Was Patrick Ewing overrated?

[Najee12]

You talk as if Ewing had a good series offensively in 94 when he was awful. He averaged 18.9ppg on 22.9 shot attempts and had one SINGLE game where he actually had more points than shots. He was thoroughly outplayed by Hakeem.

Yep, and to think New York still could have won Game 7 of the 1994 NBA Finals if New York's second leading scorer (an overextended sixth man converted into the team's No. 2 option) did not miss 16 out of 18 shots.

By the way, learn to read. I was giving an overall assessment of Patrick Ewing's prime years with the Knicks, not an assessment of his performance in the 1994 Finals.

[Najee12]

Prime for prime Robinson was the far more impactful player. However it was "seen" is complete nonsense. They are definitely on different tiers.

People are forgetting or not remembering how critics called David Robinson a choke artist in the playoffs before Tim Duncan's arrival in San Antonio. If Hakeem Olajuwon outplayed Patrick Ewing in the 1994 Finals, then Olajuwon flat-out embarrassed Robinson in the 1995 Western Conference finals.

While Olajuwon's undressing of Robinson was the most memorable image of pre-Tim Duncan Robinson, there was also Utah pushing around a passive Robinson in the 1994 Western Conference first round and Charles Barkley hitting big shots over Robinson in the 1993 Western Conference semifinals.

Even former San Antonio teammate Dennis Rodman said in his book "Bas As I Wanna Be" that Robinson was practically shaking at the thought of guarding Olajuwon in the conference finals. It's funny you are blasting Ewing while praising Robinson when even Rodman said, "Before those games, (Robinson) looked so f**king scared in the locker room, he couldn’t stop shaking."

[SomeBunghole]

Can I just throw this in?

The year he turned 35, Patrick Ewing had led the Knicks to a 57-25 record. Second best defense in the league.

If you can envision Dwight Howard doing that next season(he turns 35), there's a gas leak in your house.

[Capn'O]

You can tell who didn't see Ewing play because he during his time he sure as hell wasn't overrated. The media--especially locally and to a lesser extent nationally--were pretty hard on him. Saying he wasn't clutch, that he couldn't hit the big shot or win the big game. Out of all the 90s stars who MJ kept ringless, none of them were given as much grief as Ewing was.

Ewing's knees started going relatively early in his career, even by the time they reached the Finals in '94. He wasn't the same limber and mobile big that he was in the 80s. And of course, it's been discussed ad nauseam that Ewing never had enough help, never had a second star. Those Knicks teams were a situation of the "sum is greater than the individual parts" but it's still impressive that a team was moments away from a championship and was a title contender for years with Charles Oakley and John Starks being the best supporters. You give him Scottie Pippen or John Stockton and those Knicks teams win a couple of championships.

The best part is OP calling Ewing a "soft" jumpshooting center. You can find old interviews from guys like Shaq and MJ where they straight-up call Ewing "mean".

I didn't even address the soft part of it. DRob and Hakeem were only able to best him head to head because they were quicker AND could hit that 15 footer. It was their guard-like skills that got him out of position for the block. Neither player wanted any part of Pat with deep position. He was just bigger and a master of positioning for blocks like Duncan. And he'd hit you.

Which is why that Pippen dunk is so famous. People are like "lol, it was over Ewing." No dude. It was over Ewing.

His hands were his biggest limiting factor, especially when he lost his rim running athleticism. Even as his knees were going (before the wrist) if he got position, you were toast. He would either back you down or rise up with his turnaround. But opposing centers and doubles would always look for the steal on the entry pass and that flummoxed him.

[RHODEY]

A lot of great points already made in this thread. Starks, Mason, Oakley and whatever other ragtag role players they had surrounding him were hardly perennial all stars types (although their careers make great stories) and although Ewing had his shortcomings on offence, he was a monster defensively on what was considered one of the best defensive squads of the era. They were title contenders every year throughout the 90s and just couldn't find Ewing the wing player he needed to get them over the hump. Even so, they came awfully close a number of times.

It's funny that so many people put David Robinson ahead of him when at the time Robinson was seen as the generational talent who was soft and didn't have a drive to win, while Ewing was seen as the incumbent warrior with physical limitations (mostly due to injuries) who would do whatever it takes. The arrival of Tim Duncan, which turned DRob into a role player himself, really changed Robinsons legacy for the better.

Overall I might put Robinson slightly ahead of Ewing, but it's not like they were on completely different tiers as players.

Check out Ewing during the Rick Pitino /Stu Jackson years...he scored with the best of them when they ran that type of system. All things considered I put Ewing Squarely on Robinson's level maybe a tad higher due you his unmatchable toughness. Even against Hakeem who is GOAT level Ewing always held his own.

[RHODEY]

Can I just throw this in?

The year he turned 35, Patrick Ewing had led the Knicks to a 57-25 record. Second best defense in the league.

If you can envision Dwight Howard doing that next season(he turns 35), there's a gas leak in your house.

Or Even David Robinson...his game didn't age well either.

[Tim Kempton]

Threads like these make me hesitant to ever speak about players who I've watched highlights of, but have never actually seen play live, just because I don't want to sound as stupid and ignorant as OP.

Growing up in NYC and watching basketball religiously throughout the '90s, I can tell you that Ewing was a STAR. Anybody citing his lack of All-NBA 1st teams and Defensive 1st teams needs to learn about context. His career ran simultaneously with the likes of Olajuwon, Robinson, Zo, Mutombo, Eaton, Parish, and Shaq. And anyone else here comparing him to Dwight Howard or Walt Bellamy needs to have their status demoted to casual because you sound like a rube.

[Lalouie]

i agree with another poster who places the centers in tiers. since everything is relative players inevitably get compared to each other so tiers seems like the proper way the designate them.

ewing is clearly not a tier 1. kareem, wilt, russell,
nor is he a tier 2 as imo it's composed of shaq, malone, nate, hakeem, etc
ewing is a tier 3 and imo not as good as robinson, davis, sabonis, et al. he's there with all those guys. he's those guys except he played in nyc like willis reed

and basketball ref seems to back me up (although wtf hakeem is in that group is beyond me)

people are remembering pat fondly. it's a nostalgia thing, but he choked at the wrong times.

[Lalouie]

..

[Fencer reregistered]

Good post.

I'd add that I lived in the US town where he immigrated to play high school ball (Cambridge, MA), and he was quite hyped even then.

I'd further add that I agree with most of the offensive knocks on him. Dwight Howard in Orlando is a rough analogy, but Howard played with better scorers than Ewing did. So, era even aside, going with Ewing as a first option on offense was perhaps the best of a bad set of choices.

i'm talking about where in the hierarchy of centers. bellamy was behind wilt, russell, and nate at least.
as was pat ewing no matter which decade you choose, but everyone talks about ewing like was heads and shoulders above which is all because he played in new york. you deny the nyc media had anything to do with this?

I was a journalist who covered the NBA when Patrick Ewing played and saw his collegiate and NBA career play out. Ewing is considered one of the best collegiate basketball players ever, putting the Georgetown program (and the Big East Conference) on the map and leading the Hoyas to three national championship games. Ewing was considered a major draw coming out of college, and it had nothing to do with the Knicks drafting him.

Ewing wasn't a Jeremy Lin-type media creation, but a premier ballyhooed NBA prospect with expectations of being nothing short of an all-time great (the general expectation for Ewing was "become the next Bill Russell or bust"). This topic is an example of the expectations placed on him -- even though Ewing was a slam dunk first-ballot hall of famer and perennial top five MVP candidate from 1989 through 1996, there are people who thought he never quite lived up to those unrealistic expectations.

Ewing was an elite player (top 10) in his prime, but the general consensus is outside of maybe 1990 Hakeem Olajuwon was better than him during the collective run in the league. When David Robinson came into the league in 1989, it took maybe two years for insiders and the general public to move The Admiral ahead of Ewing. When Shaquille O'Neal came into the league in 1992, it didn't take long for Shaq to surpass him.

Ewing was still an elite player, but there were three centers in the NBA who were considered even better than him. Olajuwon, Robinson and O'Neal had unprecedented skills and attributes, while Ewing had more conventional center qualities. In addition to the unrealistic expectations, Ewing had the misfortune of his career overlapping with three of the top seven centers in NBA history and Michael Jordan's Bulls dynasty.

Ewing is not a Walt Bellamy. Bellamy was just a good player who played a long time, had some runs on several marginal teams and had a reputation of not taking the game seriously (i.e. his lack of dedication). Ewing made New York a title contender in the 1990s and came within one game of leading the Knicks to the 1994 title with John Starks as arguably his best scoring teammate.

Ewing was a legitimate franchise cornerstone for his 15 years in New York; take away the Ewing era and the Knicks have not been relevant since the 1970s championship teams. Bellamy was a vagabond who spent most of his career hopping around to rebuilding teams, a la Howard when he left Orlando.

I would consider Ewing ahead of centers like Bellamy (four-time all-star), Howard (who has the same question marks as Bellamy) and Bob Lanier (all-star who toiled on losing teams). Once you get past the first two tiers of centers (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell are in my Tier I; Moses Malone, O'Neal, Olajuwon and Robinson are in my Tier II) and likely George Mikan, Ewing probably rates better than any other center in NBA history.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

It sounds to me that you're not really understanding what other people are elaborating about, actually.
Also because "people in this board" means nothing, people have different opinions and mine doesn't need to be consistent with yours. Unless you can call out the OP himself on something he stated in the past.

I understand SENSIBLE opinions. I don't understand people who apparently don't know how to interpret information, such as acting like a center averaging 22 points per game over a 17-year career at 50 percent field goal shooting is "inefficient." Or someone looking up a player he or she never saw play, find some outlier advanced metric and try to reinvent the player as being much better than he was when he actually played.

I am calling out the original poster and some of these other people who make inane statements, based on poor interpretation of information and nonsensical logic.

1) you said "people on this board", as if the OP is representing some sort of a consensus opinion and not just his own one
2) you mention about "people on this board" not being consistent, throwing that obvious strawman about the "8/6 guy with great advanced stats". You don't know what the OP thinks about such "8/6 guy" and you don't know what people who magnify the "8/6 guy" (who is this guy supposed to be? who said that? what did the say, really? I would love you to find a quote of someone believing he's better than those other names...) think about Malone or Ewing.

I am not discussing the quality of the OP take, but how off target your generalization was.

[balrog27]

I never heard anyone praise Ewing here, so no I don't think he's overrated. I was listening to The Growth Mindset by dr. carol dweck, even she **** on him in her book LMAO. It was a good read but that part in the book about Ewing made no sense

[Ferulci]

23.5 points on 51% career shooting is not efficient?
Lamarcus Alridge on offense? Not that good on defense?

This thread is a perfect Voight-Kampff test to see the basketball illiterate out there.

[nedleeds]

This thread is exactly the reason why great players stack the deck and join up with other great players just to win a title.

Same posters who put down KD for joining a stacked team will be the same posters who think Ewing wasn't that great because he didn't win a ring. David Robinson was pretty much on par with Ewing, but he was fortunate enough to play with Duncan towards the latter end of his year and it helped his legacy. Now people will look at his rings and say yea he's better than Ewing. That is why you see great role players like Draymond Green think they're better than Charles Barkley.

Had Starks just played a bit better in the 1994 Finals, Ewing would've won a title and not be so underrated like he is now.

I mean ****, if they had just kept Rod Strickland, Ewing would have won a title. They threw him in the trash for 40 year old Mo Cheeks. In that 1994 run Derek Harper was cooked, fried and gently seasoned. In the Eastern Conference Finals he shot 1-12 from 3 and 66% from the line. He and Hubert Davis tried really, really hard to lose the Bulls series. Those two were so awful. Greg Anthony in the finals was awful, 80 minutes and shooting like 32% and 15% from 3. Anyway, Ewing was bad in that finals certainly but the guards that played minutes for the Knicks wouldn't have started for 1/2 the teams in the league.

Go look at the guards ...

https://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/1994-nba-finals-knicks-vs-rockets.html

It's just laughable.

[Mickey8]

Thats good shooting percentage for the career , his percentages probably dropped off as he got older ,later in his career.

[90sAllDecade]

Where Ewing shines is when you take a microscope to things that weren't looked at before myself and a handful of other posters started focusing on when comparing players years ago. Team support, competition, and defense.

We all know about his lack of support offensively and his incredible competition during the Jordan and Olajuwon years among others. But his 90's Knicks teams were all-time great historically defensively. Riley was the architect but Ewing was the defensive anchor in a great collective defensive group. Ewing held the knicks down defensively for a very long time, I did an analysis for the top 100 years ago but from memory, I think around 10-15 years.

His 1993 Knicks team is in the argument for GOAT defensive team, yes even over the 60's Celtics.

Here is an older article (2010 I believe) from 538's Neil Paine during his Basketball-Reference years, at the time he created an analysis of the greatest team defensive peaks for Regular Season + Playoffs. The 1993 Knicks were the top defensive team all-time during his analysis. Not sure how many if any teams have surpassed many on these rankings for both RS and PO combined since them.

Armed with these estimates, I can now calculate offensive & defensive efficiency rates for every team in the NBA from 1951-2010. I can also compare those rates to the league average using what's called a z-score, or the # of standard deviations above or below average the team was in a given category. As an example, here are the best offenses and defenses of all-time (regular season + playoffs combined) using z-scores & the estimated efficiencies:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/indexe598.html?p=6205

[BenoUdrihFTL]

I hated Ewing (because he'd always make Zo his son) but he just might be the most underrated superstar of his era, especially defensively. He wasn't the ideal offensive anchor, but he was good enough for that style of team. He needed a reliable 2nd tho, and Charles Smith was supposed to be that guy after being acquired from LAC but Smith was kinda "soft" for that Knicks team and Riley quickly lost confidence in him

[Prokorov]

for a center, he was never efficient. Put up 23.5 points on 51% career shooting. His production declined in the playoffs. He only averaged 22 PPG and shot woefully under 50% in the postseason. This is really bad, even in the finals against hakeem, he laid an egg. He shot 36% from the field. Imagine if he showed up, Knicks would have beaten the Rockets in 7 games.

Ewing was overrated, he seemed like a soft inefficient jumpshooter. A LaMarcus Aldridge on the offensive end. Defensively was he even that good, never made all nba defense 1st team.

He is criminally underrated.

[kamaze]

He was good but didn't have enough help in his prime. By 99 they had Houston and Spreewell but he was through.

[prophet_of_rage]

His offense is a little overrated but his career efficiency took a hit after his wrist injury in "97 that basically took away his fadeaway while his athleticism was fading. Prior to this, a very efficient player.

Defensively, he was the definition of an anchor. With today's cast of centers he'd make all defensive first team annually. Especially early in his career where he could press with the best of them.

The ironic thing is the biggest concern about Patrick Ewing coming into the NBA was his offense. He didn't show he had refined offensive weaponry at Georgetown and the concern was Ewing would be an elite defender but a limited offensive player. But Ewing showed he could score better than expected as a rookie, and by the early 1990s, he developed that turnaround fadeaway that made him very difficult to defend.

I don't understand some of these people on this board. On one hand, they are questioning how good were players such as Ewing and Karl Malone, but yet they overrate some guy averaging 8 points and 6 rebounds per game because of an outlier advanced metric. It doesn't sound like a lot of them understand how to evaluate players or have any perspective of how good a player is or isn't.

So you understand people on this board. They are just trying to sound smart.

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