How would you rank prime Hakeem among the All time best NBA Centers?

solid, this is from the Basketball Hall of Fame archives:

Campbell's Call
The radio by-by-play was done that night by Bill Campbell, a veteran broadcaster. Twenty-five years after the game Campbell told the Philadelphia Daily News, "This might sound strange, but I never had that game in my list of top personal memories. In all honesty, I was more excited the night I did the game when Joe Fulks scored 63. He was the first of the jump shooters, and the shot was such a curiosity then and Joe was hitting from deep in the corners and out on the wings. I just have a clearer recollection of that game. On this historic night, no New York papers were covering the Knicks, and Philadelphia's public relations man Harvey Pollack was covering for the wires and Philadelphia media....

The Basketball Hall of Fame called for a tape of the game, but it wasn't on television. The Hall then asked Campbell for a copy of the tape, but he didn't tape any of his broadcasts. After Campbell mentioned that oddity on the air, about a dozen people sent him tapes of the last few minutes of the game.


Sorry solid, but you did not see this game unless you were there.

 

Hakeem is the best player ... ever.

The only thing Hakeem lacks is maybe the ability to influence things outside of the game itself. Such as appealing to the national public instead of just Houston, garnering lucratice shoe contracts, influencing other players to join their team etc. Things that Jordan and Magic did so well, and that really is responsibility of a basketball coach. Basketball is not "Rocket: science and the tallest players are going to be the best overall. You can say that Hakeem is the tallest player with the most skills that has ever played the game. Anything that he fell short of in his career is due to decision outside the realm of his playing ability. (i.e. dismantling the championship team for Barkley, Wiggins and Lloyd doing coke, Sampson's knee)

Hakeem changed the game as much as any other center did. The league changed the rules after the Rockets in 95 to prevent there style of play. Shortening the 3 point line and handchecking rules. (Rockets were prolific 3 point shooters, and shortening the help side distance for defender like the "zone" defense that Seattle played to end their title runs")

Anyone who shoots 50 percent from the foul line is not in his league, because it changes the way you can play the game when it matters most. This rules out Chamberlin and Shaq.

Kareem is no where near the defensive player Dream is. If he is anywhere near to Dream's block total it's because of his longevity and nothing more.

Bill Russel would get absolutely dismantled by Shaq. The best player is going the most recent. So therefore its Shaq if you go by era. I still wouldn't rate him over Dream because he is such a liability from the line , and he has Kobe to bail him out at crunch time. Basketball is an evolution. Cato would have Chamberlin back in the 60's.

Hakeem is the still, and always will be the Dream and I miss him so ....

I challenge anyone to a fist fight who says anyone is better.

 

Wilt Chamberlain was better. Meet me at the bridge.

 

Being someone who was not alive when Wilt played, can you tell me what exactly Wilt did better than Hakeem? What basketball skills did he possess that made him superior to Hakeem? What physical attributes did he possess that made him superior?

 

Behad, Your source appears credible, there is only one problem, I saw a live televised broadcast of the game. I knew there was not a video tape, and I was not at the stadium, and I did not see a home video, I saw a live broadcast. Someone had a camera and cable didn't exist, it had to be a major network. Do more research.

 

So, the Basketball Hall of Fame is quoted as saying "it wasn't on television", but you still maintain you saw it on TV. I have read a number of accounts about this game, and the first thing to remember is it was a meaningless game, late in the season, involving a last place team, in a remote non-NBA city, and you believe a major network was there to cover it? In 1962?

Nevermind. I wouldn't want to spoil a memory as precious as that.

 

Hakeem is the all-time greatest center.

 

What rules are we playing by? 1965? 1975? 1985? It matters a lot.

 

hey im new to this site but im one of the biggest hakeem fans ever so im throw in my 2 cents....

there's no doubt hakeem is the best center in terms of skill... second in skill would probably be david robinson and then jabbar.. and i think u guys are underestimating d. rob... the guy scored 71 pts in a game (ya it was againt the clippers) but in this day and age, thats damn impressive... the problem with people liek shaq and wilt is they are going against people liek jermain o neal and mourning who should really be 4's but since their post play and blocking ability enable them to play the 5... shaq in my eyes is the most overrated player ever... wilt revolutionized the game even tho he had size advantage, he literally dominated... when people say shaq is the the most dominant center ever, that makes me sick ******* it... he got eaten up alive against hakeem and that's all we can pretty much we can compare those 2 to...

and true the blocks record didnt count when russel played but i still think dream is better in terms of OVERALL defense... hakeem is the best. i mean wtf, a center top ten in steals all time? that is amazing...

and if u still watch hakeem, he has some nice ass handles... for a center they are SWEEEEEEET! if the jumper was goin in and the speed was there, he could make a case for the best player all time....

my biggest regret however was when that b*stard stockton (best pg ever) made the game winning shot aganist houston in game 6 of liek 98 playoffs... then we coulda seen the 2 best players ever go head to head (hakeem vs jordan)...

theres my 2 cents

-hariz0381

 

Great post and superb sig hariz0381, however, Stockton (Flopton) is not the greatest point guard of all time. His dirty style and empty ring fingers should preclude him from being considered the best PG ever.

 

liek?

 

Look everyone, I'm sorry but <b>anyone who can average 48 minutes, 50 points and 25 boards a game in ANY season in ANY professional league, no matter when they played, in my opinion is the greatest.</b> Wilt Chamberlain did just that in the 61-62 season for Philadelphia...

Why does that make him the greatest? Simple. <b>He did that before any thought that was even possible, and to this day noone has even come close to that. He CHANGED THE GAME.</b> He is the pioneer. Look, it is senseless to try and compare players across eras. With the high-level college training programs now, the availability of TV and mass communications, kids are learning the game in a totally different way. It is a lot easier to imitate other players and develop your game because the resources are at our fingertips. Wilt had NONE of that, and still came into the league and just destroyed everybody. <b>In HIS era he was unquestionably the most dominant player.</b> Way more dominant than anyone else is now. On top of that, he created a whole style of play for centers. Wilt was 7 feet but he could <b>post, face, dribble, pass, block, AND to top it off he could rebound.</b> In his CAREER <b>he never had a year where he averaged under 18 boards per game</b>.

I mean, GEEZ, in the 66-67 season, he averaged <b>24 points, 24 boards, and shot 68% FROM THE FIELD</b>. Unreal.

Now, granted, there have been a lot of great centers since Wilt, but I think that putting them before Wilt is like putting someone before George Washington as the greatest president. He's the original, and he created the style.

To view the stats I'm referring to (they will blow your mind):
http://members.tripod.com/~airjudden/wilt/totalstats.html

 

By the way, everyone, here is a quote from the book <b>Tall Tales</b> by Terry Pluto about the 100-point game. Unless I'm missing something here, it wasn't on TV:

<b>"Harvey Pollack (PR Man): this was supposed to be the classic NBA nonevent. Hardly any New York reporters were there. The biggest paper in Philadelphia--the Inquirer--didn't even send a reporter. I was the public relations man for the Philadelphia Warriors and I also was covering the game for the Inquirer, Associated Press and United Press International. I also was keeping the stats and my son sat next to me at courtside, keeping the running play-by-play.
I remember hearing Wilt say before the game that he had been out all night with a beautiful woman. In the Hershey arena lobby, they had a pinball machine and one of those target practice machines, and Wilt said he set records on both of those."</b>

 

Except Kareem would probably be up by thousands, nice try though.

 

There have been events in history where people swear they have vivid memories of seeing something that didn't exist. One case is a famous episode of The Newlywed Game that went something like this:

Host (to the wife): "Where is the oddest place you and your husband have ever had sex?"

Wife (at this point the wife begins to squirm uncomfortably, obviously very embarassed): "I really don't think I should say. My mother is watching this show!"

Husband (who knows the answer): "C'mon sweetie, it's not that bad. Lots of people have done it!"

Wife: "Well......okay. In the arse!" She said this misunderstanding what the host was asking. The answer to the question the host was asking, and her husband was chiding her to answer, was (supposedly) "On the kitchen table."

This supposedly occured on TV, and there are thousands of reports of people saying they saw this episode, but the simply truth is that this never happened. Its an urban legend that has been told so many times that people really started to believe it, even "remembering" having seen this particular episode themselves. Now we all know that Wilt really did score 100 points in a game, but what is interesting is that so many people claim to have seen it on TV, when in reality the only people who saw it were the people in attendance that night because by all accounts the game wasn't televised.

I'm not calling you a liar: I don't know what you saw, and until I read this thread, I had no idea that there wasn't any television coverage of the event; but it is possible that you simply have one of these types of pseudo-memories of seeing such a milestone due to all the press it received.

 

David Robinson better than Kareem... uh


all i can say to that is wow... i mean... wow

 

Behad and Lynus 302, I can pass a 1000 lie detector tests on this one, because in my heart of hearts, I sincerely believe, on a stack of a million Bibles, with God as my witness, I really saw the game. The memory is so vivid, I can remember the house, the furniture arrangement, the big console T.V. (Blond finish), everything. Laying on sofa during the first half, and sitting on the edge or standing the second half, etc. etc. HOWEVER, it has been forty years ago, I was a child, a huge Wilt fan who followed his every game, keep up with his career through pubs, newspapers, and so on. Could it be a false memory, even though it seems so real? That is possible. Our minds can play tricks on us. Are you absolutely sure that there was no T.V. broadcast of any kind and was there any other game in which Wilt approached the 100 pt. record? I have replayed this memory for years, and can replay it right now. If I am wrong I will be utterly amazed.

 

Really? What if he was playing against women? What if it was in the CBA? In Turkey? As long as it's professional though?

I would like to see someone list the average size of the players back in the Wilt and Russell era. I have this feeling that they routinely played against midgets, which would tend to boost your stats, but I don't have the actual stats to prove it.

 

He says he saw the damn game......what the **** does it matter?