Am I missing something here, Shaq, Dream, Moses > Tim Duncan

95 was really the last year that clyde was still clyde (really the last year you could get 21/7/6 out of him, he was our best players for stretches of those playoffs) and his finals numbers were great.

03 and 94 were pretty similar in that neither player had anyone with them playing remotely near HoF level, and both of them were one man shows.

 

Robert Horry has played with and won multiple championships with Hakeem, Shaq, and Duncan.

When asked who was the best center he ever played with, Horry, who played the middle for the Crimson Tide, didn’t bat an eyelash when he declared former Houston Rockets’ great Hakeem Olajuwon as the top slotman.

“He was so talented and could do so many different things. I’d put him on top and Tim [Duncan] and Shaquille [O’Neal] can trade places for second and third.”

As for the the folks who keep brining up homer-ism as an excuse, allow me to link a two page thread on a LAKERS forum.

http://www.clublakers.com/nba-discu...-better-than-shaq-and-tim-duncan-t115572.html

Almost everyone agrees Hakeem is better than Duncan.

Honestly its not that complicated. There is nothing Duncan could do that Hakeem could not do and there were things that Hakem could do because of his footwork and quickness that Duncan could not do.

 

Mario said the same thing:

http://20secondtimeout.blogspot.com/2006/08/mario-elie-compares-hakeem-olajuwon.html

 

There's two different argument here. One is peak performance. The other is career performance. If you just want to go peak, Hakeem is comparable to Micheal Jordan. If you give both players the same supporting cast during Hakeem's peak, it's very arguable that Hakeem would beat Jordan.

But there's no doubt Duncan accomplished more than Hakeem. His team had better seasons, and he ranked higher among his peers than Hakeem did in his time. I know the counterargument would be that Hakeem played in an era of great big men. But Duncan played in an era that hurts big men.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Duncan had a more accomplished career. Hakeem had a better peak. Overall, they're comparable. Whether you think one player's better than the other is based on how you value career vs peak. Team vs individual. As well as how much you think today's players are worthless compared to their 80s/90s counterparts.

 

I do not buy this argument at all.

In his second year of the NBA, Hakeem and the Rockets ousted Magic's Lakers in 6 games. A series in which Pat Riley's main focus was on Hakeem and the Lakers still could not contain him. The same Rockets lost the Finals in 6 games to Celtics (a team that is considered one of the best to ever play). That was one hell of an accomplishment for a second year player.

Then, about 5 years of Hakeem's productive years were wasted once Sampson and the guards went down and until Rockets assembled a decent team. Duncan would not be going anywhere with the cast Hakeem had back then.

Hakeem has been dominant ever since he came into the league. Most remember him for his championship year plays because he was absolutely amazing then but people forget that he was pretty spectacular even before then.

As I said before, Duncan has been very blessed with an excellent management, coaches, and players throughout his career. Put Olajuwon in the same shoes, and he would have accomplished more than what Duncan has accomplished.

 

I think that Hakeem had two blows that really set him back. You mentioned the first, Sampson's injury was truly devastating. Also, as good as Rodney Mccray was, the rockets failed to take Phil Slamma Jamma star Clyde Drexler with the 3rd pick that year. The second blow was when Lou Lloyd and Wiggins were busted for drugs (80s peds?), and the fact that there were some pretty lean years in the late 80s and early 90s in terms of talent pool. Then Hakeem was so good that we never got a high enough pick that meant anything.

The rockets management, along with Don Chaney and the various coaches we had, all were factors. For a lot of years, the Rockets didn't have an identity. Tim Duncan and the spurs always had an identity. I mean you look back at some of those old rockets teams and there clearly wasn't an urgency to put a group around Hakeem to go for a championship.

I don't even really think Hakeem himself got really interested in winning a title until the rockets traded for OT, and then we got Horry and Sam in consecutive drafts, and suddenly the rockets had some talent around Hakeem. OT was what started it all, along with Kenny.

 

Supporting cast is a worthless argument because no one care about it. It's why Rockets fans will always think of T-Mac as a 2nd round virgin and view T-Mac and Yao in general as being losers. It's why Morey can assemble a .500 team with no salary space nor high picks and still be considered a mediocre GM. Because someone's place in history is based on winning, regardless of circumstances.

And Duncan won more than Hakeem.

 

Erm lets put this argument to rest. You'll never convince anyone outside of Houston that Hakeem was better than TD, simply because as meh said in bball people never consider the roleplayers or the circumstances of the players. That's why MJ is regarded as the best even though he played in one of the most stacked teams at the time (reached NBA finals without him), and thats why a lot of people consider TD better than Hakeem.

If Hakeem had gone to the Spurs instead of Houston, I'm pretty sure Hakeem would have more rings than MJ, and I think TD getting drafted would definitely have prolonged his career. He might have played until he was 40.

 

100% agree!

But in all fairness to Dream, Duncan was surrounded with much better players throughout his career.

 

That never happened.

 

You're completely wrong here my friend. Because of my commute to work (Orange county to LA here in Cali), the more I listen to sports radio, the more I hear how much respect Hakeem gets.

I listen to 710 ESPN all the time with Michael Thompson/Max and they give so much props to Hakeem. The other day they were talking about Dwight Howard and the lack of a post game nowadays, and Thompson said, "These guys don't know how to do it like the guys back then, like a Hakeem," and other superlatives about Hakeem. A dominant post game is analogous to Hakeem.

Talk to any basketball head about the best big man in the game, and Hakeem is almost ALWAYS among the first 5 names you'll hear, regardless of where that person is at.

Hakeem IS better than Duncan, and most people would take Hakeem over Duncan. A lot of fans I talk to put Hakeem in high regards.

 

Link in post #62 in this thread says otherwise.

 

Likewise here in New York. In fact, every person I have had this conversation with in person here has Hakeem above any of the modern era big men.

The best discussions/arguments are Hakeem vs. Shaq.

 

This is a false statement. While Dumcan has been seen as the best power forward he was never seen as the best center.... ever. Earlier in his career he Shaq was the best center and now it's Dwight. Hakeem was recognizes as the best center in the game during an era that had Kareem, Moses, Parish, Ewing, Robinson, Morning, Dougherty and Shaq to name a few. Duncan was never ranked as high amongst his peers as Dream unless your talking about the Power Forward position.

Duncan is the greatest Power Forward of all time IMO but HE chose not to play center and as good as he was he is just not on the same level as Hakeem. That is not a knock on Duncan but Dream was just that good. Dream did things on the defensive end of the court that Duncan just never had the ability to do. Hell no other center or big man that I ever watched play could do the things Dream could do on the defensive side of the ball.

 

That's a funny statement, but I think just the opposite is true. It's been my experience that only Spurs fans think Duncan was better than Dream.

The real debate is between Dream and Shaq, only Spurs fans try to add Duncan to the conversation. Wilt, Russell and Kareem are national recognized as the top 3 centers of all time and the debate is always which one of them is the all time greatest. Hakeem and Shaq are typically debated as which one is number 4 and which one is number 5. Depending on the poll Shaq or Dream occasionally sneak into the top 3 but the top 5 centers of all time are basically always recognized as those five and NEVER will you find Duncan in that conversation unless it's by a Spurs homer.

 

When Duncan first came to the Spurs, David Robinson was their 5. Plus between Duncan and Robinson, Duncan had the better skill set to play the 4. Thus at the start of his career, Duncan playing the 4 was a good team decision.

After Robinson retired, Duncan had established himself at the 4, so I can see why he would be reluctant to make the switch. And he was still quite effective at playing the 4.

 

Doesn't matter, he's a 4 not a 5. The conversation should be, "who's better between him, Karl Malone and Kevin McHale". He does not even belong in the conversation with Dream.

 

A few things from this thread...

Duncan and Rodman would have done jack against Dream. Rodman had a number of chances and Dream destroyed him. So much that he gave up in a game, sat down on the bench and took off his shoes. Duncan is not as quick as Robinson and no stronger... prime Dream against prime Duncan would not have been a battle of equals. Regardless of the situation, Dream could guard Duncan 1-on-1 and Duncan would need massive help trying to guard Dream.

Dream always took the opposing team's best low post scorer in crunch time. Whether that was Jabbar, Ewing, Robinson, Shaq, Kemp, or Malone. Duncan, well, not so much.

Dream was Clutch. Timmy choked on the line in several finals games (of course, in one he had Horry and in all he was against inferior competition, so it never really hurt him, but he had a lot of 4Q FT misses).

This idea that has been implied by certain posters that Dream was not a thinking defender is absolute rubbish. Read Dream's book and you'll see that he has few rivals as a student of the game and none as a student of the post position. His description of how he had to hide behind the Bulls' centers until Jordan committed and then come out to block the shot is remarkable. He understood what his position meant offensively and defensively and he was sure enough in his talents to take risks knowing what his opponent was capable of and knowing how much time he would have to react.

Anyone watching a young Dream just destroy perhaps the greatest front line in the history of basketball when he took Parrish and McHale to the woodshed would have no doubt that Dream is better than Duncan.

Why is this a thread. It is not even under consideration unless you're an insecure Spurs fan. Statistically and artistically, Dream was better.

 

Thank you for bringing some sanity into this thread.

 

Cause not everybody agrees that Hakeem was better than Duncan. And those that don't agree are explaining their positions to those who think that they are insane for not recognizing the greatness of dream.

I like the assessment that one person made that said that dreams' peak was better than Duncan's peak, but that Duncan's career performance. Duncan sustained a higher level of excellence than dream did, but dream played out of his mind for a couple of seasons.