For more than a decade now, i have been a rocket fan becoz of the dream. Throw away all the stats out of the window and lets concentrate on talent alone, hakeem is, was unchallenged. The only player that comes to mind is wilt and maybe in some extent drob. Russell's offense is nil, shaq ten feet away from the basket is as harmless as a fly, kareem just has his sky hook and looks clumsy around the basket, he is not as physical as dream. With dream, u have the ultimate athletic beast, that can hurt any team on both ends of the floor. He has the power moves, the dream shake, the fade aways plus he has a freaking outside j. Not taking anything away from wilt, he is a freak of nature but all of his accomplishments are questionnable becoz he went out against stiffs in his era unlike dream who had to go up against the likes of Jabbar, moses, parish, drob, ewing, daugherty, shaq, zo and dikembe. Drob comes close but he always has problems with his heart to win. And simply put the dream destroyed him in the 95 wcf. So in talent alone, i put the dream numero uno. But if you want numbers and rings, i put him numero cinco behind wilt, kareem, russell and shaq
Chamberlain won two championships and three MVP awards. His contemporary, Bill Russell, won 11 titles and five MVPs. While unquestionably great, you could make a case that Wilt wasn't even the best center of his time (though that's more of a testament to Russell than an indictment of Chamberlain).
Yeah, against an average height of about 4"-6" lower than it was when Akeem (Hakeem) played. Hell, I could score 100 points in a game if it was against 4th graders. Give me a F'N break, the Dream dominated Robinson (the league MVP at the time), Ewing and Shaq in '94-'95 and could have done it left handed, blindfolded, in ankel weights during Ramadan. Yes they were that bad a mismatch - I was on the floor at the Summit when he devoured O'Neal, on the floor when he aniliated Ewing - so say all you want about centers that only played against other centers in the finals (Russell and Wilt) but Dream did it every night - in fact IMO the centers in the '80 & '90's were better than any other time in pro basketball - Mutombo, Ewing, Robinson, Daugherty, Shaq, Olajuwon, Robinson, Sabonis, Laimbeer, Parish - in fact for the first 4-5 years Dream even played against Kareem. Seriously, give me another 10-15 year period with more talented centers than between '83-'97 and I'll respect your opinion, but until then your opinion means crap.
Kareem played against Chamberlain, Cowens, Unseld, Lanier, Hayes, Hawkins, McAdoo, Walton, Laimbeer, Malone, Parish, Sikma, Olajuwon, Daugherty, and Ewing. He also was much more than just the sky hook. He was a beast around the basket, especially earlier in his career and had some decent range. He won 3 titles at UCLA, and his team only lost 2 games in the four years he played there. In high school his team lost 6 games in 4 years, including a 71 game win streak. Of course, none of this matters and my argument is crap, right?
If you were starting a team and had to pick one center between Wilt, Kareem, and Hakeem, you would not go wrong with either one. To me these 3 are the best centers of all time and picking between the 3 is a matter of personal preferance. On a side note, of all the players, Wilt admired Hakeem the most. He met him on several ocassions including 95 finals to rave about Hakeem's game. Bill rusell has more rings but he also had some of the best talent surrounding him. His offense was non existant. Hakeem was a beast himself when it came to defense. He has the block and rebounds but what's more impressive is the steals numbers. Top 10 all time in steals, and that is including all the guards in NBA history. Name me another center anywhere close to those numbers. I dont know how anyone can say that Rusell was a better all around center than Hakeem once you begin to take offense into account. Shaq is one of my favourite players to watch and I have followed him since his LSU years. But even he needs help when it comes to winning championships. Kobe was just as integral to Lakers as Shaq qas. In fact, you cant even depend on Shaq when it comes to closing out games because of his free throw problems. Kobe was the 4th quarter option most of the time. As much as I love Shaq, it's hard for me to name him the best center or take him over Hakeem, Wilt, and Kareem because he actually becomes a liability in close games. And lastly, as someone mentioned earlier, no one other than Hakeem has won an NBA championship with as little as him in 93-94. It was only possible because Hakeem carried offense and defense. I have never seen one center or player mean so much for their team as Hakeem was that year and in spite of such a burden he actually delivered a championship.
