hakeem is superior to duncan in every facet of the game. he is simply better than duncan and i honestly don't see how it's even debateable. wilt has a lot less rings than russell, does that make him inferior? nope. duncan, however, is the greatest power forward of all time. i'll give him that.
and i should point out that i think duncan is the best PF of all time and one of the all time greats. he's just not hakeem. winning titles doesn't automatically make you better than someone if they have a far superior supporting cast. and the whole "traitor" thing was just b/c of the "is clyde a traitor" thread title and b/c it sounded like kind of a tinman-esque way to phrase it. i would admit it if i really thought it was true. as much as i love hakeem, i like discussing basketball a lot and won't just become a homer when discussing my players and don't have a problem saying someone is better. while shaq's fg% was way up there, after his free throws were taken into account, the efficiency difference wasn't as big as it looked, and when it comes to the playoffs, hakeem actually had a better true shooting percentage b/c he stepped it up and shaq fell a little. and while hakeem made up for the offensive difference by being a much better defender, shaq did not close that gap in the playoffs. even with good supporting casts his whole career, shaq was basically known for getting swept out of the playoffs all the time until kobe started to become kobe (or wade was wade). i think they're very close, and think it's basically a tie, but if i leaned one way i'd say hakeem wouldn't have let so many teams get swept and was better at crunch time than shaq. and i guess it is somewhat inconsisent to say i think you can compare shaq and duncan like i did in my first post and hakeem and shaq are tied, and then say hakeem is obviously better than shaq, but in reality i think both shaq and hakeem are a step above duncan, even as good as he is. shaq and duncan are just more comparable b/c they've been surrounded by great talent their whole careers so their results are more apples to apples. but shaq's lakers having the edge over duncan's spurs (and duncan always crumbling when shaq guarded him in those series), makes it really hard to put duncan up there with him. that's just such a myth. you'd think listening to most people that hakeem became good some time around november 1994 when in fact he was great his whole career. 90-91 and 91-92 are about the only years you can look at that he wasn't in top form. was he at his best from 92-93 to 94-95? yes. but every superstar has peak years that surpass their normal years. duncan now isn't what he was about 3 years ago. the fact is in his 2nd year in the league, hakeem led a team past the showtime lakers 4-1 in the playoffs. and in case anyone thinks they were slipping, they won 62 games that year, were the defending champions and then won the next 2 titles. and not only did hakeem not fade against them, he led his team to an easy series victory. if you think that hakeem got worse after that, and it was because of that, and not mediocre supporting casts that we didn't win more titles, then i don't know what to say. sampson falling apart, the whole backcourt being suspended for cocaine, and terrible drafts doomed us. then we finally assemble a decent supporting cast hakeem wins a few titles and you say he actually cost us titles?
I agree with you, but we're going to have to deal with comparisons between he and Adleman for a long time. JVG may have been a victim of "win now", but he seemed to "supersize" it to me. Honestly, I feel better about T-Mac and Yao than I did a year ago. We do have some rational hope, but the intelligencia here is waiting for their faith to be restored. I was here when Rudy "stepped down", and there was much gnashing about, but I really have never seen the virulent "the coach is right, all the players, GM, VP and owner are full of crap. I said this awhile ago, but that's something I'll never forgive JVG for. I knew it was going to happen. All he had to do was to accept the extension. Poor, poor boy and the "biggest m*****f****** there is". Glad so many of you enjoyed it.
van gundy is crazy if he really believes that. Especially shocking from a coach who loves defense so much.
Regardless how many championship Duncan wins...hakeem is by far way ahead than Duncan in terms of individual skills n performace. And Duncan has great supporting cast in Parker, Ginobli, Finley n Bowen and had David Robinson...i dont know what the hell JVG talking about. Shaq only had Kobe in Lakers and Wade in Heat(while shaq was not in his prime). I think Duncan had it much easier than Hakeem n Shaq. And in terms of domination Shaq n Hakeem are way ahead than Duncan.
I just luv how people selectively forget that MJ was eliminated in the playoffs after playing nearly 20 games in the regular season, in the last year Hakeem won a ring. MJ had his chance and he failed. Had MJ played in the last ten years in his prime, Duncan and his bunch of floppers would've won crap.
He just needs a job, now everybody's better than hakeem. Poor little man lmao kidding. I repect JVG as a human being. so who would he take if he has a choice between duncan and hakeem on his roster? duncan in his prime or hakeem in his prime?
TITCR. Does anyone watch games anymore, or just tabulate rings to argue who's better? Offensively - far more dominant (both statistically, and on a possession-to-possession basis), not to mention that every aspect of his offensive game - low post, hi post, jump shot, general brilliance having moves 1-4, countermoves 1-5, and counter-counter-moves 1-20, etc., is FAR superior to Duncan's fundamentally sound, albeit hardly revolutionary game (read between the lines: Hakeem was not just a great, but a revolutionary offensive player)... haven't even gotten to defense yet, arguably his even stronger suit). Defensively - not even close, so I'll just let this one go... the stats are mind-boggling (18 years at 1.75 steals per (not 10-12 years, but 18)?? Hall-of-fame SG numbers... let's not even talk about shot blocking/intimidation... I don't even want to continue this argument... if you think Duncan can even be mentioned in Hakeem's breath... well...I'll be kind and leave out the bitting comment... but just remember one thing I feel many forget about Hakeem: On the way to his championships, Hakeem slayed the 5 best big men of his generation in the playoffs -- Ewing (94 finals), Robinson (95 wc finals), Shaq (95 finals), Barkley (94 & 95 - wc semis) and Malone (94 wc finals, 95 first round upset of a 60 win stockton-malone jazz team)... those represent 7 of the 8 playoff series victories during the championship years... the 8th series victory was against Clyde's Trailblazers 2 years removed from the Finals... ALL of the above teams had HOF/top 50 players (and the jazz had 2)... ALL of the above teams were poised to win championships (coming off recent playoff success w/ only MJ standing in the way of a ring, or monster regular seasons) when Hakeem smacked them ALL back down where they belong - one after the other - in the same year - and again in the next - on the way to two consecutive rings. This is why a case can be made that Hakeem is arguably the greatest center of all time, let alone is he (clearly) better than Timmy "I play in a weak era & am fundamentally sound + polite so coaches and the media adore me" Duncan ... please do not place Hakeem's rings in the same sentence as Duncan's 3+ rings which went as follows: 1) Lockout shortened season ring that doesn't count/never happened(ala Bill Simmons terminology)/is heavily astricked. 2) Duncan's second ring was his best when he finally dethroned the Lakers (albeit after they were fat off of 3 rings, the third of which they barely hung enough effort together to grab against the Kings that year, with Shaq at a post-millenium low point of effort & physical conditioning and Kobe's selfishness/lack of ability of coexist with Shaq boiling over)... even this "strong" ring, however, culminated in a 4-2 victory over a highly unimpressive NEW JERSEY NETS team in the Finals (hardly a dominant performance, and NOT an impressive foe to justify a close series)... also, taking that old (read: screen-door defense) Mavs team to 6 games in the WCF and a Stephon Marbury-led Suns team to 6 in the first round, hardly comapres to what Hakeem accomplished on route to his rings (re-read what Hakeem did above, yes, it was that good). 3) The last ring - Pistons - close game 7 - if you watched the game (which I did with my diehard Spurs friend) - you'll remember that Duncan was hardly dominant in that game 7, got blocked faceup against the Wallace Boys on multiple occassions when he 'tried' to take over the series, and the Spurs (as a team that included Duncan -- as well as a great system, coach, role players that rolled on all cyllinders, etc. -- and NOT bc of Duncan's sheer will/dominance) squeeked out a close victories in a game that was tied with 2 mins left after a few good breaks went the Spurs way. Also, in the second round, letting a Seattle Supersonics team that miraculously made the playoffs with a 50 win aberation in Ray Allen's contract year take you to 6 games (which were very hard fought, if you watched) does not impress me the way Hakeem slayed the aforementioned 57, 59, 60 and 62 win teams CONSECUTIVELY in the playoffs in 95). Last note - yes, Duncan will have 3/4 rings, but also don't forget how many of those seasons they went in as the favorites to win it all, and how many other seasons they went in the same way while underachieving and falling short in the second round of the playoffs ... that's why you say 3 in 7 years, not back-to-back with Duncan, bc they fell to the Lakers in 04 after ring #2 and last year against the Mavs (hah!) after ring #3. Hakeem - with talent, takes his team THROUGH a dynasty that is as good as any that has ever played -- the Magic/Kareem Lakers (the Lakers in '86 were in the middle of their 5 rings btw... they had won 3 at that point - and went on to win 2 after) -- in his SECOND year in the league, falling to Bird/McHale/Parrish's legendary Celtics team in 6... then Sampson's injury screws things up for a few years, we eventually get a cast of solid role players, and boom, back-to-back rings going through HOF player after another (some of the greatest of all time)/best big men of his generation... I could have rested this case a long time ago, as well as mentioned a lot of stuff I'll let slide, so I'll stop here. Had to go over this stuff though, bc I don't care what the mass media does to the opinions of these impressionable little kids, that I have no control over... on Clutchfans, I'll be damned if Duncan's media hype and Hakeem's lack of mainstream praise enables this kind of argument to continue without an objective look at the what really went down over their careers.
fact remains if you put duncan in the era hakeem played and had success... it wouldnt be the same. Dream played against much superior NBA talent.... duncan has almost no bigs to play against in the league.. not his fault, but it wasnt Dreams fault either.
It's unbelievable that so many of you think that our two championships were simply "breaks" in the Bulls' 8-peat. It's absolutely idiotic. The 91-93 Bulls and the 96-98 Bulls were very different teams. I'll admit that there's a strong argument against the 1994 Rockets' capability to win against the Bulls had Jordan played (though the Rockets always matched up favorably against them). However, the 1995 Bulls team still would've lost to Orlando even if they had an "unrusty" Michael Jordan. The reason? What people frequently overlook is the fact that even though those Bulls championship teams had below average centers, they always had very good power forwards. The first 3-peat featured Horace Grant and the second featured Dennis Rodman. There was absolutely NO interior presence of any kind on the 1995 Bulls team. Considering the fact that Hakeem was capable of dominating that year against the likes of Robinson and O'Neal, he would've had an absolute field day against the 1995 Bulls. Regardless of what an "unrusty" Jordan could do against our perimeter defense that year, it wouldn't have come close to what Hakeem could've done against their front line.
And that’s why JVG has been fired, he is a stubborn little terd. Duncan better than Hakeem, LOL. Duncan has had an easy ride. Horry has played with Dream, Shaq and Duncan... Guess who he rates the best? That’s right Hakeem the f'n Dream Olajwuon!
Duncan is a truly great player, probably a top ten big man in the history of the game, BUT Dream is from a different planet entirely. If Dream would have had a little more talent around him and if Seattle wouldn't have been allowed to play a zone against us back in the day, we would have taken a few of the championships that the Bulls won in the 90s. Before anyone complains, check our record against the Bulls in the early 90s when they won their first three championships - I believe we were 6-2.
Right you are. Totally different players who are equally great in their own right. This is the most lame thread yet. First, folks here couldn't wait to be rid of JVG because he was "holding" the Rockets back. But now that he's gone there's all of this concern about anything he has to say. Some people really need to get a life.
This is a small-minded passive, aggressive way of JVG trying to get back at those Houston fans who were his detractors since he knows any real core Rocket fan will always revere Olajuwon as the highest, best, and greatest. He is our icon. The real result of such an outlandish statement merely affirms why a change was needed and how off-base he really is which is just another indication of who he is, or isn't at his core. I doubt seriously that Duncan, himself, who is, for the most part, a class act and certainly one of the great power frowards to play the game, would ever even think such a thought. Duncan knows he does not not come close to the way Olajuwon could singlehandedly dominate a game with spin moves to the basket, stealthy steals, dazzling blocks, thunderous dunks, quaterback bomb passes down court, and out of nowhere rebounds. I only hope the JVG lovers who refused to listen to those of us that saw the deficiencies in his manner and coaching style and believed such could not take the Rockets to the next level, have closely observed what has happened over the last six weeks or so...and are listening now...
Robert Horry played with both in their prime, and he has never shyed away from that question. Hakeem's the best.
Both are Hall of Fame players and that's good enough for me. By equally great, I was referring to the totality of their careers at their respective positions. Remember, they both play different positions so a direct comparison is not possible but at any rate, these are two players everyone should admire and respect.
Sounds like more of an oversight than a stab at Dream, it was however a stab at Shaq, IMO. Jezz people can't wait to just pounce on the former coach. Thought that would stop after he was let go but guess not, it seems to have become a favorite pastime around here
And again I pose the question: "Why should you or anyone else here give a rat's ass what JVG says now?" You guys wanted him gone, he's gone. That should be the end of it.
