Was Hakeem Olajuwon's post-up game a little overrated?

[Meticode]

[FultzNationRISE]

Hakeem career 2pt%: 51.6
Kareem career 2pt%: 55.6
Shaq career 2pt%: 58.0
Wilt career 2pt%: 53.8
Barkley career 2pt%: 57.8
McHale career 2pt%: 55.8
Dantley career 2pt%: 54.0
Jokic career 2pt%: 60.4

Okay Chuck.

Damn.

[tontoz]

I think it’s pretty simple. There’s almost no one generally accepted in the top 10, who would appear to be on a different tier from him on the same floor. There are a few others you can say that about Who don’t generally get put up there but Moses is the only one of them who won as the man. Off the top of my head at least.

he’s justifiable just from a basketball perspective. But you add a couple rings on top of it?

Who else has the “ Well, yeah, if we’re just talking basketball…” Along with his level of winning and isn’t put up there?

Kevin Durant?

How many people we really talking about?

He won his first ring at 31. Prior to that he wasn't sniffing MVP. He was 3rd team All-NBA the year he won the title.

[SouBeachTalents]

He won his first ring at 31. Prior to that he wasn't sniffing MVP. He was 3rd team All-NBA the year he won the title.

He did make the Finals his 3rd year knocking off the showtime Lakers, the only team to beat them from '85-'88, and took 2 games off a consensus top 3-5 team of all time in the '86 Celtics.

Him being 3rd Team in '95 was a function of him being a center with Robinson & Shaq both having MVP caliber seasons, he's likely 1st Team if he plays any other position.

[tpols]

Okay Chuck.

Damn.

That was the most impressive of all considering he was only 6'5. Dantley as well I guess. Super crafty skill to do that.

[Kblaze8855]

Id say MVP can be sniffed from 2nd place which is where he finished the year before he won it. Not that It matters.

And I suspect a good 75% of the championships ever won didn’t involve beating a team as good as the 86 Lakers. Magic and Kareem only lost one of the time in the west and that was a three game series. The Rockets beat them in a real 7 game series.

I’d say he was pretty proven both in his youth and his later years. They lost to what might’ve been the best team ever against bird playing the best basketball of his life with a much superior team around him.

He got knocked out the next season putting up like 50/25. He did as much in the playoffs early in his career as some others in the top 15 range did in their entire careers as a teams franchise player.

What…would’ve be better getting a couple more second round exits in the middle nobody would care about?

[Kblaze8855]

He did make the Finals his 3rd year knocking off the showtime Lakers, the only team to beat them from '85-'88, and took 2 games off a consensus top 3-5 team of all time in the '86 Celtics.

Him being 3rd Team in '95 was a function of him being a center with Robinson & Shaq both having MVP caliber seasons, he's likely 1st Team if he plays any other position.

yeah, that’s kind of a weird take to me. Criticizing his all NBA ranking in a season where both of the people ahead of him had the most famous ass beatings of their entire career when they matched up?

And I don’t even think they got out played by as much as history remembers, but the series that both of them had against Hakeem is literally the career low light for both of those guys The very year after he had Ewing have one of the worst finals in history.

he was going against the absolute best of the best, and they all had the most embarrassing and notorious performances of their lives.

[tontoz]

Id say MVP can be sniffed from 2nd place which is where he finished the year before he won it. Not that It matters.

And I suspect a good 75% of the championships ever won didn’t involve beating a team as good as the 86 Lakers. Magic and Kareem only lost one of the time in the west and that was a three game series. The Rockets beat them in a real 7 game series.

I’d say he was pretty proven both in his youth and his later years. They lost to what might’ve been the best team ever against bird playing the best basketball of his life with a much superior team around him.

He got knocked out the next season putting up like 50/25. He did as much in the playoffs early in his career as some others in the top 15 range did in their entire careers as a teams franchise player.

What…would’ve be better getting a couple more second round exits in the middle nobody would care about?

He didn't finish 2nd or even 3rd in the MVP race until after he won his first ring at 31. How many guys in the top 10 all time werent even top 3 in the MVP race prior to age 31?

Jokic has 3 MVPs and he's only 29.

[Kblaze8855]

You might be right about 93 but I feel like he was second to Barkley that year and that isn’t the kind of thing I usually get wrong but I’m driving right now just doing talk to text so somebody else can check. It would be pretty unlike me to forget something like that.

[Kblaze8855]

And I don’t know what the ages have to do with anything anyway. You don’t really get extra credit for winning at some specific age. The exact years you won something and completely different leagues for completely different competition isn’t really a way to evaluate basketball players is it? Having gas like magic, bird and Jordan on the greatest teams of all time winning MVPs and rings isnt really saying much about somebody playing with Robert Reed and Maxwell.

What was he supposed to win in the late 80s and early 90s?

[tontoz]

You might be right about 93 but I feel like he was second to Barkley that year and that isn’t the kind of thing I usually get wrong but I’m driving right now just doing talk to text so somebody else can check. It would be pretty unlike me to forget something like that.

I might be a year off on the timing because i am supposed to be working lol. But still the point remains that during most of his prime he wasn't even a MVP finalist. He was typically 5-7 in the voting.He was 31 in '93.

[Im Still Ballin]

Is this a low-key Kevin McHale boost thread, looks like it.

Come on, bro. Do I really look like a poster with a plan? If I wanted to boost Kevin's post-up game at the expense of Hakeem's, I would've mentioned the 1986 NBA Finals. McHale put up 25.8 ppg on 57.3% 2PT and 62.9% TS in comparison to 24.7 ppg on 47.9% 2PT and 52.6% TS for Olajuwon.

Kevin won the battle of the post-up greats. Granted, Hakeem didn't guard McHale, but his help defense was too slow for Kevin's laser-quick catch-and-finish post possessions. On the flipside, McHale did guard Olajuwon, blocking him on a number of possessions in the post:

[Im Still Ballin]

[Im Still Ballin]

[Im Still Ballin]

That was a 23 year old Hakeem, though. Have to give him some grace. McHale was 28.