He played more games matched up against Hall of Fame centers than any other Hall of Fame center that has ever lived. Relates somewhat to the first point, in such a small league, you face other hall of famers all the time. Wilt and Russell squared off 142 times. Wilt averaged 28.7 points and 28.7 rebounds in those games. Russell averaged 23.7 points and 14.5 rebounds against Wilt. Domination? Yes, by Wilt on a personal level and by Russell's vastly superior teammates on a team level. I suggest you check out this web site. http://wiltfan.tripod.com/faq.html I also like this gif of an old Wilt vs. a top 5 player, a player using the weapon that coaches and players voted the single most unstoppable shot in basketball history
LOL AT SHAQ. And I love Hakeem as much as the next Rocket fan, but I honestly cant put him as the 2nd best player ever. Greatest Center of all time might be closer for him than 2nd greatest player. Hakeem is top 10 player of all time and top 5 Centers of all time for sure though
I'm going to be nit-picky, here (I'm not one of them) but some posters believe in their heart that Duncan is really center. Moreover, if we are going by being the greatest at your position (or one of the greatest), why isn't Oscar Robertson listed. He was arguably the greatest point guard ever. How many other point guards averaged over 25 ppg, over 7 rebounds, and nearly 10 assists for their career? He received the "Player of the Century" award by the National Association of Basketball Coaches in 2000 and was ranked third on SLAM Magazine's Top 75 NBA Players in 2003, behind fellow NBA legends Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain. Furthermore, in 2006, ESPN named Robertson the second greatest point guard of all time, praising him as the best post-up guard of all time and placing him only behind Los Angeles Lakers legend Magic Johnson
I don't care about the team match ups. Beating the Bulls in the regular season doesn't mean anything anyways. You can't say it would be the same or it would be different because you just don't know. You can speculate all you want but you wouldn't know how good or how bad the Rockets would be against those Bulls teams in the Finals. Nothing to do with the draft. I've stated before I would be 100% fine with them taking Hakeem in the draft if they redid the draft over again. My point is no one outside of some small amount of Rockets fans believe Hakeem was more skilled as a basketball player than Jordan. It's that type of homerism that I hate. Every fan base has a few of them, just hate to see the Rockets having some too.
If there was one more option he would be, but I do think that with 10poll optiona allowed, I put the players that are above Oscar. Just my 2 cents.
If you base your skill level on shoot guards, then Jordan is way better than Dream. if you base your skill level on centers, then I'd give the edge to Dream. I'm not that big of a homer here, I have nothing against your takes either. When it comes to Bulls vs Rockets back in they day, as a Rocket fan back in the day. We had NO FEAR of them. The Bulls ,even on their WGN broadcast, admitted that the Rockets were the WORST matchup for them because of their big men. They never faced off in the playoffs, obviously, but they faced off in the regular season and that's the ONLY thing you can use to base any credible analysis from. How did Cartright match up with Dream? we've seen that. That's just my "homer" point. Was Jordan better than Maxwell? yes of course. but did Maxwell do a decent job of covering him? yes... we saw those games. Dumars did a good job on Jordan, nobody believes Dumars is better than Jordan though. Pierce did a good job on Kobe. Kobe is still the better player.
Where I'm going with all of this though is... would you rank Jordan ahead of Hakeem in an all-time great players list such as this one?
Not more than a handful here saw Oscar play in person, maybe never even watched him in an entire game. He played mostly in Cincinnati a long time ago. It's hard to compare quarterbacks and linebackers. My guess is this team could take on all comers: Oscar Michael Larry Hakeem Kareem
I saw Oscar often though past his prime, in Cincinnati, as a kid. I saw ABA games in Indianapolis and NBA games in Cincinnati, as I grew up between those cities. I would still favor Magic as my PG, though I loved Oscar. I never saw Wilt in person but I saw him on TV a lot, also well past his prime. He remained pretty beastly, even leading the NBA in rebounding in his retirement year. Bottom line, seeing many eras, I am a mix of old school/new school. C Wilt over Jabbar PF Duncan by default, unless you let me put Russell or Hakeem there SF Bird SG Jordan over West and way over Kobe PG Magic over Oscar
#2 probably was goaltending, but the ref had to be to stunned to notice. The release point on Kareem's sky hook was supposedly 12'6". While he had it blocked from behind a number of times by help defenders, I am not aware of it ever being blocked by anyone guarding him, other that Wilt, and this was a playoff game where Wilt blocked Kareem 7 times.
Most top 10 lists lack critical thinking. People look mainly at championships and stats without looking at the context. They ignore things like era, caliber of teammates, postseason performance, and efficiency. But do you know who does have Olajuwon on his top 10 list? Michael Jordan.
From what I've noticed over the years, the refs tend to call goal tending more on the delay of the blocking player's jump, if he goes up fluidly at much the same time, it generally won't be called goal tending, if it's a noticable delay, it often will be called.
