He is the perfect mixture of grace and power. Couple that with a mature basketball IQ and the unquenched thirst and drive to be better every time. We must also remember that he failed a lot but this didn't stop him from improving. Also, he and the Dream Team changed the face of international basketball. The man on top of the mountain is definitely Michael Jordan.
33ppg in playoff (record) 6 championships, 6 finals MVPs, 5 regular season MVPs, 10 scoring champions For years he dominated the stats board while his team dominated the league. He is the best ever combination of individual success and team success.
Jordan is and was basketball. Unstoppable machine. One of the best two-way players to ever play. GreatOne1978 is just a biased Lakers fan. <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/hKBbK7barVg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/4_k_MKuyOao" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/SSK9Cdr3FFk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Oh, that's easy, Easy. Hakeem Olajuwon is not considered the best ever because he doesn't have the notoriety behind him that Michael Jordan has. Jordan has the handicap of being an "undersized" player to vault him into the conversation of G.O.A.T. There have been a lot of great backcourt players in the NBA. Virtually all of them won with some semblance of a dominant player in the pivot, particularly concerning winning titles. Usually, the NBA thinks (and history tends to prove) that if you have a choice to make between a blue-chip guard or a blue-chip big man, you roll the dice with the big man. You just can't teach a guy seven feet in height. Hakeem was expected to have a successful career. His college career and his draft position selection presumed it. Hakeem himself cemented those presumptions away. But I remember when Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson were riding the "Twin Towers" wave back in the mid-1980s, Olajuwon had difficulty marketing himself to the media, either locally or nationally. Most of that had to do, in my opinion, with the thick Nigerian accent Olajuwon speaks with. Hakeem is educated and very well spoken (always has been), the the cultural walls he faced in this regard did make him less-than-accessible to the general public. We saw a little bit of that with Yao Ming, except that perhaps, by the time Yao entered the league, there was a greater acceptance of his cultural differences...not to mention the HUGE folowing he had from other Asians and Asian-Americans. Yao never had a problem generating interest or cultivating popularity off the court like Olajuwon did. Hakeem belongs on ANYBODY's list of top-10 players all-time. You could probably make a pretty strong case for him being top-five all-time. Just Hakeem's career production ALONE warrants that. But sometimes, perception is everything...and that's especially true nowadays. Seeing is believing, by and large. And more people SAW Michael Jordan win (and win the whole thing, over and over again, practically on demand) than they SAW Dream. That has a lot to do with the teams they were on. Jordan's teams were better more often than Olajuwon's teams were, so Jordan had more opportunities to showcase himself. I don't think that people don't believe that Hakeem is just as good (or even better) than Jordan. They just didn't see it enough. Kinda makes you wonder what we're looking for, though, doesn't it?
These kinds of statements are the reason I thought to create this thread. I think sometimes as fans we're taught and told who we're supposed to like and who we're supposed to dislike. Not saying this was the case with Michael, but sometimes it feels as though we only pay attention to players that ESPN tells us to. I think that as fans we need to be able to sort through all the media hype and marketability garbage and decide for ourselves who we think is great and who we don't. Case and Point I know he's only won one NBA championship (some even say a fluke championship), But when you look at the skill set of players like LeBron and Kobe you have to wonder why is it such blasphemy to say they were or could have been as good as MJ (I SAID AS GOOD, NOT AS ACCOMPLISHED). For LeBron to be as big as Karl Malone, and as quick as MJ is pretty unreal. For Kobe to put up 81 pts in a modern NBA game is impressive as well. And for the record I don't like LeBron and absolutely hate Kobe, but I feel like you have to at least respect their skills
Why, thank you much, kind sir (or ma'am). I don't get a lot of compliments here. Not that I mind or anything...but not having somebody call you an idiot or a turd...I can get used to that. The arguments we're making for or against players, at some point when all the facts are presented, come down to what someone ultimately said in this thread earlier―will come from our emotional investments in them. People are funny that way, I've found. We will love things that make absolutely no sense sometimes. And we'll put a crown on a pig and proclaim him king. I was always partial to Tracy McGrady when he was here. I saw and agreed with a great many of his faults as a player (and at times as a person). McGrady was catastrophically human, to me. And for the life of me, I could never really get myself to the point to where I felt the need to burn even his memory in effigy at every opportunity. Whatever he was or was not, I generally accepted him as he was. As a professional athlete today, though, that's no cause for exoneration for anyone's trespasses (preceived, contrived, or in actuality), what with media scrutiny being what it is, and visibility more common than air. Basically, the more information we see on a subject, the more our opinions matter. And the more our opinions matter, the less important the subject matter becomes. We've become Big Brother, without any idea what it is we're supposed to be loooking for, most of the time. Personally, I think that because there are so many ways to debate something that is so perception-driven, that it makes the argument itself redundant. Greatness speaks for itself...whether in volume or not.
You're quite welcome. (And it is sir by the way) One of the things that make me laugh is the double standard we give certain statistics. For example you ask someone why LeBron isn't as good as Kobe and they say "Dude, he only has 1 ring", then you say ok well since rings mean so much why isn't Michael Jordan as good as Robert Horry, and they say "Shut up that makes no sense" (Or something much worse). But the fact of the matter is, stats like championships are what we've been told should define a player's career, until the argument involves a player we don't think is good enough to be in the conversation in the first place, then we must go to something else. Then it's points that define a career, then this, then that, and so on until we find something that we can use to make our case. But at the end of the day, I guess the point is that stats can always be skewed to say whatever you want them to say. There are always going to be statistical anamolies that could make the case for one player over another (such as Wilt's 100pt game, Oscar Robertson averaging a triple double over the course of an entire season, or Robert Horry's ring collection, Hakeem winning the MVP, DPOY, and Finals MVP in the same season etc.) But as you just stated at the end it comes down to people's personal preferences, who they've invested in emotionally, which "feats" they believe to be most impressive, and who they're told is supposed to be the best.
Good post. What bothers me is that this is a Rockets board. People here should have watched plenty of Hakeem. And they still think Jordan was "without doubt" better? I suspect that the ring-count myth is so ingrained in people's mind they just can't accept that someone who has won it all 6 times might not be as good as someone who has won only 2 times. What they stubbornly ignore is that championship is a team, not an individual, achievement.
Here is a great, great article about Bill Russell: http://www.nba.com/encyclopedia/players/bill_russell.html 2 NCAA championships (at University of San Francisco, far from a powerhouse) 11 NBA championships (in 13 seasons), 2 as a player-coach! An Olympic Gold 5 time NBA MVP 1st black head coach in major US professional sports In terms of defensive dominance, Russell is second to Wilt in career rebounds per game (both averaged 22). Third all time had only 16 per game, a huge chasm away. Russell played in the days before blocks were officially recorded, but players/referees/journalists from that time estimate he may have blocked 6 to 8 shots a game. quote from article: "Bill Russell played in 11 deciding games during his 13-year career. In other words, he played in 10 seventh games and one fifth game of a best-of-five. The team’s record – his record in other words – was 11-0. His point-rebound averages in those 11 games were 18 points and 30 rebounds (OK, 29.45). You young ‘uns should take time to contemplate that latter number." In game 7 of the 1960 finals, Russell went off for 22 points and 35 rebounds. In game 7 of the 1962 finals against a Lakers team with multiple hall of famers, Russell had an amazing 30 points and 40 rebounds! Imagine for a moment what the reaction would be today if Lebron or Kobe put up stats like that in game 7 of the finals. Stephen A Smith and Skip Bayless would have to be carried out on stretchers. another quote, regarding what many consider Russell's greatest moment, "the Coleman play": "The circumstance was the final minute of regulation in what turned out to be a double-overtime Game 7 of the 1957 Finals against St. Louis. As written the following day in the pages of The Boston Globe, it was described as follows: “His best play came when he sped from midcourt to go high in the air and slap back (St. Louis guard Jack) Coleman’s ‘sure thing’ layup which could have given the Hawks a 103-102 margin with 39 seconds left in regulation play.” Basically a run-down block (by a center!!) to steal a championship. If we had video of this it would probably be as iconic as Magic's hook shot or Jordan's jumper in 1998. In conclusion, I strongly recommend this article, it also has quotes from many Hall of Famers (West, Baylor, Pettit, Auerbach, Cousy, others) who talk about the incredible impact Russell had on every game. I'll be honest, I believe Russell s 2nd all time to Jordan. But Russell has a compelling case that too many people dismiss. I wonder if we had more youtube footage of Russell's dunks and blocks and game-winning plays if we would all think more highly of him.
I don't actually think Jordan was the best ever, but he was the best of the modern era. For me Wilt is still the GOAT.
Jordan was without doubt better. 1993-96 peak Hakeem did not really show up that often between 1986 and 1992, and afterwards. He was still good, and had occasional flashes of unbeatableness (particularly in the playoffs...though the result was often an early round exit) - but there were a lot of lost seasons and aside from some astounding defensive play, he stagnated (offensively his production kind of regressed, taking and missing more shots from his early years) while the Rockets spent about 6 years trying to replace Lucas, Lloyd and Wiggins. What was Jordan doing at that time? A sh-tload, even excluding ring count.
Damn i miss that dude.I live in Kentucky and i am a huge U.K. fan. it is everything here and i would take my rockets over my w wildcats any day when the dream was around.Now theres just gloomy clouds with depression and a vision of a frankenstein looking Kevin Mcfail Lookin down on us.
Winning rings isn't an individual accomplishment and cannot be used to measure and individual player's value. K.C. Jones won 8 rings for christ's sake. In the modern era, Derek Fisher has won 5. Jordan is great not because of his championship rings, but because of what he did individually on the court. But in terms of individual contribution nobody in the history of the game has matched what Wilt did. 30 points, 23 rebounds, 4.4 assists, and god only knows how many blocks. Nobody compares.
