Some of you may be following the top 40 list Ben Taylor has been incrementally posting on his site this season. He's in the midst of posting his top 8, and Hakeem came in 6th all time. He refers to Hakeem as the best defender of the 3-point era. As for many of the other players on his list, he has nice writeup on his career, skillset, and impact that went into his assessment:
That was the most thorough and accurate description of Dream's game and player development I've ever read. Not only was he spot-on on Dream's strengths, he was also spot-on his weakness during his early years.
Awesome find! Amazing clips -- my personal favorites were the first one ("unreal D coverage 87 v Chi") (how is that humanly possible?), and the block on Kareem's sky hook (!!)
My favorite clip is the one where he shows Olajuwon getting a turnover into a triple team in the 1994 playoffs vs Utah. It's meant to demonstrate a flaw of his but the commentator doesn't mention the Utah fastbreak that ensues immediately after the turnover, which ends when Olajuwon blocks the **** out of the ball lol.
He sort of mentioned it in that he said the clip showcases his “blazing speed”. Watching old games of Hakeem, his end to end speed really does stand out and I think I didn’t appreciate that aspect of his game enough when he played.
Wait I thought according to this board harden is better than hakeem? Glad someone gives the guy his due.
Here's the rest of the list, any guesses to the order? http://www.backpicks.com/2017/12/11/the-backpicks-goat-the-40-best-careers-in-nba-history/
I’m most surprised by Magic, Bird, and Wilt being so low and Nash being so high. Others might think Garnett is too high, but I’ve always felt at his peak he was better than Duncan. Duncan had the better career obviously. I feel the same way when comparing Dream to Duncan and Shaq. In his peak, he was better than both, but they had better long term careers with more accolades and team success. Especially Duncan, but they were also in better teams.
Dream's otherworldly isolation scoring and defensive prowess kept the team afloat during the lean years after that legendary 86 season run. You place Dream in a situation like Duncan's who had quality rosters for all of his career and it is conceivable Dream would have achieved greater than five titles. He was that great.
If there’s anything he might find some fault in with Jordan, it may be with his willingness to pass to teammates. But it’s hard to see a real weakness in his game.
Guessing the other 5 are Russell, Jordan, Kareem, Shaq, and Lebron - Obviously. Surprised Harden and Westbrook haven't surpassed Ray Allen.
