As time flies, has Hakeem legend fallen for Rockets fans?

It's strange, I never thought of him as an all-time great when I saw him play. That seemed to come after he retired. He was our superstar and I think I was spoiled as a kid to have him on the roster all of those years. Now without him we haven't seen anyone play nearly as well as him and we could have used him this season for sure.

 

Heck no. Dream is what got me to be a fan of the Rockets. And it will stay that way...

(plus I see him at the games and I easily think what it would be like if he were playing 10 minutes for us a night)

 

NOT A CHANCE he was the best&i think it will be a long time before we see anything close to what the dream brought too the game

 

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for all the new age kids who didnt watch him. I am sure you obsesss about the hollinger PER stats with lebron and so on. I believe Hakeem had one of the heightest per's in terms of him being about 25 and the 2nd person in his team having a considerably lower per and still going to a championship. Basically in 93-94 he was one of the rare few people in the nba who won a title as the sole star on the team and only surrounded by role players, not even MJ, Kobe, Shaq, Robinson or many others have done this. True versatile great.

And when MJ was naming his dream strarting 5:
Magic, MJ, Pippen, Bird...Hakeem

Amazing and his character was one of a kind too. He was a devout muslim who practiced fasting during Ramadan during the season, that includes no water, and still managed to play amazing those months. He was always humble and a team player, you don't see stars come out like him, Houston was blessed!

 

how can you fast with no water and play in the NBA?

Not possible.

 

He was the best basketball player that Houston has ever had. The thing about it is, those teams wouldn't have even been close to contending without him, they weren't all that talented without him though they complimented him well. The biggest example of this was Kenny Smith starting, sure he was on fire in game 1 of the 95 finals, but the man just wasn't a good point guard. We also had no other post-presence besides Drexler who sometimes posted on the left block, which was coincidentally Dream, Drexler and Barkey's favorite spot. I'll never forget the whole team sitting around doing nothing while he was schooling the Utah centers to oblivion in a series which was the worst experience of my life since we wasted away years of his on more than one occasion. There's no question that he was exceptional.

 

He did and alot of players such as David Robinson said that he actually played better during the fasting month of Ramadan.

 

I honestly believe that if Hakeem had another superstar like Clyde or Pippen with him he would have had more then 2 championships and Jordan would obviously have less then 6.

Still picture the dream shake in my head sometimes. Every time he would shoot one I would think no way he makes that! But yet he would. Probably the most fun center to ever play.

His defense was absolutely unreal.

 

In the realm of "what ifs?", I would like to pull out the "Remember when the Rockets had a chance to get Michael Jordan and pair him with Olajuwon?" card. Oh to Dream.

 

I appreciate him more as time goes by bc young bigs today still lack the greatness of the old time centers.

 

Maybe the ones who never saw him play, but for those of us who did, there's no way his legend could ever fall at all...

The fans today who think Dwight Howard is a great player would be shocked to see what Olajuwon was capable of. It's not even close.

And THEN you have to factor in that he dominated in what was maybe the strongest era EVER for Centers, unlike others like Shaq and Wilt/Russell who 'dominated' weak eras...

 

That was my quote in the OP and I still stand by as far as Orlando T-Mac days go but as a career the Dream takes the cake.

I did say after that quote that "SG's are more capable of doing this than C's so no offense to the Dream."

So I showed my respect for him so no he hasn't fallen.

Tinman, you don't always need to be so butt hurt when T-Mac is better in some cases. This being only in a certain time of T-Mac's career, Hakeem maintained it his whole career so their is no question who is the better player all-time.

Lighten up Tinman, T-Mac is gone and you never have to deal with him playing as a Rocket again. Take a deep breath and move on.

 

I am not a T-Mac fan btw, I just see it as being a pretty obvious thing.

What position did the greatest player ever play?

 

T-Mac was better than Dream

Spoiler

for 35 seconds of his entire career

 

There is no single greatest... the 4 most common names that come up are Russel, Wilt, Kareem, MJ... so I guess the greatest player played 3/4 center.

 

Hakeem's legend is sound, and should remain that way. He didnt and doesn't do shameless self promotion for religious reasons and such. So his FAME STATUS will never be that large. Mutombo is more famous and "bigger" than Hakeem. But Hakeem will always have true respect of basketball purists.


I know we're Clutch City, but what I think CAN fade is the Rockets titles as THE identifiable image of the Rockets. We can go on Rockets.com sometimes and the front page is '95 Hakeem and Drexler shaking hands with title winning confetti dropping on them. Its in that in-between time where its too old too be hip but not old enough to be retro.

None of the players are in the league anymore as players. Last game was (fittingly) Sam Cassell title winning game in '08 with the Celtics.

No problem with it being presented as nostalgic type imagery. Though I guess what are you going to do, show Francis and Mobley in blue pajamas as your signature image?