Did the Bulls fans question Michael Jordan's greatness?

Of course Bulls fans questioned Jordan, he was in the league for a couple of years before he won that championship. Not to mention, sports fans are irrational and fickle, if they didn't question a player then they weren't true fans of the team but Jordan fans.

Now I love Hakeem but let's not get it twisted, as Rockets fans you have the right to question anybody in the organization although there is a difference between valid criticism and plain old hating.

Clutchfans does have a lot of haters of that there is no doubt, although they usually circle the starting point guard so...

 

Actually, my argument isn't heavily numbers based. My argument after all hasn't been that Duncan really posted better stats than Olajuwon. My argument is that Duncan posted similar ones. Olajuwon has a few advantages in volume scoring and defensive stats ( which count for a little, but not much), Duncan has some advantages in defensive rebounding and passing. Most Duncan fans will admit that Olajuwon had the higher peak ( though while not surprising, I think Clutchfans does overrate Olajuwon's peak - it's nowhere near GOAT)

So if I'm arguing Duncan and Hakeem had similar numbers, why am I taking Duncan? The reasons are: a longer career ( Duncan making the All-NBA 1st team at 37, Hakeem playing 44 games at that point), and far superior leadership. As much as Skip Bayless types like to blab out "he's a LEADER" bull****, in a way I think it's somewhat underrated in superstars. I place a huge premium on it in super-duper stars, one of the main reasons why I rate Russell so highly and have a very poor opinion on Wilt compared to most fans. People like to talk about how awesome Pop is, but a lot of what Pop does is because of Duncan. He gives Duncan huge amounts of ****, Duncan doesn't complain, does what he's told, which makes the lesser players understand the importance of following the coach ( which is an incredibly underrated part of coaching - as Phil observed, your assistants can do X's and O's). Duncan has always, always been a leader, a team player, and so on.

Hakeem wasn't always one. Akeem DEFINITELY wasn't one. You claim that you can't see Hakeem being shut down by Ben Wallace, I claim that I can't see Duncan getting tossed in a Game 5 for fighting.

There's also just the fact that as much as we love Hakeem today, he wasn't rated that highly on the big man list before the two championships. While Ewing vs. Olajuwon is today a joke, it wasn't a joke leading up to the Finals, and there's a reason Robinson won the MVP - he was viewed as the better player. Obviously Dream is better, which is shown by his insane peak, but the argument is that he was viewed as this monster beforehand, which he wasn't - not to mention "Olajuwon destroyed Shaq" isn't quite true, and I've also argued that Olajuwon wouldn't beat Shaq at his absolute height, which was not 1995. FURTHERMORE, if you're going to play the "look at how awesome Hakeem was because he played in this awesome era of big men" card, you're going to have to acknowledge that the pace of the game in the late 80s, early 90s was much faster than it was in the grind them down "everyone scores in the 70" early 00s, which when you factor them out, the box score stats actually favor Duncan.

By the way, on your big man list? You forgot Shawn Kemp, for some reason.

Who do you think is a better player, Zach Randolph or Blake Griffin? What about Iverson or Payton?

 

Odd that you are talking about PER numbers and then talk about raw numbers.

PER are manipulated as in per minute. The real statistics are better reflections of raw numbers because that's what the players were capable of. If a player is great for five minutes a game but can't impact the game for the whole thing and has to come out, then his PER will be great but he's not a better player than someone who can play 40-45 min and have a positive impact for almost all of them.

Saying that Shaq's 2001 was something Hakeem couldn't compare with is crazy. Hakeem at his best was superior to Shaq at his best. It would have been closer than '95, but Hakeem would still have dominated.

Like others have said you haven't really seen the careers of all these people. Sorry but your dead wrong.

 

C'mon We are talking about sports fans,
Especially basketball fans,
And specifically Bulls fans!!!

 

PER = stat created by some douche bag on espn.

if you have to use per to say duncan is better than olajuwon you have lost the argument already.


this is what i hate about analytics era.

you can pull any number and say its the reason why so and so is better.

Some moron in the duncan vs dream thread dismissed dream's steals per game and blocks per game advantage over duncan and instead pointed to team defensive ratings as reason why duncan is better than dream defensively.

SMDH.


i hate these ****ing nerds who never played the game, never had that raw, organic relationship and experience with the game bastardize the analysis of the game and arguments with ridiculous extrapolated numbers that dont always tell the true story.

 

I trust Robert Horry's opinion over you.

 

So athletes from the past are always going to stink compared to the athletes of today, but the statistics of the past don't. Got it.

Okay, I have to ask it because I thought this was completely obvious. But now I need to know. Is there ANYONE at their best you guys would take over Hakeem at his best? Anyone? Because if you're going to argue that Hakeem at his best was superior to Shaq at his best....

 

Here's a book you should read:

 

You thought it was obvious that Shaq at his best was better than Hakeem at his best?

I would consider that Wilt or Russel at their best might be better than Hakeem. If we are talking about not just big men, then obviously Jordan belongs in, even though head to head Hakeem had a better record. Hakeem himself thought Kareem was the best.

I'm sorry you missed most of Hakeem's career. It was an amazing thing to see, and if you'd seen it, there'd be little doubt that he was better than Shaq or Duncan.

 

yeah Bulls fans don't hate MJ, but some of Rockets fans hate TMAC, yeah TMAC is an underachiever, so ppl hate him ?

 

Actually we were all huge fans of Mergady... that is until he made stupid comments, threw everyone under the bus, and blatantly quit on the team.

With that said...

Dream > MJ/Bird/Shack/Duncan/Kareem/Russell/LerBon/Lin

 

What do you think about Kobe Bryant.?

When did a McGrady quit and threw teamates under the bus?

 

It's not about Wilt or Russell. There are three guys to me who are legitimate GOAT candidates when defined by peak. Jordan, Shaq, and Lebron( well, Lebron this past season).

What did Hakeem in any of his seasons do better than 2000 Shaq? Score more points? Nope. Score more efficiently? Nope. Win a MVP by virtual unanimity? Nope. Win a title? Shaq did that. Have a higher PER? Nope. Get more rebounds? Only in 89-90. Have more wins? Nope. Have more win shares? Nope. Have more assists or a higher AST%. Not even close. Played defense? LAL had the #1 ranked defense in 2000.

Oh, let me guess, these are all empty stats compared to the grace of the dreamshake.

 

Shaq never had as good a season defensively as Hakeem's best, or second best, etc. if this isn't clear to you, then why even try and argue. Shaq's prime competition in 2000 at center was what, Dikembe? Please. And nice out down on Ewing... And Robinson. Like those guys are afterthoughts. Their top 10 centers, whom Hakeem did play with and dominate. Hakeem's career also overlapped Moses, Kareem, Parrish, Shaq, Duncan, Zo, Deke, Smits, Daughtery, Divac, etc, etc

Shaqs center competition at the peak of his career was what, BigZ, Camby? There's a reason Shaq himself called himself the LCL - last center standing.

Is Shaq Better historically than Hakeem? Perhaps. It arguable either way. It's fun to overlook Hakeem's defense... But it's impact on the game shouldn't be ignored or overlooked.

Is Shaq even in the running for the GOAT? .

 

Shaq in general didn't care much on defense because that's how Shaq was, but if Shaq had actually cared, he would have been better than Jordan. In 2000? He did. The result was that he came in 2nd in DPOY, the Lakers were the #1 defensive team in the league.

As for GOAT? Shaq clearly isn't, but I do feel like giving it perspective - namely, that I've seen people give Wilt the GOAT but not Shaq, even though as I'm concerned, Wilt was a poor man's Shaq. Both unparalleled physical specimens with huge leadership problems and never really possessed the "I will win or I will kill you and your family" mentality Jordan and Russell had. Only Shaq won more, and in the modern era.

 

As I said, you cannot compare the All star selections and the awards directly because all things were not equal.

As for leadership....

1) First of all, this is very subjective. There is no way you can claim that Duncan was a "far superior leader" especially considering you were not even old enough to have watched Hakeem play. You have made similar absurd claims before such as saying Duncan was a superior rebounder because his defensive rebounding fundamentals were better. Whatever that means. Really absurd claims especially coming from someone who hasn't followed the players careers and just looks the W-L and stats lines.

2) Absolutely disagree about Duncan being the default leader and the reason the Spurs are the way they are. Popovich has the Spurs teams under complete control. No one on that the Spurs team dares to question Popovich. Not in terms of player management and not in terms of on-court play calls. And lets not discredit Manu. There have been plenty of times when Duncan has struggled and Manu has had to bail out the Spurs. Manu and Parker have been spurs facilitator for years alongside Duncan. Once again, Duncan supporters giving all the credit to Duncan for something he isnt the only reason he Spurs were successful. Popovich, from the very beginning, and then Manu and Parker have played a big role when it comes to leadership.

3) I can argue that what Hakeem did in 94 and 95 surpassed anything Duncan has done in terms of leadership. In 94, he took a team, with no all-stars, all role players, and won the championship. In 95, after coming back from injury, he took the 6th ranked team in the West and beat the four best teams in the league, with an aging Clyde Drexler as the second best player on the team. In 94, he was the sole facilitator for team offense. In 95, he facilitated most of the plays except a few minutes of the game when Drexler posted up. He played pretty much the entire games during those stretches because the Rockets offense and defense struggled when he was out. Rudy T. could not afford to sit Hakeem out. I can also argue that as a second year player, he was an exceptional leader when he went up against the two best teams in the history of the game. Both the Celtics and the Lakers game plan was to stop Hakeem and neither were successful at it.

Another reason Hakeem's performance in the 86 playoffs is remarkable is that he was introduced to basketball only a few years prior to this. Think about this for a second. A few years prior to the 86 playoffs, Hakeem had hardly played any basketball. He hand'nt even played four years of college because he was so raw. In his second year in the NBA the Celtics and Lakers were trying to contain him while he led his team to the Finals, and we are going to question his leadership??

The Rockets struggled in the late 80s because Sampson went down with an injury and his teammates were busted for drug abuse. The Rockets management responded by surrounding Hakeem with absolute trash. Please enlighten me. What would Duncan have done differently to prevent the team from being decimated because of injuries and substance abuse? Do you really think Duncan would have led those Rocket teams on playoff runs?? Conversely, do you think Hakeem would have had any issues with the Spurs had he been in Duncan's shoes? IMO, Spurs would have won more than 4 rings with Hakeem on board.

In a player vs player comparison, Duncan's supporters like to credit all the team success to Duncan while disregarding how important Popvich, Manu, and Parker's contributions have been, while putting all the blame on Hakeem's shoulders for things such as who he played with, and who he was coached by, that were not in his hands. When he finally asks Rockets to surround him with better players or trade him, he becomes selfish?

Also, It is a myth that Hakeem all of a sudden turned into this monster in 94-95. Hakeem was great in his rookie year and his second year. He was dominant in his second year. He also did more than his part when he had no one on his team. His playoff number have consistently been better than his regular season numbers and his regular season number were great even then. Yes he was spectacular in 92-93, 93-94, and 94-95. Yes his performances were legendary then. But you cannot penalize the guy for not playing at that insane level through out his career, which is what some of the folks here have been doing.

Also, said you would take a player who has been limited by the likes of Ben Wallace, Pau Gasol, David West, and an old Karl Malone over someone who has outplayed some of the best big men in the history of the game because he got ejected in a game against the Lakers as the reason?? Ok. But I will take the dominant player each and every time. Duncan's teams have lost some of those series. had Duncan not struggled, outcome would have been different. Hakeem still won that series 5-1.

Hakeem played in an era of big men. Better front court players. And he outplayed them. Duncan has played against inferior front courts and at times has clearly struggled. Neither of these are debatable. Anyone can go back and watch the games and come to this conclusion.

You want to talk about slow tempo? The Knicks slowed down the game so much that NBA had to change the rules to make the game faster. Once again, you were a toddler back then and you did not even get to watch those games, so I am not surprised you dont recall this.

I have seen both Duncan and Hakeem go up against tough physical frontline and slow tempo teams. Hakeem went up against Knicks with a rotating frontline of Ewing, Anthony Mason, Charles Smith and at times Oakley. They all took turns beating up Hakeem. I have seen Duncan being guarded by a Rasheed and Ben Wallace. Hakeem faced a tougher frontline and shot better than 50% and limited Ewing. Duncan was limited by an inferior front court. Anyone who watched the games could see this. Can the Duncan supporters please thank Manu for carrying the offense and giving him an additional ring? I know Duncan does.

If anything, the league allowed Anthony mason to put two hands on Hakeem and uproot him. In Duncan's era, you were not allowed to put two hands on a post player. That would be ab automatic foul.

So while Duncan might have padded his stats in an era of weak front lines, in an a somewhat apple to apple comparison, you can definitely see his shortcomings.

I did not forget. The reason I did not put him on the list is because a) they didnt go head to head on offense or defense b) Kemp wasnt a post player and his post play wasnt the reason Sonics won. He was a slasher/cutter/finisher and played off pick and rolls. George Karl's defensive plan was to double and triple team Hakeem as soon as he had the ball. Shawn Kemp did not defend him. Perkins did with the double/triple team coming in as soon as the Rockets fed Hakeem the ball. Karl wanted anyone but Hakeem to shoot. Rockets still took the Sonics to 7 games (7th game going into OT) in Seattle and nearly pulled it out. Despite Karl's tactics, Hakeem was still dominant in that series (defense and offense). Look it up. Better yet watch the games if you can.

In 96, the whole Seattle team was just on a role. They caught fire and set 3 point shooting record. Payton, Kemp, Schremph, Perkins were all playing great. A number of Rockets were coming off of injuries and the team got steam-rolled. It wouldn't not have mattered even if they were healthy though. I think Seattle was just on fire in that series.

If Hakeem and Kemp had gone head to head against each other, I would have gladly brought it up. Karl was smart enough not to use single coverage on Hakeem with Kemp as the primary guy.

What I do remember is game 6 of the 97 playoffs in Seattle. Drexler had just scored a turnaround jumper and put the Rockets ahead. Seattle had the ball with the shot clock turned off. They decided to go down low to Kemp in a single coverage against Hakeem. Hakeem stayed with him and blocked his shot. Rockets won and they went on to win the series. An over the hill Hakeem was able to provide single coverage on a prime Kemp. I highly doubt a prime Hakeem would have been outplayed by Kemp in single coverage situation on either ends of the court either.

 

Lol... You're resorting to the he didn't care card? And when he did care he almost won an award Hakeem won twice? Thanks for proving my point.

 

Shaq didn't care about defense? That right there makes him worse than Hakeem.

 

Tyson is mt....