I dont understand why people think that Hakeem became a great player all of a sudden in 93-94. Have you guys seen his stats before then? He took his team to the Finals in his second year and had some monstrous performance and numbers even when his team was total crap in late eighties and early nineties. Define "just plain better". David Robinson had a better regular season than Hakeem in 91-92. OTOH, here are Hakeem's stats compared to Ewing for the 91-92 season. Olajuwon vs. Ewing (91-92 season) 21.6 ppg with 50.2% FG vs. 24.0 ppg on 52.2% FG 12.2 rebounds VS. 11.2 rebounds 2.2 Assist vs. 1.9 Asists 4.3 blocks vs. 3.0 Blocks 1.8 steals vs. 1.1 steals 2.7 TO vs 2.5 TO Even though Olajuwon missed some games in 91-92 to injury and had what you would call his worst season of his career, other than ppg and fg, Olajuwon was better in every other category. Prior to 91-92, his stats were just plain better in every category. How is that a clear cut advantage for Ewing?? A better argument for Ewing and Robinson (statistically Robinson was clearly a better player in 91-92 as well) would have been the marketability factor. One played in NY and other was a media darling, while Hakeem played in, as New York themselves called it, "a Hell-hole". And this was before NBA league pass days and internet, and frankly, outside of Houston, no one cared for the Rockets, especially because they had a ****ty team. PS. I made the initial comment of Hakeem over Robinson and Ewing by mistakenly taking his 92-93 season performance in account, which clearly came after the Olympics. Without that season into factor, I would definitely give the nod to Robinson, but i do not see how Ewing was just plain better than Hakeem.
1992 = dream team 1996 = dream team 2 hakeem would've been on dream team 1 if he was a citizen, period
Hakeem's stats werent good in '96 Olympics. Shaq and Robinson were better Olympic players cuz they had younger legs and just chose to overpower their opponents instead of using finesse game. Most conclude that Hakeem loved the HONOR of being on the team. But after that he really didnt take the competition aspect as seriously. Not that he had reason to slack, but he was the only '96 member with an MVP trophy + TITLE, what did he have to prove. He was just trophy padding by then. Robinson, maaaaaybe. But Robinson was only a 3rd year player in '92. Hakeem had a longer more accomplished career over D-Rob, not even including the titles. Patrick Ewing was VERY good, but mostly NY media star hype over Hakeem then. Hakeem led the league in rebounding twice and blocked shots twice by '92. Ewing led in NOTHING. (Robinson once in rebounds, once in blocks)
Wrong. So wrong. Ewing was NEVER a better center than Hakeem. Ever. If Olajuwon had been officially naturalized and a US citizen in 1992, Olajuwon and David Robinson would have been the centers on the 1992 Dream Team. Ewing was never more than the third best center in the NBA during his ENTIRE career. And its not even close. Ewing was immensely talented, a bully and a terrific teammate, defensive badass, intimidator. His shortcomings lie in his lack of athleticism. Hakeem and Robinson were elite athletes, with Olajuwon quite possibly being the most ridiculously athletically gifted center of all time. No center before or after has ever come close to his combination of agility, speed, and grace. Only center I believe to be in the top ten career-wise in both blocks AND steals. Ewing was always outclassed.
Ewing had finished higher on all nba teams for 3 consecutive years at that point, there's no way Hakeem would have gone over him, it wouldn't have even been remotely fair and it's not something objective selectors would have done (that the team was 9 of the 10 people in the first 2 nba teams plus a cpl long service and a college player wasn't on accident).
Dream Team II was the 1994 FIBA World Championship team that included the likes of KJ, Mark Price, Reggie Miller, Shawn Kemp (non fat), Joe Dumars, Larry Johnson, and Shaq. It was called Dream Team II by media such as the New York Times and promotional material by USA Basketball as seen at McDonalds... Olajuwon was part of the 1996 Atlanta team which was dubbed Dream Team III.
Just got back from a trip to China where I picked up a basketball newspaper. On the cover, the 2012 team were referred to as "Dream Team Ten", so I'd imagine that every iteration of the US national team since 1992 has been referred to as a Dream Team (92, 94, 96, 00, 02, 04, 06, 08, 10, 12).
In the US the '96 team was called Dream Team III go to wikipedia, and you will find: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_men's_national_basketball_team The team was commonly referred to and marketed as "Dream Team III" also if you google "Dream Team III" you will get pages about the Dream Team in the 1996 Olympics. Then the Dream Team IV played at the 2000 olympics, since in the world championship in '98 had non-NBA players since the league was in lockout.
