you can directly blame that on Tracy, Yao and Steve for not upholding our superiority over the Spurs during the Dream era.
People are so up on D.Howard, but as you can see from the vids he had every bit the ability, vertical, and athleticism.
When I think of Duncan in the post, it's all about economy of motion. He does just enough with the foot work and fakes to get himself a solid, high-percentage shot. Olajuwon had great creativity and nimbleness, and used a variety of fakes to put the opponent off balance. It looked great, very impressive, and he was a joy to watch. But, again, was it more fundamentally sound? I'm not sure I would describe it in that way.
Shouldn't the ultimate blame be on Rudy T and his buddy CD? After the back to back titles, they made moves that ultimately made us go backwards.
Dream had fundementals plus ability to create, which is what TD lacks. Dream had a great hook, fadeaway, jumper, as well as dream shake and spin moves. TD only has basic fundamentals, does that make him more fundamentally sound because he cannot create an array of shots like Dream? I dont think it does.
The window was closing on Clyde and Dream, so they made moves they felt helped this team. The real problem became injuries.
And that problem continues to the present. Ultimately though, those moves after the back to back titles failed. And Rudy T/CD did not have the foresight to look beyond and make sure the Rockets would be relevant after the Dream era. Steve Francis? That was Rudy T's ultimate nail on his coffin (although the Eddie Griffin trade was another giant blemish).
it's not like hakeem did 8 fakes and 4 spin moves on every possession. he did the easy and unblockable baseline fadeaway quite a bit, not much effort. he would back down and do the 5 foot hook in the lane, or the occasional pump fake hook up and under. quick spins baseline were other moves. facing up and taking the jumper like duncan. all of those were pretty easy, simple moves he did a lot. even moreso if it was a scrub. the fact he could pull out all the fakes and spins and moves for a super-quick, excellent defender like robinson and destroy him in the process is to his footworking credit, not to be held against him. maybe duncan scores more in those 4th quarters when the lakers would put shaq on him and shut him down. or in those games in the '05 finals when the wallace boys were giving him all sorts of problems. or last year when tyson chandler and pau gasol held him way down in FG%***. i know you're very impartial and just trying to be fair, but i like to think i am as well and i don't see how footwork goes to duncan. ***and to be honest, those example i mention of duncan's offense being held down by defender's i can't see doing the same to hakeem are another reason i really can't see picking duncan over hakeem. the sonics triple-teaming illegal defense is about the only thing i've seen neutralize hakeem to that degree. outside of PER (which is good but not perfect), i'm not sure how to take duncan over hakeem. but PER would tell me robinson was way better than hakeem and that yao is comparable. it doesn't seem coincidental that yao/duncan/shaq/robinson all playing on very slow-paced teams all kill in PER and hakeem playing on faster rockets teams early on hurts him in PER. i don't know how much a faster game helps a big guy's or a main star's (both of which fit hakeem) total stats when they aren't going to be down the court for as high a percentage of possessions as a slower paced team's big guys will be.
I know, 8th in steals, 1st in blocks and a hell of a defender. I think TD is a great player, I just think he gets overhyped sometimes.
You make the moves you feel help your team. You cant always get every move right. Drexler worked out well, but the Barkley era had a lot of injuries. We are always a relevant team and are never afraid to make the big moves. So yeah, some moves didn't work out but we still have 2 rings!
I gotta give the footwork edge to Duncan, cause as wondrous as Hakeem was on his footwork, he got away with alot of travel. Hakeem was more dynamic and awe inspiring on his footwork, Tim is legitimately fundamentally sound on his footwork.
Howard doesn't have the skillz that Hakeem had. My point was that people act like we've never before seen somebody of D.Howards ability, but as you can see in those videos, we know him as THE DREAM
we weren't that bad after the dream era. the celtics fell off pretty hard after the 80's run. the lakers had a lull after showtime (signing shaq helps turn things around). detroit wasn't anything for a long time. the bulls collapsed after jordan. the lakers fell off like we did for 3 or 4 years after shaq/kobe but they still had kobe in his prime and stole gasol to get good. lets face it, having all-time greats get old and retire while getting nothing back is hard to come back from. we basically lost hakeem, drexler, and barkley for nothing. and while we made a lot of bad moves, turning a package of largely nothing into francis and getting mobley with the 41st pick basically allowed us to be a decent .500 team. not sure how francis putting up 20/6/6 for a bunch of years was the nail in Rudy T's coffin. contracts like mo taylor, cato, and moochie were if anything was.
Going back to tinman's post about whose fault of why the Rockets lost it's dominance over the Spurs, I was pointing out Rudy T/CD. Whether fairly or unfairly, you are judged on the success of your moves. Spurs 4 > Rockets 2
Excellent point. Duncan can be, and has been neutralized by long and athletic players on multiple occasions. One on one Hakeem was a more dominant player and that is important for the way they played to open up shots for their teammates. Duncan has been helped on several occasions by Manu (vastly underrated , imo) and Parker. When Duncan has been neutralized by opposing frontline, Manu and Parker helped carry the load. I cant see Rockets winning the 94 championsip if you replaced Hakeem with Duncan. The Knicks would have contained Duncan. I know Hakeem's 95 playoff performances are usually brought up but I was equally impressed by how Hakeem handled the physical punishment by Ewing/Anthony Mason/Oakley to lead a team of role players to title. Also, as good as Hakeem's numbers were in regular season, he consistently posted better numbers in playoffs, which was pretty remarkable and only a few players have done that.
Well, to be fair, the spurs held out robinson to get the #1 pick, which turned out to be Duncan. So, yes they have 4 rings, but they could easily of had none
