Hakeem Olajuwon's The Most Overrated Player in NBA History

[Drummer Boy]

I thought John Stockton was overrated. Nobody gets more career passes than Hakeem Olajuwon. 9 first round playoff exits, 1 missed playoffs in his prime, which include 3 sweeps, 6 blowouts, couldn't make an All-NBA first team during the ages of 27, 28, 29can't win an MVP or ring before age 30, was in trade talks with Boston for Reggie Lewis, Seattle didn't want to trade for him because they didn't want to give up Derrick McKee or Nate McMillian!, Brad Daugherty made the All-NBA Third team over him. He was a selfish headcase that faked injuries while missing the playoffs in his prime due to a contract dispute (while the medical says there's nothing wrong him, BTW), threw his teammates and coaches under the bus, cried during the Olympics 'cause he wasn't getting touches, and only won when Jordan was gone and the three-point line was shortened for his shooters and floor-spacing during the most talent-starved period in NBA history since the merger. Heck, his teammate led those '95 playoffs in win shares

He was a black hole, with tunnel-vision, that padded his stats, and somehow now gets all the credit for when he won, and none when he lost. If he was so good in leading a team w/ no All-Stars or whatever to a title, how come he wasn't doing this his entire career? He had the best ensemble of veteran support next to Jordan in the 90's, and had an All-Star level player in Otis Thorpe next to his side.

How about Hakeem in his three Finals? He was never the leading shooter in any of them. Hakeem was not only outrebounded by his opposing center in 2 of them, he was outrebounded by a teammate in one, and was only the third best rebounder in one series, and the fourth best rebounder in the other.. Hell, he wasn't even the leading shooter on his own team in ANY of them. He was only the fifth best shooter in his '86 Finals (and 6th if you include Walton and his .621 off the bench), at .479. He had a teammate who shot .588 (McCray.)

How about '94? He didn't play ANY center worth a darn during the first three rounds. People like to say he won w/o anybody, yet disregard that he beat a New York team that was even worse than his, with a past prime Ewing, and he played with an All-Star and All-NBA level player in Otis Thorpe, a very good guard in Cassell, and clutch role playes such as Robery Horry, and Mario Elie He shot a Finals' high, for him, .500, and finished behind his teammate, Otis Thorpe (Thorpe shot .572 in the entire post-season.), only shot well in the losses, and likely go on to lose that series if it wasn't for that three by Cassell in game 3. Hell, Hakeem would be ringless, combining this, with Elie's 3 in '95 against Phoenix, along with those Barkley missed free throws.


How about that Shaq Finals? Shaq not only outshot Hakeem 59.5 % to 48.3%, and had his role players badly outplayed Shaq's teammates in the '95 Finals, havin' one guy average 17 PPG and 10 RPG in that Finals, another who was at 21.5 PPG and 9.5 RPG, and yet another teammate who averaged 16.3 PPG, on 62.9% shooting! And whose teammates outshot Shaq's by huge margins from the field and the arc...and then outscored them by 50 points from the line.

Meanwhile, Hakeem only battled a starting HOF center in 35 of his 145 playoff games, including a 39 year old Kareem in six, and in ten straight games against an aged Alcindor averaged 33 PPG on 63% Three games of 40 and in his 46 point game, it came in only 37 minutes, and on 21-30 shooting? In 16 games against a past-prime Artis Gilmore, he was scoring at a near identical clip to Akeem (.4 points less to be exact), while outshooting him by over 100 points.

Olajuwon, Robinson, Ewing all had teams similarly built, yet Akeem's the only won that gets a pass for having a weak team.

[Drummer Boy]

For about half of Hakeem's peak—6 seasons; 1987-92—Hakeem averaged 23.2ppg and 12.9 rpg, with 3.7 blocks a game, and had three All-NBa first team nods, four MVP top 10 finishes, and one top 5 finish? That he had players like Otis Thorpe, Rodney McCray, Vernon Maxwell and Sleepy Floyd around him for at least 150 games each. During that time? And that the Rockets were barely a ..500 team? (268-224...that's .544, with a playoff record of 8-17). If you didn't know it...well, that's half of Hakeem's peak period. He was a great player. His teams were, on the whole, were maybe a little below average without him. Maybe. With him, they underperformed and he was the Alpha Dog. 1990 is the perfect example. Hakeem had career highs in rebounding and blocked shots, and scored at a terrific clip. The Rockets had two other very good starters in Otis Thorpe (17 pts, and 9 rebs a game on 55% shooting) and Sleepy Floyd (12 points and seven assists a game with 38% shooting behind the arc). Mitchell Wiggins and Buck Johnson were pretty good as the other starters. The bench had some quality, even if some of them were past their prime...still, having John Lucas, Vernon Maxwell, Larry Smith and Mike Woodson play 50 mpg between them is a nice veteran bench corps. So, essentially, Hakeem's big numbers did not necessarily help his team at that time. He was virtually swept both years

Here's a breakdown of his MVP voting when he was playing, what folks REALLY thought of him:

84-85. Hakeem's rookie season. 12th. And behind players like Terry Cummins, Calvin Natt, and even teammate Ralph Sampson.

85-86. Jumps to 4th, but doesn't receive even ONE first-place vote.

86-87. 7th. Behind players like McHale and Wilkins, and barely ahead of Fat Lever. Again...not ONE first-place vote.

87-88. Again... 7th...and behind Barkley and Drexler (two future teammates) as well as Wilkins. Not ONE first-place vote, and again, barely edges out Fat Lever.

88-89. 5th. Behind Ewing. Oh, and for the first time...he finally gets first place votes...TWO of them to be exact.

89-90. Back to 7th, and behind K Malone, Ewing, Robinson, and barely ahead of Tom Chambers. And ONE first-place vote. In his first six seasons...a TOTAL of THREE first-place votes.

90-91. 18th. Granted, he only played in 56 games. Still, Larry Bird only played in 45, and finished 9th. Hell, Kenny Smith finished higher in the voting.

91-92. This is really embarrassing. Not even in the top-TWENTY...in a season in which he played 70 games. The list of players who actually received votes is littered with merely good, and certainly not great, players.

92-93. SECOND. A miracle. And yet, still miles behind Barkley. And the reality was, voters were getting bored with MJ, who was still the best player in the league.

93-94. FIRST. The ONLY time in his 18 season career, mind you. But let's not get too carried away here. MJ was playing minor league baseball. And even in a league devoid of MJ, he wasn't close to being unanimous, either. 66 first-place votes out of 101 possible.

94-95. 5th. And behind Robinson, O'Neal (who would outplay in him in their H2H's, including the Finals), Ewing, and Malone. Oh, and just ONE first-place vote.

95-96. FOURTH. This would be the last time he would finish in the Top-FOUR...a TOTAL of FOUR times, BTW. Oh, and guess what? ONE first-place vote. Hell, just a year after pounding Robinson in the playoffs, he AGAIN, finished behind him. (Of course, aside from four games of the '95 WCF's, the rest of their 44 career H2H's were basically a wash, except that D-Rob's teams won 70% of the time.)

96-97. 7th. And this is his last quality season. And, again, no surprise...ZERO first-place votes.

97-98. Nowhere to be found.

98-99. Pure sympathy votes now. 13th....out of pity.

99-00. Nowhere to be found.

00-01. Zippo.

01-02. Nada.


Overall...ONE MVP (in a league that was missing the best player.) ONE second place finish. And TWO 4th place finishes.

Think about that. For those that somehow claim that Hakeem is a Top-10 player all-time...hell, he wasn't even considered a Top-4 player in the league in 14 of his 18 seasons (and just barely with two 4th place finishes.)

He wasn't making it to/past the first round 3/4 of his entire career. He's not even better than Isiah Thomas IMO, and he's usually ranked in the top 25. I just don't see what makes Olajuwon anything more than a top-25 player All-Time, top-20 at absolute best. Akeem's "impact" is subjective; the results are real. Nobody that wasn't making to/past the first round 3/4's of their careers a top 10 player, let alone top-15

[ardee]

-snip-

Take MVP voting with a pinch of salt. Shaq has one, should have at least two (2001). Kobe has one, should have at least two (2006), maybe three (2007).

But that being said, I think Hakeem should reasonably not be anywhere higher than about 6. Jordan, the big 3 centers + Magic were all better, and can reasonably be ranked as low as 11.

I also think Duncan, Shaq and Kobe had better careers, despite Hakeem's monstrous peak they offered more value over their careers.

However in a vacuum, it's hard to pick anyone besides Jordan, Shaq and Wilt over a fully focused Hakeem after he had developed his offensive game. Just a devastatingly effective player on both ends of the floor.

Unfortunately, he wasn't in that situation most of his career, and at least my ATL is based on how they actually played, not what could have happened.

But again, fwiw, peak Hakeem has an argument over anyone for the three years he put it altogether.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i1zXv_YEQI[/youtube]

[aol4532]

Your only argument is the 4 sweeps, but which years were they?

[Drummer Boy]

Your only argument is the 4 sweeps, but which years were they?

Good catch, he was swept out the playoffs three years, two in the first round. And no, that's not my "only" argument

[Drummer Boy]

Jordan
Kareem
Magic
Bird
Duncan
Kobe
Shaq
Wilt
Lebron
Russell

No Hakeem can't crack this list man. Even dominant players without an MVP like West,Hondo,Dolph have great cases. Even cats use the teammate argument **** Garnett have great case. Hell Dr.j and Barry spent prime years in ABA have great case. Hell Willis Reed and Cowens got MVP and multi titles. etc.....


But ten dudes I just name all won multi titles while being FIRST-TEAM ALL-NBA something Hakeem didn't do. CLEARLY NOT top-10 at the VERY least..

[batmana]

I would be wary to call him "The Most Overrated" because all said and done, he is a truly great player and Most Overrated in my book has to be somebody who was made to appear much greater than he was. But I absolutely agree that he gets too much leeway for that early-career narrative. People who put him on the same tier as the top 5-8 players in NBA history basically point out his peak run and completely disregard the rest by claiming awful teammates/great-looking boxscore numbers to maintain his greatness.

In my book, Olajuwon and Garnett are the two players that, from the Top 100 lists on this site, are higher than their narrative suggests, or if you will, "overrated". For all the flak LeBron gets for his failures before winning his first title, I dare to say his narrative doesn't look any bit worse than Olajuwon's already, and I was one of the people who questioned whether LeBron would win ever after his meltdown against Dallas.

[Doormatt]

horrible analysis, you basically said he didnt get enough MVP votes + had low FG% and is therefore overrated. you didnt actual say anything of value, or give a thoughtful argument as to why hakeem is overrated.

[Quotatious]

The thing that OP doesn't seem to understand is that it was ONLY because of Hakeem that those Rockets teams advanced to the playoffs, and had a chance to even lose in the first round. Olajuwon should be CREDITED for leading them to it, rather than criticized for not advancing any further for many years. It's totally the same thing with Garnett in Minnesota, for example.

Facts show that Olajuwon cannot be blamed for those playoff failures, because he basically always performed up to his standards, and made enormous impact on both ends of the court. The only playoffs when he played bad were in 1990 - it needs to be said that he really was bad, and Otis Thorpe way outplayed him on offense, while Akeem was only the fourth highest scorer on his team, on just 48% TS.

What's amazing about Olajuwon is that his PPG and some more advanced numbers like PER, TS%, WS/48, ORTg or TOV% are clearly better in the playoffs. His PER goes up from 23.6 in the RS to 25.7, TS% from 55.3 to 56.9, and WS/48 from 17.7 to 18.9. Offensive rating from 108 to 112. There are only a select few star players in NBA history who did the same, and that's extremely impressive. Really, those guys could be counted with ten fingers on your hands, or even on one hand...

I really don't know why some people still hold stars accountable for their team's losses when their numbers indicate that they actually played at, or even above, their RS standards in the postseason. That's an extremely simplistic and obviously flawed, faulty analysis.