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

[Tavr]

Tim Duncan's highest was 57.9%. Giannis' career TS% is 61.1%. Who has better post moves?

Magic's TS% is 61%, Kyrie's is 58%...who has the bigger bag?

Kobe's TS% is 55%. Allen's is higher at 58%. Who has the bigger bag?

Good post, I like the Duncan and Giannis comparison.

In fairness to the user tontoz, though, TS is fantastic for encapsulating all-around efficiency. Its just there's obviously no way of knowing what percentage came from post ups. We'd need to see their shooting chart (the data only goes back to 1997, which is a year or so removed from their prime).

[warriorfan]

Tim Duncan's highest was 57.9%. Giannis' career TS% is 61.1%. Who has better post moves?

Magic's TS% is 61%, Kyrie's is 58%...who has the bigger bag?

Kobe's TS% is 55%. Allen's is higher at 58%. Who has the bigger bag?

I like TS and use it a lot but this is a decent post.

That being said…numbers don’t lie and TS is a much more accurate metric than most in terms of scoring.

Doesn’t have to be the end all to be all but still it provides a lot more context than straight up FG%

Free throws matter! Usually the term game of inches is reserved for football and baseball but realistically every sport is the game of inches once you get to a certain level. Game of 1/8th of inches, 1/16th even. As we keep progressing every little fraction of an inch matters. FG% doesn’t account for a lot of things and especially in today’s game where getting to the stripe and hitting your 3’s is such an important thing.

[Phoenix]

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.

Yep, and then proceeded to go through both in en-route to his 2nd title lol. There's a reason that 94 and 95 run is so( rightfully) revered. I can't think of a better example where a player went through a gauntlet of his immediate positional rivals to that degree.

[HoopsNY]

Good post, I like the Duncan and Giannis comparison.

In fairness to the user tontoz, though, TS is fantastic for encapsulating all-around efficiency. Its just there's obviously no way of knowing what percentage came from post ups. We'd need to see their shooting chart (the data only goes back to 1997, which is a year or so removed from their prime).

I get his premise but there's too much emphasis on it. For one, let's look at the PS leaving out the tail ends of their careers:

Hakeem '85-'97: 57.5% TS%
Barkley: '85-'97: 58.4% TS%

Barkley also shot 54.4% TS% in the finals (1993). Hakeem made it 3 times and his TS% was 53.4%. It's a smaller sample for Barkley, and still higher, but again the difference isn't significant.

Mainly, we should consider who was more skilled. And that's where the separation occurs.

Basically, we're splitting hairs at this point.

[Tavr]

I get his premise but there's too much emphasis on it. For one, let's look at the PS leaving out the tail ends of their careers:

Hakeem '85-'97: 57.5% TS%
Barkley: '85-'97: 58.4% TS%

Barkley also shot 54.4% TS% in the finals (1993). Hakeem made it 3 times and his TS% was 53.4%. It's a smaller sample for Barkley, and still higher, but again the difference isn't significant.

Mainly, we should consider who was more skilled. And that's where the separation occurs.

Basically, we're splitting hairs at this point.

Reading through the thread again it looks like the conversation evolved beyond post-ups and into overall offense, ie. jumpshooting. My bad. I'd also take Hakeem over Barkley if we're just talking offensive skill. Barkley turned into a pretty respectable jumpshooter in Phoenix and had more range than Hakeem, but he never could maintain good efficiency from 3 (despite attempting quite a few of them). Splitting hairs is a good way to put it.

[Im Still Ballin]

Barkley was the more impactful offensive player when they were teammates, if you go by RAPM. IIRC, it's not even close.

[1987_Lakers]

To me, I don't think his post-up game is overrated, it's his lack of playmaking that held him back from being a GOAT tier offensive big.

[Phoenix]

Reading through the thread again it looks like the conversation evolved beyond post-ups and into overall offense, ie. jumpshooting. My bad. I'd also take Hakeem over Barkley if we're just talking offensive skill. Barkley turned into a pretty respectable jumpshooter in Phoenix and had more range than Hakeem, but he never could maintain good efficiency from 3 (despite attempting quite a few of them). Splitting hairs is a good way to put it.

His 3point attempts went up with his physical decline as he got older( pretty common transition as players age) but only slightly. What's really crazy is his 2point % from like 87-91. For a guy listed 6'6 but was really 6'4, that is absolute bonkers interior scoring ability, especially when in terms of height he was pretty much playing amongst trees. For comparison sake, Shaq at the apex of his dominance never reached Barkley's 2% efficiency.

[tontoz]

Tim Duncan's highest was 57.9%. Giannis' career TS% is 61.1%. Who has better post moves?

Magic's TS% is 61%, Kyrie's is 58%...who has the bigger bag?

Kobe's TS% is 55%. Allen's is higher at 58%. Who has the bigger bag?

Jumping around to different eras is lame. Barkley and Hakeem were drafted the same year so we dont need any era adjustments.

Barkley was a true beast in the low post. He was a back to the basket player and this thread is about post play.


Kyrie? Are you trying to say Kyrie is a post player? Or are you just rambling incoherently?

Hakeem has a reputation as a post player but the reality is that he was more of a midrange jump shooter that sometimes played in the post. He had great highlights in the post but day in day out his post game wasnt as big a factor as his reputation would suggest.

Barkley led the league in 2pt% 5 straight years. 4 of those years were over 63%. Hakeem never shot 54% on 2s in his career.

[Tavr]

His 3point attempts went up with his physical decline as he got older( pretty common transition as players age) but only slightly. What's really crazy is his 2point % from like 87-91. For a guy listed 6'6 but was really 6'4, that is absolute bonkers interior scoring ability, especially when in terms of height he was pretty much playing amongst trees. For comparison sake, Shaq at the apex of his dominance never reached Barkley's 2% efficiency.

With the Suns, his three point attempts actually went up in the postseason. Barkley shot around 4 per game (quite a bit for his era) during that 94-96 run. I thought he began to show a physical drop in the 96 playoffs just before going to Houston. Incredibly efficient from 2 like you said, though. For what he lacked in height, he definitely made up for with center of mass. Chuck was an absolute bulldozer.

[Carbine]

I keep hearing about Hakeems lack of "play making" but his playoff games in his peak I never once came away saying "Hakeem isn't seeing the floor well" or an unwilling passer. It didn't hold him back at all?

Maybe that was a problem pre peak. I don't know the answer to that, but he was not any different than Tim Duncan in this regard a decade later and nobody goes around saying Duncan lacked a playmaking element to his game.

[tontoz]

I keep hearing about Hakeems lack of "play making" but his playoff games in his peak I never once came away saying "Hakeem isn't seeing the floor well" or an unwilling passer. It didn't hold him back at all?

Maybe that was a problem pre peak. I don't know the answer to that, but he was not any different than Tim Duncan in this regard a decade later and nobody goes around saying Duncan lacked a playmaking element to his game.

In his first 7 postseasons he had more turnovers than assists in 6 of them.

[Im Still Ballin]

A great post on the other forum from a highly respected poster who has tracked a huge number of games of various older players. Some great insights here; for instance, Olajuwon as a post player was extremely one-sided dominant, reliant on the right block at the rate of about 70-75/30-25. And on that side, he largely went to one shot: the baseline fadeaway.

A few things to add:

1. Hakeem is often overrated as an offensive player for reasons already mentioned: relatively weak game managing, ball-dominance, reliance on tough shot making, mediocre floor vision etc. He was a very good offensive player, clearly an offensive star, but he never approached the best offensive player in the league category.

2. If people want to argue that Hakeem is a little overrated as a offensive post-up player (because he's definitely not overrated defensively in that regard), then it's fine when you focus on his passing and playmaking limitations, along with the relatively static off-ball approach compared to guys like Shaq or Kareem, who were way more involved in the possession when they didn't have the ball.

3. All of that absolutely doesn't mean he's overrated post-up SCORER. I have tracked around 40 Hakeem games from 1992/93 and 1993/94 seasons and his post-up scoring are truly remarkable. I am out of my country right now, so I won't be able to provide them but he was extremely efficient for a post up isolation scorer, especially at such a huge volume. The thing is that isolations are not very efficient in general and Hakeem relied heavily on it for his scoring game, which made his raw efficiency not spectacular, but it is spectacular in the context of his shot selection. Hakeem was remarkably efficient and effective post scorer, people might be shocked at the fact that he's more efficient ISO scorer than Shaq (and comparable to Kareem) - though on lower volume overall.

4. At the same time, Hakeem's post game is a bit misunderstood. People view him as the most versatile post scorer with million moves and counters, but when you go beyond highlight reels and start breaking down his scoring game, it's actually remarkably simple. First of all, Hakeem did over 70% of his post work on one side - right block. That's extremely one-dimensional, players like Kareem and Shaq had the 55/45 proportions. In that aspect, Hakeem was more similar to Wilt Chamberlain who also preferred the right block (though, not to that degree from my tracking data). Wilt's comparison is adept in another way - Hakeem relied heavily on his baseline fadeaway jumper. It was his go-to move and he used it extensively. Again, I don't have the data in front of me, but if I remember correctly it's like 7 fadeaways per game (almost 40% of his total shots and over half of total post-up attempts). It's also not true (which was suggested in previous posts) that Hakeem didn't rely on that shot in postseason, he took them on ridiculous volume. Of course, Hakeem had plenty of counter moves. He had a nice jumphook to the middle and he used fakes, spins, dropsteps etc. to blow by slower defenders. On the left block, his go-to move was a fadeaway to the middle. He attacked baseline when players overplayed the middle. Interestingly, he didn't seem to use fadeaway shot from the left shoulder much, although he could take such shots.

I wouldn't say Hakeem's post game is overrated outside of 1990s cultists, but it's a bit misunderstood. The same thing can be said about any great post player - Shaq, Kareem, Wilt etc. because people don't pay attention to details and don't track games.

I wouldn't call Hakeem the best offensive post player because of his playmaking limitations and off-ball tendencies, but when you want to pick the best isolation scorer in the post, it would be hard to find a better option. I think that only Kareem is overall better in that regard.

[Carbine]

Hakeem was doing like 33 ppg with 4apg

The only other players that exceeded this type of scoring production is peak MJ.

That's the list.

Shaq never eclipsed that PPG or APG total in any of his playoff runs and most would put him in that best offensive player ever discussion during his peak.

Hakeem is definitely in the GOAT discussion for offense for big men. I would say Jokic has the title but it's so hard to compare eras 25-30 years apart. I honestly don't know what Hakeem would be capable of in today's NBA offensively. It wouldn't surprise me whatsoever if he was Embid plus with a heart and durability.

[Carbine]

In his first 7 postseasons he had more turnovers than assists in 6 of them.

Ok, but Hakeem is not judged on what he did in the 80s.

What he eventually became, is what I think is more important. He kept evolving. That's the whole point.