored. I haven't seen anything that clearly gives him the edge over those two

I haven't seen anything that clearly gives Russell edge over Hakeem or KG or Duncan... yet, he is already voted in ;/

Russell dominated his peers more than anybody in history. the reason why he got voted in is because we've decided to put more stock into era dominance rather than compare those players in a time machine. this way at least we've got some quantifiable measurements, time machine game would just destroy this all time peak debate and would've turned it into era debate i.e. whether players in the 60s were capable of playing in the 90s etc. just too many issues with that. but in terms of impact relative to his era, yeah, Russell was the best of those players.

[Josephpaul]

Top 5 should have a title requirement at least..

[ardee]

Kareem 71

Are you every going to explain to us the logic behind your pick

[Josephpaul]

Between these 4 for me with Russell also in the mix.

--------- RS PER, WS48, --------- PER, WS48 playoffs
KAJ 1971: 29.0, 0.33, -----------25.0, 0.27 (14 playoff games, title)
Wilt 1967: 26.5, 0.285------------25.3, 0.25 (15 playoff games, title)
Hakeem 1994: 25.3, 0.210----------27.7, 0.208 (23 playoff games, title)

Vote: Kareem 1971 (Not to mention put a team that never won anything and gave them a title) and was elite on both ends of the floor and had the best stats in the league by far.

This is my logic.

[colts18]

colts,
those drop offs were completely irrelevant - all of those teams were in tank-mode because great players were available in the draft. I mean Rockets tanked so hard after Moses left that they changed the draft formula into a lottery. kinda tells you all you need to know. at the time when those things were happening, everybody knew they're tanking. it's a revisionist history to suggest otherwise.

The Cavs weren't tanking though. No one tanks in December and January especially after they started 7-9. The Cavs were 8-40 (.167) until the end of January, then went 11-23 (.324) to close out the season (4-4 in April). That's not a sign of a tanking team when you consider that they didn't even finish with the worst record. They would have had they tanked.

[bastillon]

to all people arguing with RAPM as the main basis of the entire argument, doesn't it concern you that you're relying too much on the RS ? I mean none of those actually take the playoffs into account. this is where championships are won, RS should only be a tie-breaker. so has LeBron been the best RS player of the last X years ? damn sure he was. he was committed. he was consistent. he was inspired. but the criticism that he deservedly got over the years never implicated his weaknesses in the RS. it was always about the playoffs. your obsession with RS value doesn't have a lot to do with this debate. this is not about career value. this is about one particular year. and in that particular year, there are few games that really count. elimination games, championship level opponents, closeout games. that's when championships are won, not during RS or in the first 2 rounds vs pathetic Detroit team that didn't give a crap about anything and was more concerned with their chemistry being destroyed or Atlanta with more injuries than anyone could count.

when I'm thinking about all-time great peaks, I gotta go with Hakeem. nobody had a postseason run equally amazing to what Hakeem was doing on those Rockets. you can make a legit case for Hakeem 93 over Jordan 93. that says a lot. depending on what people think his peak year was (93-95 probably), I'm pretty sure it's time he got in.

why would I vote him over LeBron ? because Hakeem had bigger postseason impact and was a better player. I've already asked why LeBron 09 should be ranked ahead of LeBron 12 and I don't think the arguments were compelling. LeBron 09 was somewhat flawed player for an all-timer, LeBron 12 was just a lot better player, more skilled, more versatile, had better playoff performances when it counted, played hell lot better in heavily pressurised games. the last one is what impresses me the most about LeBron 12 - that guy just didn't let his team lose, despite unfavorable circumstances, just kept putting on those 40/18 performances when it counted, those games are the decisive in terms of winning a championship, not your RS consistency. I think the gap between LeBron 09 and LeBron 12 is actually big, the only reason why he put up better numbers was because of team dynamics. LeBron 12 should be the one getting mentioned, and this IS significant because LeBron changed his style pretty dramatically. just as Wilt 62 is a completely different player than Wilt 67, or MJ 87 is a completely different player from MJ 96. if we're doing this seriously, we should be considering LeBron 12. LeBron 12 would absolutely NOT have such a poor elimination game like he had in 09 vs Magic. I know he got pretty numbers but if you actually watch that game, Dwight was looking like the best player on the floor BY FAR. LeBron 12 is not letting that happen.

LeBron 09 gets overrated IMO, those numbers completely don't illustrate how good he was. he was a monster, don't get me wrong, but those 39/8/8 are really overrating him. ECFs were an offensive battle, teams were around 110-115 ORTG each game, not what you'd expect from top 2 defensive teams in the league. Dwight was actually looking like prime Shaq on offense. to me LeBron's 39/8/8 vs Hedo Turkoglu looks a lot less impressive than his performance this year vs Celtics. particularly when you realize Dwight was putting up like 27/17 on 70% TS, makes you wonder how hard those numbers were to get. when every game is in the 105-110 pts territory, points are a lot easier to get than when they are in 80-90 territory (Hakeem vs Knicks for example).

also there's a big difference between great defensive teams and defenses with top ranked DRTG. playoffs verify that pretty well. Bad Boys never had #1 DRTG but everybody knew they're the best defensive team in the league when they're on. same as Brown's Pistons were the best defensive team in the league despite not finishing #1. or like KG's Celtics. who were those great defenders on Magic ? Dwight was the only one anchoring that defense. LeBron was being guarded by freakin Hedo Turkoglu. the other big was Rashard Lewis. Rafer Alston is a former streetball player and has always been known for his poor defense. Courtney Lee was the only decent defender in the starting lineup.

but Hakeem just couldn't have done more. the guy was basically entire offense and defense for his team. defensively in particular, check out how those Rockets drtg changed without Olajuwon. in 95-96 it was laughable. makes no sense for me to make a long detailed post when we have this fantastic writeup from fatal9. check out the prime years in particular, how he had to produce every game with unheard reliability for his team to have a chance to win. take the opponents into account. these were not some pathetic opponents that LeBron usually bullied. you're talking about the greatest playoff opposition in 95 and matchup against fellow HOF PF/C in almost every series in 93-95.

Case for Hakeem from previous thread. Hasn't got the respect he deserves so far imo. Better all-around player than both Shaq/Duncan (Shaq/Duncan without their flaws = Hakeem), peaked higher than Duncan and arguably in the same tier as Shaq, better playoff performer individually than both of them to me. Didn't have the advantage of having great coaches like them (when he did, he delivered), didn't have half the talent Shaq played with (W-L record of their teams without them is very telling, much less the roster personnel), faced stiffer competition than them at not only his position but in the teams he beat/faced (that's one area where I lose respect for Duncan).

Re: Hakeem

His 80s career is a bit underrated. He didn't have the team game down like he did in the 90s, possibly because of how late he learned the game, but still, he was a monster.

'85 - improves lottery team to the playoffs, Rockets go from one of the worst defenses in the league to 4th best (though he was a lousy post defender early on in his career imo).

'86 - improves Rockets to 51 wins (would have been more if he didn't miss 14 games). The only time anyone took down the 80s Lakers in a 7 game series before they got to the finals. Averaged 31 ppg on 52 FG%, 58 TS% in that series, and lots of blocks and rebounds (missing some boxscores). Played well against what was probably the greatest team ever in the '86 Celtics while most of his team shrank particularly Sampson. The guy showed by just his second year he could take down all-time great teams, lead his team to the finals when given a proper cast.

'87 - The promising team around him begins to fall apart. Mitchell Wiggins and Lewis Lloyd got suspended for doing coke, Sampson played only half the season and was limited even when he was on the court. Sampson and him played for the first time in almost 3 months when the playoffs started. What he did in these playoffs was very underrated IMO, 29/11/3/4 on 66 TS% (!) over 10 games (in under 39 mpg). Upset the Blazers in the first round, only game they lost in that series was the one where he got in foul trouble and the Rockets got outscored 27-12 in the quarter. Then came the Sonics (who came off beating the 55 win Mavs team), he played/shot well in every game. His ONLY bad game was game 4 where he was limited to 27 minutes due to foul trouble. Ellis was on fire and then Chambers came on late, Rockets were outgunned. In the elimination game he had 49/26/5/6 on 19/33 shooting, including scoring 17 of the last 25 points for the Rockets.

'88 - He put up the highest PER ever in the playoffs albeit only over 4 games. I've only seen two games from the series, and can't begin to comment on how poorly the guards shot (Sleepy played well in game 2, that's it, his other three games were horrific). Hakeem put up 34/14, 41/26, 35/12 and in the elimination game 40/15 @ 57 FG% (64 TS%) for the series. These numbers are nuts. Lost to the same team that took LA to 7 games in the next round.

His career did hit bit of lull under Don Chaney, which IMO is the biggest reason his career didn't turn out even greater than it was. The chuckers on the team got too much control of the offense, ball ran through Hakeem way less until Rudy T came in and then we saw Hakeem's talent truly shine from '93-'97. His prime stretch from '93-'95 is one of the five greatest primes for me, comparable to just about anyone. Any time the playoffs rolled around, he almost always brought his A game.

In his prime he was literally the perfect player to build around. Monster defender who guaranteed you a top defense in the league, 30 points a night, great decision making and passing ability that the ENTIRE offense was built around (no one on Houston was good at creating their own shot, they depended so much Hakeem's presence), unstoppable one on one scoring against any one (most double teamed big I've seen after Shaq), high bball IQ and quick decision making (this is what made him go to the next level in '93, his decision making became amazing, most centers don't act quick enough), not a liability in crunch time like many other centers, ability to outplay anyone put in front of him and an absolute ASSASSIN in big games (MJ like nerves and killer instinct, the man would just not go away).

The reason why many people think so highly of him because at his peak, he left you nothing to criticize because he did everything, won every big game, performed HUGE on the biggest stage, faced stiff competition and outplayed everyone. Did it like MJ did from ’91-’93, played in a way that left no doubt in anyone's mind. Now people are acting like putting Hakeem in the highest of highest leagues is revisionist history or overrating him, but take a closer look, the man played THAT well.


- '93, is when he took his game to another level. Improves his passing game and decision making tremendously as the ball begins to run through him more and more (new coach). Averaged 26/13/4/4 on 53% in regular season. In the playoffs, after killing the Clippers (check out what he did against them in the do or die game 5, he was EVERYWHERE, put up 31/21/7/3/3). Averaged an amazing 26/14/5/5 in the playoffs. Was on course of taking down the much more talented Sonics team in game 7 (made many crucial clutch plays) before his team kind of got screwed at the end of the game (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax9n6JJgq-E) with bad calls. He was second in MVP, above MJ, should have been MVP. Here's Hubie Brown talking about how MJ and Hakeem were playing above everyone else that season: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9-Y1fo-jJs (this is for people who think Hakeem wasn’t in the conversation as the best player in the league before ’94).

- '94 Hakeem averaged 27/12/4/4 on 53%, won MVP, DPOY, Finals MVP and led a pretty average (though built well around him) roster to 58 wins and a ring. Team was down 0-2 to the Suns, and the Rockets needed to win the next two on the road against them to even stay in the series, Hakeem goes out and averaged 27/14/7/6 on 60+% in those games. Ended his playoff run by outplaying Ewing by a large margin and willing Rockets to win the title with a great finals series (after they were down 3-2 as well).

- '95 Hakeem had the most impressive playoff run ever to me, yes, even more impressive than any of Jordan's runs because I don't know if even MJ could have pulled off what Hakeem did. He saved the Rockets over and over again (with assist from the role players of course). His team slipped in the seeding because they dropped a lot of games when he was injured which only made his competition in the playoffs that much tougher.

- First round, they had to beat a 60 win Malone/Stockton Jazz team (FIRST round). Hakeem averaged 35 ppg on 57% in that series, had a 40 point game to save the team from elimination, then in the do or die game he went on the road, began hitting impossible baseline fadeaways and willed them past the Jazz.

- Second round, he had to beat the 59 win KJ/Barkley Suns. Rockets went down 3-1, didn’t have HCA but Hakeem comes back and drops 30/12/6 in the final three games (two of them on the road), to lead them to the next round. And with the season on the line in game 5, it was him who made the clutch shot to send the game to OT.

- Next up, 62 win Spur team, with the MVP and Hakeem’s position rival, D-Rob. Needless to say, we all know what he did to D-Rob in that series, "bamboozled him", dropped three 40+ point games against the league MVP and DPOY, and a 39/17/5 game to eliminate the Spurs.

- In the finals, it was Shaq/Penny’s Magic team. Came up big when the games were on the line, I thought he outplayed Shaq in the crucial stretches of the games and led the sweep of the Magic.

That’s the highest combined W-L record any player has had to face on route to a championship and Hakeem took them down one after the other. He beat the four best teams in the league in the same playoff run. The margin of error was so low, he HAD to deliver in every series, could absolutely not have a bad game and he came through...every...single...time. Factoring in competition, the fact he put up 33/10/4.5/3/2 on 53%, clutchness, stepping up in key games, outplaying opponents, this to me is the greatest individual playoff run by a player ever. Not MJ, not KAJ, not Shaq, not Bird no one had to deliver like that to win a championship.

Those three years he faced elimination 10 times, and led the Rockets to a 9-1 record (Russell-esque) in those games and here is a sample of what he did in those games:

31/21/7/3/3
23/17/7/3
37/17/5/3
25/10/7/3
40/8/3
33/10/4
31/16/3
30/8/10/5
29/11/4

If you value primes and playoff performance highly (two most important things for me personally), he has a very good case for top 5. You need to watch him play, need to see the situations he confronted, how he played on a game by game basis, how immensely valuable he was to his teams (from '92-'96, Rockets were 7-27 without Hakeem, lottery status without him and perennial contenders with him...Shaq's teams were never this bad without him).

[ronnymac2]

Ok, so my rationale is, even if I can't explain it, if the numbers are showing me that one guy is better, he must be doing something better than the other guy which ultimately has him having higher impact. Just because I can't really explain HOW he's doing it shouldn't mean I should punish him in light of the fact that he IS doing it. What we know is that Duncan is measuring out to have anchored better defenses (and their rise and fall correlate with Duncan's rise and fall), we do know that his overall RAPM is excellent and is always among the best, we do know his defensive RAPM is among the best, and we do know his SPM/PER is clearly superior to Hakeem's.

The how is the reason why projects like this can be a good learning experience.

[bastillon]

colts,
those drop offs were completely irrelevant - all of those teams were in tank-mode because great players were available in the draft. I mean Rockets tanked so hard after Moses left that they changed the draft formula into a lottery. kinda tells you all you need to know. at the time when those things were happening, everybody knew they're tanking. it's a revisionist history to suggest otherwise.

The Cavs weren't tanking though. No one tanks in December and January especially after they started 7-9. The Cavs were 8-40 (.167) until the end of January, then went 11-23 (.324) to close out the season (4-4 in April). That's not a sign of a tanking team when you consider that they didn't even finish with the worst record. They would have had they tanked.

this is a definition of tanking pretty much.

[therealbig3]

Ok, so my rationale is, even if I can't explain it, if the numbers are showing me that one guy is better, he must be doing something better than the other guy which ultimately has him having higher impact. Just because I can't really explain HOW he's doing it shouldn't mean I should punish him in light of the fact that he IS doing it. What we know is that Duncan is measuring out to have anchored better defenses (and their rise and fall correlate with Duncan's rise and fall), we do know that his overall RAPM is excellent and is always among the best, we do know his defensive RAPM is among the best, and we do know his SPM/PER is clearly superior to Hakeem's.

The how is the reason why projects like this can be a good learning experience.

True, and I do attempt to explain it...but ultimately, even if I can't, I still shouldn't hold it against someone.

[mysticbb]

The Cavs weren't tanking though. No one tanks in December and January especially after they started 7-9. The Cavs were 8-40 (.167) until the end of January, then went 11-23 (.324) to close out the season (4-4 in April). That's not a sign of a tanking team when you consider that they didn't even finish with the worst record. They would have had they tanked.

Nearly 4 points of the drop between 2010 and 2011 can be explained by replacing O'Neal's and Ilgauskas minutes at C with much worse players like Hickson, Hollins and Samuels. Another big part is replacing Varejao's minutes at PF with much worse players. Then we can add normal drop due to aging (Jamison, Parker for example), coaching change (Mike Brown was a really good defensive coach and showed on the Lakers that his late game decisions were not a fluke and not just related to James) and lack of motivation (going from championship contender to lottery will take a toll on the players). Acting, as if James made a 15 points difference is laughable.


bastillon, prior informed RAPM on Engelmann's page has ALL games from the season included, which means all playoff games are also taken into account. That makes a big part of your long post obviously obsolet. ;)

[colts18]

to all people arguing with RAPM as the main basis of the entire argument, doesn't it concern you that you're relying too much on the RS ? I mean none of those actually take the playoffs into account. this is where championships are won, RS should only be a tie-breaker. so has LeBron been the best RS player of the last X years ? damn sure he was. he was committed. he was consistent. he was inspired. but the criticism that he deservedly got over the years never implicated his weaknesses in the RS. it was always about the playoffs. your obsession with RS value doesn't have a lot to do with this debate. this is not about career value. this is about one particular year. and in that particular year, there are few games that really count. elimination games, championship level opponents, closeout games. that's when championships are won, not during RS or in the first 2 rounds vs pathetic Detroit team that didn't give a crap about anything and was more concerned with their chemistry being destroyed or Atlanta with more injuries than anyone could count.

why would I vote him over LeBron ? because Hakeem had bigger postseason impact and was a better player. I've already asked why LeBron 09 should be ranked ahead of LeBron 12 and I don't think the arguments were compelling. LeBron 09 was somewhat flawed player for an all-timer, LeBron 12 was just a lot better player, more skilled, more versatile, had better playoff performances when it counted, played hell lot better in heavily pressurised games. the last one is what impresses me the most about LeBron 12 - that guy just didn't let his team lose, despite unfavorable circumstances, just kept putting on those 40/18 performances when it counted, those games are the decisive in terms of winning a championship, not your RS consistency. I think the gap between LeBron 09 and LeBron 12 is actually big, the only reason why he put up better numbers was because of team dynamics. LeBron 12 should be the one getting mentioned, and this IS significant because LeBron changed his style pretty dramatically. just as Wilt 62 is a completely different player than Wilt 67, or MJ 87 is a completely different player from MJ 96. if we're doing this seriously, we should be considering LeBron 12. LeBron 12 would absolutely NOT have such a poor elimination game like he had in 09 vs Magic. I know he got pretty numbers but if you actually watch that game, Dwight was looking like the best player on the floor BY FAR. LeBron 12 is not letting that happen.

LeBron 09 gets overrated IMO, those numbers completely don't illustrate how good he was. he was a monster, don't get me wrong, but those 39/8/8 are really overrating him. ECFs were an offensive battle, teams were around 110-115 ORTG each game, not what you'd expect from top 2 defensive teams in the league. Dwight was actually looking like prime Shaq on offense. to me LeBron's 39/8/8 vs Hedo Turkoglu looks a lot less impressive than his performance this year vs Celtics. particularly when you realize Dwight was putting up like 27/17 on 70% TS, makes you wonder how hard those numbers were to get. when every game is in the 105-110 pts territory, points are a lot easier to get than when they are in 80-90 territory (Hakeem vs Knicks for example).

LeBron did perform in an elimination game. He went 37-14-12 with 13 fouls drawn in Game 5 vs. the Magic. If LeBron 12 was as good as LeBron 09, he wouldn't have needed to be in so many elimination games.

LeBron's elimination game numbers since 2008:
33-11-7, .590 TS%

The only recent guy I find comparable to that is Dirk who averaged 29-12-3, 61 TS% in elimination games.

[lorak]

colts,
those drop offs were completely irrelevant - all of those teams were in tank-mode because great players were available in the draft. I mean Rockets tanked so hard after Moses left that they changed the draft formula into a lottery. kinda tells you all you need to know. at the time when those things were happening, everybody knew they're tanking. it's a revisionist history to suggest otherwise.

I'm not even clearly siding with Duncan lol. I just don't think Hakeem has separated himself from the Duncan/KG tier, so I'm objecting to his name being thrown around, while those two are being ignored. I haven't seen anything that clearly gives him the edge over those two

I haven't seen anything that clearly gives Russell edge over Hakeem or KG or Duncan... yet, he is already voted in ;/

Russell dominated his peers more than anybody in history. the reason why he got voted in is because we've decided to put more stock into era dominance rather than compare those players in a time machine. this way at least we've got some quantifiable measurements, time machine game would just destroy this all time peak debate and would've turned it into era debate i.e. whether players in the 60s were capable of playing in the 90s etc. just too many issues with that. but in terms of impact relative to his era, yeah, Russell was the best of those players.

So Mikan is even better.

[colts18]

this is a definition of tanking pretty much.

Just because your team sucks, doesn't mean you are tanking. No team who enters December at 7-9 ever tanked when they were healthy. If they were tanking, their performance would decline throughout the year not increase. They were definitely tanking at the end of the year with some of the lineups they ran out, but not in December when they still had Jamison, Mo, and Varejao

[therealbig3]

^lol, then vote for 2012 LeBron if you think he should go here. Nobody's saying you have to agree on the year.

How does the voting system work? I was in the #2 thread but not the #3 and there was controversy over which year each player gets voted in. If I vote for 2012 LeBron, does it still apply to Lebron or is it an entirely different vote?

It goes in as a completely different vote, but say it ends up being like 3 for 09 LeBron, 4 for 12 LeBron, and then 5 for 67 Wilt...67 Wilt would win, but before voting ends, the 09 LeBron voters that don't see a big difference between 09 LeBron and 12 LeBron (like me) can switch their votes to 12 LeBron, so he could still win.

[ronnymac2]

Nice post by Bastillion (along with Fatal's monster post).

Hakeem Olajuwon's defense during his overall peak (1993-1995) is getting underrated here. His D may not have been where it was in 1990, but it was still all-time level elite (especially in '93 and '94...in '95, there was a regular season regression in his defense).

And for ****'s sakes, it wasn't just blocks and steals. Hakeem's positional defense and ability to guard the paint- everywhere in the paint- was insane.

The guy's reflexes, flexibility, and ability to react to a dump-off pass by spinning, balancing, and exploding off the ground following the spin to contest the shot were special. Bill Russell-esque, even in '94 and '95.

Tim Duncan could never do that. So though Duncan and Hakeem's awareness and ability to get into position were fairly equal (maybe slight edge to Duncan- maybe), Hakeem's ability to recalculate what to do and nimbly react after an offensive player made an astute adjustment to Hakeem's initial positional defense gives him the edge as a paint defender.

The fact that he forced more turnovers, actually blocked more shots, defended the perimeter and mid-range better, and defended scoring big men better, seals it for Hakeem on defense to me.

This guy embarrassed a prime Patrick Ewing. Made him shoot under 40 percent from the field. Blocked a shot to potentially save an NBA Finals. A 3-point shot attempt. All in one NBA Finals. Think about that.

The fact that Duncan has led better defensive teams over the course of his career means **** for two reasons:

1.) We're using one season here.

2.) One player can't salvage a defense.

So many people (correctly) champion Kevin Garnett's defense with Minnesota. He never led an elite defense with Minnesota, and that wasn't his fault. If he had never gone to Boston, dumbasses would still be asking questions about his defense and critiquing his ability as an anchor.

We have impact data that says Garnett made Minny's defenses about as good as they could get because of his great impact. His box-score defensive stats are fantastic. The eye-test says he was legit in Minny. So do All-D teams. He goes to Boston and anchors the best defense ever, providing us more context.

All of this proves that one guy can't do it all.

Hakeem never got his Thibs or a bevy of solid enough defensive pieces to anchor an all-time defense (though Dream still anchored the best defense in the league once or twice, IIRC). Duncan had all of that throughout his defensive prime.

BUT.....if you absolutely NEED team defensive rankings to validate one player's ability...

A slightly past his defensive prime Hakeem anchored the 2nd and 3rd best defenses in 1993 and 1994. And he was a defensive beast in the playoffs as well.


Hakeem has a better argument for GOAT peak than Duncan has over Hakeem.