akeem was better at basketball , but hakeem was a bit smarter...go check out his epic series against the sonics in 85'...he did everything, jumpers, baseline moves, crossover dribbles, jump hooks, dreamshakes, etc...
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"Dream didn't talk much, but the he said "That's my trophy, how are they going to disrespect me and give him my trophy...and we were like yeaaaaaah we're rolling tonight!" R..o..f..l
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I had season tickets in 88, 89, and 90. Hakeem was amazing but it appeared to me that there was little talent surrounding him and the coaching left a lot to be desired. I remember one game in particular. I think it was against a small ball Nellie team. The Rockets had the lead until mid way through the fourth. All of a sudden the opponent went super small with everyone out at the 3 point line. And there was Hakeem, standing at the foul line raising his arms in a WTF do I do gesture. Needless to say the Rockets lost.
Every soccer player that I know has some seriously superior footwork when they play bball than those that don't. The main problem is they don't usually have good hops or height. I'm convinced soccer can hone your footwork like playing bball by itself can't but obviously, just an opinion, no research to back it up. Would love to see studies in it.
team mates that he trusted. He was unstoppable in the 80's also. However, when we lost 3 starters for coke, he had no one to pass it to that was consistent.
To be fair, Kobe was trying to learn what to look for in post defenders and what sort of reaction to use and it improved his post game by magnitudes.
The answer to B: he had a bunch of crack heads playing . And Dream was young and inexperienced. Didn't help when Ralph went down with an knee injury. Rodney McCray had a pretty nice game. His shot was flat as he%% but dude played solid D and played his role on offense.
Not sure why he'd need Hakeem for that then... hell, Barkley was far better at reading the defense from the low-post (and a better passer overall). Pretty sure Kobe was practicing dream shakes... and pretty sure Hakeem was showing him his pivot moves.
He needed someone whose post game wasnt predicated on shoving someone out of the way with their fat ass.
You clearly didn't watch Barkley before 1997 then. He was impossible to guard in the post during his prime.
If we had drafted Clyde Drexler instead of McCray we would've had a big 3 with Sampson and Hakeem, and essentially the same superstars from the same college from the same city, which I don't think has ever ever happened. A real shame, because with a 2nd top-10 superstar in the 88-92 deppression who knows where we could've gone.
Since the article was about good teammates, I assume you mean my assumption about quality of teammates was wrong. Am I right? I didn't say Hakeem had bad teammates... I said he had bad teammates compared to other Top 10ers. When comparing, please note that years played with said teammate is a factor. For instance.... - a player who had 5 great teammates and played with most of them 10 years > a player who had 10 great teammates and only played a couple of seasons - Timing also matters... i.e. were teammates in their prime, injured, etc. Sampson was very, very good, but how long did it last? Guys like Bird, Duncan, Russell and MJ had the luxury of playing with the same good teammates 10+ years. So, which Top 10er do you think had worse teammates than Olajuwon? Stats are very good .... especially considering he was a rookie. 21.2pts/13.0rebs/.477FG '88 against DAL is a series that blows me away. 37.5/16.8/.571FG F****** awesome!!!
I believe a good reason for the playoff failures of 88' - 92' was Don Chaney as head coach. I just don't think he was the right fit and you could see how things just took off with essentially the same pieces once Rudy T took over. (Midwest division title in 92-93 & then the two championships after that).
According to Hakeem's autobiography My Life in Basketball the Blazers were willing to trade Clyde and their number three pick to Houston for either Olajuwan or Sampson. If the Rockets had traded Sampson to the Blazers they could have drafted Jordan with the third pick and had a super team of Olajuwan, Drexler and Jordan.
We had a team that went to the finals in 86. The article shows how it was dismantled. Our second best player had basically a career ending injury and two great players got banned for cocaine . That's three teammates gone. Sampson got injured in a game, it wasn't that he was injury prone. It only takes one injury for big guys and it's over. I posted the Sampson and dream vs Jordan video. I think our teammates were good. The period after the 86 team went down was dark .
