Which stretch? Considering the fact that he was first team all-nba 6 times and second-team 3 times, I say that your notion is BS.
yeah like in the 1988 playoffs when he only averaged 37.5/16.8 and set the all-time playoff PER record. why couldn't he just show up and play well? now i kind of want to do a playoff vs regular season post for all-time greats because hakeem is one of the few players to have a higher PER, TS%, and WS/48 in the playoffs. almost everybody else either just maintains those numbers or in some cases has a large dropoff. i'd have to think of how best to do it but it would be fun to put it together for once.
pwned what is just talking out of his rear at this point. A 4 year stretch that he wasn't doing squat? that's beyond laughable. a simple google search never hurt anyone.
when you say results, i assume you just mean for peak seasons. here are a couple of charts. the first is peak numerical season versus what age upon entering the league. the second is the peak age versus year entering the league. while the first does show, as expected, that you peak earlier the older you are when you enter the league (about 1/2 a year less to peak for every year older), the R^2 value isn't very high at all. i would've thought it correlated a lot better given so many guys peaking at the same age. and instead of showing that players in the early days peaked later, it actually appears that peak age has been increasing over time (about 1 year for every 19 years), but again the R^2 is still really low. plus, the sample size is only 25 of the best players ever, so i wonder what the league average peak age would look like over time.
Read his book. MAYBE it will help you understand his mindset when it came to/comes to competition. While he did not talk trash or have "hate" for his opponent, you are mistaking that for lack of killer instinct. You are way off base here. Dream was amazing when he smelled blood. He was a great "finisher" and knew how to close it out. You don't go through the battles he did with Moses and come back at Mo the way he did if you don't have a killer instinct. You can't have a "quiet" game. Did he play with grace, good sportsmanship (other than the time he tried to KO McDyess) almost all of the time? Yes. Your mistaking a quiet CONFIDENCE with lack of a killer instinct. There are a TON of former NBA players that would adamantly disagree with you.
absolutely, without hesitation I can say this is the stupidest post in ClutchFans history, and being that ClutchFans is first and foremost a Houston Rockets site, it truly deserves to be #1, or at least in the top 5, of Hall of Shame posts.
lol... unbelievable. No one EVER said Dream "SUCKED". Were fans frustrated when they weren't sure whether or not which side of the story to believe? Yes. Man, I'm not sure where you're getting these memories from.
There were some major stuff being thrown at him. Quitter if I remember correctly was a term he was labeled as. Listen, I am eternally grateful for all that dream has done. I truly am. He gave me my won and only championship. Well two, in any sport. And I am also a homer when it comes to dream, most of the time. But I do happen to feel that the one thing that dream lacked, and what made MJ better, was that MJ had more consistent desire to be great and to win more. Dream lost that for a lot of years. If he ever had it at all. Then Rudy comes along and suddenly dream is sizzling again. So maybe it was bad coaching, bad players, rift with management or any numbers of things, but I honestly don't think dream cared that much about his legacy beyond his own personal pride in his game. Rudy, I think, bleed a desire back into dream that somewhere along the lines that he lost. That's all. All I'm saying. If I'm a troll for that, so be it.
I couldn't agree more with what. I mean Hakeem also didn't have much of a post move and he's really slow to add. No laterally quickness whatsoever.
what I would like you to address every post that quoted you in the last page, specifically francis 4 prez's.
Never said Hakeem wasn't great, but it takes five and people need to stop degrading the team. Unfortunately you can't read so what can I do.
I wasn't degrading the 93-94 team to make Hakeem look better. What part of my post do you take issue with? Are you going to argue that anyone on that team other than Hakeem was anything more than a role player. In fact, I referred to them as "great role players." Are you going to make the case that any of his teammates from 86-94 will be in the HOF?
What if instead of sam, horry, ellie, max we had mo williams, smush parker, luke walton, sasha etc. Do we win the championship? I agree with your post, but it seems like so many fans on clutchfans don't realize how good our guys were.
"There are many years Hakeem couldn't get out of the 1st round. If he was so great why was that the case." Yes, I can read- when you say "if he was so great, why was that the case?", you're implying that he wasn't, so don't try to weasel out of it with your backtracking nonsense. Did Mr. Jordan lead his team to the Finals in his 2nd season in the league? Mr. Olajuwon did: "Olajuwon averaged 23.5 points, 11.5 rebounds, and 3.4 blocks per game during his second pro season (1985–86).[15] The Rockets finished 51–31,[14] and advanced all the way to the Western Conference Finals where they faced the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers. The Rockets won the series fairly easily, four games to one, shocking the sports world and landing Olajuwon on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Olajuwon scored 75 points in victories in games three and four, and after the series Lakers coach Pat Riley remarked "We tried everything. We put four bodies on him. We helped from different angles. He's just a great player."[16] The Rockets advanced to the 1986 NBA Finals where they succumbed in six games to the Boston Celtics, whose 1986 team is often considered one of the best teams in NBA history." Did Mr. Jordan have incredible regular season numbers and playoff series even when the Bulls were swept, lost in 5 games, and lost 3 times to the Pistons? Yes, he did. So did this fellow: "Olajuwon posted exceptional playoff numbers of 37.5 ppg and 16.8 rpg, plus a record for points in a four-game playoff series (150), 1987-1988. Nevertheless, the Rockets were eliminated in the first round by the Dallas Mavericks, 3 games to 1." "The 1989–90 season was a disappointment for the Rockets. They finished the season with a .500 record at 41–41, and though they made the playoffs, were eliminated in four games by Los Angeles. Olajuwon put up one of the most productive defensive seasons by an interior player in the history of the NBA. He won the NBA rebounding crown (14.0 per game) again, this time by an even larger margin; a full two rebounds per game over David Robinson, and led the league in blocks by averaging 4.6 per game." "The Rockets finished the 1990–91 season with a record of 52–30 under NBA Coach of the Year Chaney. Olajuwon averaged 21.8 points per game in 1990–91, but due to an injury to his eyesocket caused by an elbow from Bill Cartwright, did not play in enough games (56) to qualify for the rebounding title. Otherwise he would have won it for a third consecutive year, averaging 13.8 a game (league leader Robinson averaged 13.0 rpg). He also averaged a league-leading 3.95 blocks per game." Did Mr. Jordan go 7 years without leading his team to an NBA title? Yes. Did Mr. Olajuwon go 8 years without leading his team to an NBA title? Yes. 7 years, 8 years. Wow, what a remarkable difference. Did Mr. Bird win 3 championships? Yes. Did Mr. Olajuwon win 2? Yes. 3 ships, 2 ships. Wow, what a remarkable difference. Let's just stop all this nonsense RIGHT NOW. Hakeem Olajuwon was truly one of the greatest players to ever grace an NBA court. He led his team to the Finals in his 2nd year, and there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the team sans the drug problems and Sampson's knee would have won at least 1 championship. He dealt with an entirely new team around the early 90s with a group of VERY GOOD players. No All-Stars, though. And Thorpe's 1 season does not count- I'm talking perennial All-Stars. Now, I did say VERY GOOD players, so don't go off on "he's putting down Smith, Maxwell, etc." If they were true All-Stars, they would have made the All-Star team every year like Pippen, Kobe, etc. Olajuwon was the ONLY All-Star up until 1994, and 1995 was the one time since 1988 that he had a 2nd all-star to help pick up the slack. By the time 1996 rolled around, it was clear that Olajuwon was not the All-Star he once was- so, yes, Jordan had a few years of additional dominance that Dream did not. Oh, yes, did we forget about Jordan's hiatus? So, maybe it was a lot closer, actually. No one denies Jordan's greatness. Or Bird's, Or Magic's. But this ridiculous revisionist history of Olajuwon is WRONG. I watched nearly all the games from 1987 through 1996, and there is absolutely no doubt you were witnessing a FIERCE COMPETITOR who would have assuredly won an additional 2-3 championships if he had someone as good as Pippen as a sidekick for some of the early years (or w/o the drug/Sampson issues). Any other assessments will be dealt with appropriately- I will gladly print those pages in this thread and line the birdcage with them, where they belong.
SteveFrancis is absolutely right. They were all great role players, with moments when they were dominant (e.g. Maxwell, Game 3, 1994 WCSF). But if they were truly All-Star players, they would have made the All-Star team. Cassell wasn't averaging 20 PPG until his days with Milwaukee and Minnesota, Horry never became a regular season force even with Los Angeles and San Antonio, Thorpe was a borderline All-Star but definitely not close to someone like Pippen (as much as us Rockets fans hate him), and Smith-well, he was DESPISED by many fans for his erratic play and lack of defense, in spite of his moments of brilliance. Role players- and a great team, nonetheless. No one denies McGrady was a great player, but he had the same 1st round problems as Dream- and so did Kevin Garnett. All great players. But Dream was an all-time great.
