The case for locked-in top 10: Hakeem Olajuwon

[K Xerxes]

I was going to give this up because it had basically become a Wilt argument for some reason, and I have no interest in pursuing one. I'll admit that I don't know nearly enough about him (or that era) to debate one with a straight face, and I will not resort to just quoting statistics blindly and expect that to hold as a reasonable argument. Now that I'm not busy with work, I'll try to clear up misconceptions spewed out by our resident stats whore LAZERUSS:

Jordan didn't play at all in '94, and his Bulls went 55-27 without him, including losing a close (and controversial) game seven to the Knicks, who lost a close game seven to the Rockets in the Finals.

Who denies that? I think the Bulls would win it all that year with Jordan, but to deny what Hakeem did with that roster is ridiculous and quite disingenious.

And, no, Ewing did not have more talent than Hakeem did, and in fact, the Knicks had a worse record.

Ha! You are moving the goal posts based on your argument. You say that Hakeem had more talent around him than Ewing did and use the fact that they had a worse team record as justification, and then you turn around and say that Shaq did not have more talent in '95, even though Orlando had a superior team record (57-25 vs 47-35)! Which one is it?

Ewing, Oakley and Starks all made the all star game that season. Only Hakeem did for Houston. Tell me who had more talent.

Rudy T constructed the entire team system around Hakeem. It was actually quite remarkable how dependent on him it was. He was their go to scorer, their defensive anchor and their outlet passer.

Go watch the '94 finals, Hakeem was the best player on the floor and outplayed Ewing by a significant margin. I won't quote the stats for you, but Ewing shot horrifically in that series. Maxwell was the second leading scorer with something like 13 points. Of course, that screams like it was a very talented roster around Hakeem, right?

To his credit, Ewing outrebounded Hakeem, but this is one of the greatest centers of all time we're talking about. But Hakeem dominated that matchup and was by far the biggest reason the Rockets won.

Hakeem did not outplay a young Shaq in the '95 Finals, either. In fact, his TEAMMATES just shelled Shaq's. They outshot them by a huge margin from both the field and the arc, and also made 50 more FTs (and considering that three of the games were close, it was those FTs which won the series.)

BTW, here was another take on the '95 Finals...from a Colts18 at RealGM, and I happen to agree with nearly all of it...

Of course you agree with all of it; it spits out stats indiscriminately. It attaches no context and doesn't differentiate between moments.

It was a sweep and Shaq himself will tell you that Hakeem whooped his ass. And you're going to let blind stats dictate your opinion of it?

I'll give you Shaq outplaying Hakeem in game 1, he was incredible in this game. Orlando really should have won that game, and it was very unfortunate that Anderson choked that game away. But Hakeem did have the game winning tip.

The flaw in your stats based argument comes to light in game 2: Shaq had better all round stats than Hakeem (33-12-7 vs 34-11-2), but it doesn't say anything about CONTEXT. The Rockets slaughtered Orlando in the first half where Hakeem did most of his damage, and while I hate to throw the term 'stat padding' around, Shaq did his in the second half when Orlando never came all that close to Houston. Hakeem dominated Shaq in this one, and Shaq couldn't live with Hakeem one on one (watch the game).

In game 3... pretty similar performances. Horry really made the difference in this game and Hakeem & Shaq both played well.

Hakeem completely dominated Shaq in game 4 to seal the victory. Even your stats will point to this.

Don't get me wrong, by that stage, Shaq was already 'unguardable' and he was already amazing. But Hakeem outplayed him in that series. This is what watching games tells you. I agree that Hakeem's team mates outplayed Shaq's, but it's ironic because Orlando actually went into that game seen as the team with a better supporting cast.

The reason they won was that Hakeem's team mates stepped up, but to suggest that Hakeem didn't have a say in that or that Hakeem didn't orchestrate the offense (he did) to a ridiculous level is ludicrous.

Please go watch the actual games.

Of course, a more prime Shaq, just a couple of years later just slaughtered a helpless Hakeem in the playoffs.

Come on. A couple of years later = 4 years later when Shaq was 27 and Hakeem was 36? You think that's a fair matchup to consider? Tell me what Shaq was doing when he was 36, and tell me what he'd do playing against himself approaching his peak years.

The Hakeem fans somehow seem to always fail to mention that. But even in the '95 Finals, Shaq averaged 28 ppg on...get this... .595 shooting (while Hakeem averaged 33 ppg on .483 shooting against him.) So, yes, Hakeem did outscore Shaq by 5 ppg, but he did so while taking 10 more FGAs per game. Oh, and Shaq outrebounded, outassisted, and outblocked him in that series.

Shaq was also a turnover machine. But, regardless, the Rockets swept Orlando, and you can ask Shaq himself what he thought of Hakeem's peformance in that series.

As for this nonsense that Hakeem massacred the 39 year old Kareem in '86 playoffs...he didn't even guard him. He couldn't. Sampson was put on KAJ (with doubles from Hakeem.) Why? Because Kareem averaged 33 ppg on .630 shooting against Hakeem in their five h2h's that season. And in the year before, it was much the same. Over the course of their first ten straight h2h games, a 38-39 year old Kareem, who could barely jump, averaged 32 ppg on .633 shooting against Hakeem. Included in those beatdowns were games of 40, 43 and 46 points (and on 21-30 shooting, and in only 37 minutes.)

True, Hakeem outscored KAJ, 31-27 in the '86 WCF's, and outrebounded him, 11-7 (of course, even KAJ's teammates were routinely outrebounding Kareem at that time in his career.)

This is detracting from the point that Hakeem dominated in the '86 WCF against the Laker bigs. What does it actually say about Hakeem's offense in that series as a second year pro that he could LEAD his team to the finals, dominating against the defending champs and ultimately losing in 6 to arguably the greatest team of all time with the greatest front court of all time?

Anyway, no one that watched early Hakeem will say that Hakeem was a great man defender early in his days - he was still young and undiscplined in this regard. That ability grew when he became more experienced, and it showed in his later years.

Kareem was still a great player in '86, still averaging in the mid 20s in both the regular season and playoffs, so it's hardly a shame.

But, of course, you will ignore what Hakeem did against Ewing in '94 and Robinson in '95 when he was certainly at his defensive prime, and became a great individual defender.

Besides, individual matchups don't reveal why Hakeem was such a great player. Along with his dominant and complete offensive game, he was a defensive anchor and leader. His quickness allowed him to defend PnR so well, it allowed him to switch on to guards in time for his own guard to recover (even Kenny said Hakeem told him to just get back in a few seconds while he takes the guard), or his ability to recover to the rim and hold down the paint, still altering and blocking shots. That's Hakeem's true defensive mastery, and is only shown by watching games, not mindlessly cherry picking stats to suit your biased agenda.

Hakeem is the most over-rated player on this forum. Somehow he seems to have grown significantly since he actually played. He was a ONE-TIME MVP (in a season in which MJ took the year off); he came in second ONE time in the MVP balloting; and he came in 4th TWICE in the MVP voting. Hell, he only made the top-10 ten times in his 18 seasons.

MVP? Are you serious? If MVP was about being the best player, Hakeem would have won it twice (in '94 and '95 - if there was any doubt about '95 between Robinson, the WCF should put it to bed), and he would have been second behind Jordan in 93 and 96, top 3 in the early 90s and top 5 for the late 80s. It's unfortunate that he had to play with Jordan in the 90s, as well as peak + prime Magic in the late 80s when he was still yet to reach his prime.

To use MVP as an arbiter of player level is a joke because:

- it only takes into account regular season, not playoffs (where Hakeem routinely raised his game)
- it is a subjective award
- it does not take into account strength of era and competition

Unless you're willing to admit that Rose was better than LeBron in 2011, or Nash was better than Kobe in 2006, or Nash was better than Duncan in 2005, or Iverson was better than Shaq in 2001... etc etc.

[millwad]

Xerxes, don't bother LAZERUSS.

He is Jlauber, an old poster who started to hate on Olajuwon because I owned him in every Wilt thread there was because he was lying, cherry picking, making stuff up and hi-jacking threads just so he'd be able to spam some about Wilt. He's obsessed.

He knew that Olajuwon was my favourite player and therefor he started to belittle his achievements.

Whenever Olajuwon is discussed he writes bogus lies and he cherry picks just so people will call him out for it and what a hypocrite he is when he is doing the direct opposite with Wilt, his mancrush. And as soon Wilt gets a mention he hi-jacks the threads with essays about Wilt that no one asked for.

Don't bother.

[miles berg]

The top 10 is locked for awhile: Jordan, Jabbar, Wilt, Russell, Magic, Larry, Shaq, Hakeem, Duncan, & LeBron. No one else on the horizon to join that group.

[LAZERUSS]

I was going to give this up because it had basically become a Wilt argument for some reason, and I have no interest in pursuing one. I'll admit that I don't know nearly enough about him (or that era) to debate one with a straight face, and I will not resort to just quoting statistics blindly and expect that to hold as a reasonable argument. Now that I'm not busy with work, I'll try to clear up misconceptions spewed out by our resident stats whore LAZERUSS:



Who denies that? I think the Bulls would win it all that year with Jordan, but to deny what Hakeem did with that roster is ridiculous and quite disingenious.



Ha! You are moving the goal posts based on your argument. You say that Hakeem had more talent around him than Ewing did and use the fact that they had a worse team record as justification, and then you turn around and say that Shaq did not have more talent in '95, even though Orlando had a superior team record (57-25 vs 47-35)! Which one is it?

Ewing, Oakley and Starks all made the all star game that season. Only Hakeem did for Houston. Tell me who had more talent.

Rudy T constructed the entire team system around Hakeem. It was actually quite remarkable how dependent on him it was. He was their go to scorer, their defensive anchor and their outlet passer.

Go watch the '94 finals, Hakeem was the best player on the floor and outplayed Ewing by a significant margin. I won't quote the stats for you, but Ewing shot horrifically in that series. Maxwell was the second leading scorer with something like 13 points. Of course, that screams like it was a very talented roster around Hakeem, right?

To his credit, Ewing outrebounded Hakeem, but this is one of the greatest centers of all time we're talking about. But Hakeem dominated that matchup and was by far the biggest reason the Rockets won.



Of course you agree with all of it; it spits out stats indiscriminately. It attaches no context and doesn't differentiate between moments.

It was a sweep and Shaq himself will tell you that Hakeem whooped his ass. And you're going to let blind stats dictate your opinion of it?

I'll give you Shaq outplaying Hakeem in game 1, he was incredible in this game. Orlando really should have won that game, and it was very unfortunate that Anderson choked that game away. But Hakeem did have the game winning tip.

The flaw in your stats based argument comes to light in game 2: Shaq had better all round stats than Hakeem (33-12-7 vs 34-11-2), but it doesn't say anything about CONTEXT. The Rockets slaughtered Orlando in the first half where Hakeem did most of his damage, and while I hate to throw the term 'stat padding' around, Shaq did his in the second half when Orlando never came all that close to Houston. Hakeem dominated Shaq in this one, and Shaq couldn't live with Hakeem one on one (watch the game).

In game 3... pretty similar performances. Horry really made the difference in this game and Hakeem & Shaq both played well.

Hakeem completely dominated Shaq in game 4 to seal the victory. Even your stats will point to this.

Don't get me wrong, by that stage, Shaq was already 'unguardable' and he was already amazing. But Hakeem outplayed him in that series. This is what watching games tells you. I agree that Hakeem's team mates outplayed Shaq's, but it's ironic because Orlando actually went into that game seen as the team with a better supporting cast.

The reason they won was that Hakeem's team mates stepped up, but to suggest that Hakeem didn't have a say in that or that Hakeem didn't orchestrate the offense (he did) to a ridiculous level is ludicrous.

Please go watch the actual games.





Come on. A couple of years later = 4 years later when Shaq was 27 and Hakeem was 36? You think that's a fair matchup to consider? Tell me what Shaq was doing when he was 36, and tell me what he'd do playing against himself approaching his peak years.



Shaq was also a turnover machine. But, regardless, the Rockets swept Orlando, and you can ask Shaq himself what he thought of Hakeem's peformance in that series.



This is detracting from the point that Hakeem dominated in the '86 WCF against the Laker bigs. What does it actually say about Hakeem's offense in that series as a second year pro that he could LEAD his team to the finals, dominating against the defending champs and ultimately losing in 6 to arguably the greatest team of all time with the greatest front court of all time?

Anyway, no one that watched early Hakeem will say that Hakeem was a great man defender early in his days - he was still young and undiscplined in this regard. That ability grew when he became more experienced, and it showed in his later years.

Kareem was still a great player in '86, still averaging in the mid 20s in both the regular season and playoffs, so it's hardly a shame.

But, of course, you will ignore what Hakeem did against Ewing in '94 and Robinson in '95 when he was certainly at his defensive prime, and became a great individual defender.

Besides, individual matchups don't reveal why Hakeem was such a great player. Along with his dominant and complete offensive game, he was a defensive anchor and leader. His quickness allowed him to defend PnR so well, it allowed him to switch on to guards in time for his own guard to recover (even Kenny said Hakeem told him to just get back in a few seconds while he takes the guard), or his ability to recover to the rim and hold down the paint, still altering and blocking shots. That's Hakeem's true defensive mastery, and is only shown by watching games, not mindlessly cherry picking stats to suit your biased agenda.



MVP? Are you serious? If MVP was about being the best player, Hakeem would have won it twice (in '94 and '95 - if there was any doubt about '95 between Robinson, the WCF should put it to bed), and he would have been second behind Jordan in 93 and 96, top 3 in the early 90s and top 5 for the late 80s. It's unfortunate that he had to play with Jordan in the 90s, as well as peak + prime Magic in the late 80s when he was still yet to reach his prime.

To use MVP as an arbiter of player level is a joke because:

- it only takes into account regular season, not playoffs (where Hakeem routinely raised his game)
- it is a subjective award
- it does not take into account strength of era and competition

Unless you're willing to admit that Rose was better than LeBron in 2011, or Nash was better than Kobe in 2006, or Nash was better than Duncan in 2005, or Iverson was better than Shaq in 2001... etc etc.

A well-thought post. I don't agree with much of it, and I won't bother rehashing what I already presented earlier in this topic, but I can acknowledge the fact that you do have very valid arguments.