It's first now I'm starting to realize how ridiculously good Olajuwon really was!

You uhh... umm... hmm. Well, at least you're honest!

For the rest of you that haven't noticed, praising Dream is the universal greeting around here!

 

"It's first now I'm starting to realize how ridiculously good Olajuwon really was!"

back of the line!

 

You're obviously just sucking up . In this board, The Dream's skills are a given.

 

Yao Ming!

 

WTF is Horace Grant doing in that picture? Mirin?

Good defense, bro.

 

Lol imagine if he was on this team with Lin and Harden.

 

Ok I admit it. i hauled out VHS tapes of the Orlando series to run on my TV I was selling at a garage sale.

Conversation starter! lol

TV didn't last long...........................................

 

I like to describe Hakeem as "the greatest center of the modern era" because it's a title he can hold without any dispute.

It preemptively shuts down all the "WHAT ABOUT WILT" "WHAT ABOUT RUSSELL" "WHAT ABOUT KAREEM" people.

It sets the goalposts appropriately. Because what does that leave us to compare Dream to?

Robinson? pfffft
Shaq? ahahaha no
Ewing? pffft as if

He has no peers among any center of his generation or any successive one. He was a unique and special talent, my favorite player of all time, and really a joy to watch on the court. He made basketball so entertaining to me as a teenager, and for that I will always be grateful.

 

the dream is really very good.....thank goodness michael jordan wasn't in the bulls in the first championship and jordan is little bit rusty in the second championship years of the rockets.

 

boo this man

boooooooooooo


boooooooooo

 

ban.

The Rockets owned the Bulls in the 90s. Rockets only problem was the Seattle SuperSonics, not the Bulls. Please eat Rocket nobnob pie and chit out Chicago feces.


Please no take personally. You need love only rockets here.

 

Tinman! Tinman! Little edumication here!!

 

Oh come on now. Shaq is arguably the most dominant center of all time. Hakeem is the best two way center. The second best is probably Tin Duncan.

 

Well, at least rob rob acknowledges that Jordan DID play in 1995. Most people outside of Houston seem to forget this fact.

Jordan played, and LOST to the team that the Rockets swept in the finals.

 

what's up with the hate... I never said something against the dream and the rockets. I mention that because it's the facts helooo Jordan bulls owned the 90's but at the same time I never said the rockets could not won the championship if Jordan play, if would be awesome if rockets vs bulls in the finals epic battle don't you think.

btw knicks and magic are garbage in that finals. I don't think the dream sweat in the finals facing them.

 

Clutch crew must be busy rookifying the fake fans

 

I'd say Akeem was the best player in basketball for 2 or 3 years, and a top-7 player for 10. Robinson is kind of underrated by people - you can certainly do worse than to have him as your center - plus, he spent 2 years in the Navy after four years of college before joining the NBA. Shaq is a given - the guy dominated for four years and was unstoppable (except at the FT line). Ewing I was never enamored with beyond his college years; he wasn't as good as the other three. These guys all had differing career trajectories, backgrounds, strengths and weaknesses.

 

Hakeem would beast even in a guard's league.

He's the GOAT even above MJ, Bird, and Magic, imo.



then yao ming in second place =)

 

real spit

 

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but your personal hero, the light of your life, the man whose name you recite to a choir of angels, Shaquille O'Neal, was a bit of a fraud.

When Shaq played in an era of physical basketball, he was a winless stat-stuffer who was routinely schooled by the better centers in the league.

But that's not the Shaq people are referring to when they talk about him in such loving terms as a "dominant player." They don't mean the one who got absolutely shamed in the NBA Finals by Hakeem. The one who couldn't win season after season. They mean the later version, when he had de-facto status as best center in the league after Hakeem, Robinson, and Ewing retired?

So what happened between then and now? Why the discrepancy? Shaq must have improved his game, right? Must have evolved as a player? lol, no really, no. I kid you not: The league literally just changed the rules to help him.

I'll explain. There was no greater beneficiary than Shaq from rules changes affecting impeding and post defense. The new rules made it so that frontcourt defenders could use nothing more than an arm bar to stop a post player. You know what doesn't stop a player of Shaq's size? An arm bar. If Shaq set a screen on a pick n roll, there was suddenly next to nothing that could be done to stop him from cutting to the hoop. Here, read up:

After 1999, a defender was basically no longer legally allowed to do anything to stop Shaq. It would be a foul if he did. It is NO COINCIDENCE AT ALL that the Lakers could not win a championship until the first year these new rules went into effect. They spelled the beginning of the end of the physical, rough and tumble play that characterized the prime Shaq, Robinson, and Ewing era, and made it so that a low post thug with no jumper and the ugliest game imaginable could finally prosper instead. Because you're not going to arm bar a 300 pound man off the block. You're just not. Your measly little forearm versus the strength of a Shaquille O'Neal? And so it was rules changes that ushered in the Shaq era and little to nothing else.

The "arm bar" / "no impeding" years are something Hakeem wasn't in his own prime to take advantage of, but he undoubtedly would have been even more impressive than Shaq even then. Hakeem had better footwork, agility, touch, passing ability, better everything, basically. It's not close, my friend.

I'm sorry to take your personal hero and father figure, Shaquille O'Neal, off his pedestal, but it helps to be aware of important details like rules changes, that allow players to become dominant when they don't have that ability within themselves.