[Another blogger] David Robinson reigns supreme...again

Olajuwons demolition job of robinson in the playoffs has diminished robinsons legacy. admiral was a class act and a very good player on the basketball court. he had some underrated defensive ability. he was a magnaficent shot blocker. he could score with anyone. 71 points in a game shows that. he had very good range for a big man of that era. most big men then were limited interms of shooting ability.

Having said that, olajuwon was a far superior offensive player. i've never seen better footwork for a center. he had an uncanny ability to pull out moves at the very last second that left you in amaze. overall, hakeem while nowhere the athlete robinson was, was better at everything else.

 

The only reason DRob was "widely" considered the best center in the NBA before Hakeem handed him his ass in the playoffs was because David was the media darling with his Navy goody 2 shoes image. The Rockets were considered also rans before Rudy T took over and the Spurs were either winning the Midwest division or close to it, another reason that DRob was getting more pub then Hakeem.

Basically the NBA and the media nuthugged David while gradually ignoring the Rockets and Hakeem until the Rockets 2 championship runs. It's a damn shame that people still want to argue that DRob was the better center between the 2, they just look at numbers and stats and think that says the whole story. You'd have to see in person both of them to see just why Hakeem was the more complete player.

My best analogy for this is when Jordan wanted to show the world just how big the difference between him and Drexler in the 92 finals; well Hakeem is to Jordan as DRob is to Drexler.

 

Dream destroyed the admiral.

anyone willing to deny the stark evidence, hiding behind obscure excuses are in denial, even if they blog. the admiral's ship sunk infamously in the absolute test. He was an excellent centre.

and yeah, Ewing was better. in the reality accounting;

Dream

Ewing
Robinson

my current pet peeve? bloggers w/o cred!

 

Robinson was great.

Hakeem was better.

 

There is no way that Ewing was a better player than Robinson.

 

The writer is a closet neocon. Support our vets is taken a little bit too far.

 

Haha, can you redo your analogy?

Don't you mean Hakeem is to David as Jordan is to Drexler?

I'm guessing you didn't pass the analogies portion of the SAT.

 

he was great, but he wasn't Dream great
Dream stepped his game up in the playoffs.. just ask David Robinson

 

how old are you? i'm guessing not old enough to have seen Hakeem in college and throughout the 80's and even into the early 90's. Hakeem was a better athlete than Robinson, there's no argument.

It's not as obvious as a Amare vs. Yao comparison, but it is somewhat analagous. Robinson was freakishly athletic, sure, but in a different way. He played more robotically. Hakeem, in his early years, had Shawn Kemp/Amare type athleticism. And frankly, that's how he played too. Nasty dunks. Constantly running the court. Tons of offensive put-backs. He refined his game later in his career.

 

He had prime kemp athleticisim?. lets not go overboard ok?. kemp is one of the most athletic freaks to ever grace a basketball court. had a freakish 49 inch vertical leap in his prime. there was a reason why he was named the reginman.

 

FAIL

 

Kemp was freakishly impressive, and Hakeem may not have been quite at that level, but he was amazingly athletic. definitely moreso than Robinson. And he used it as much defensively as offensively (not that Robinson wasn't great defensively also, though).

take a highlight video for what its worth - highlights - but still, pay particular attention to the few minutes after they show him being drafted. there some plays in there that are just nasty. And that's basically what Hakeem's game was his first years in the league...just nasty, athletic, in your face, defensive and offensive menace.

it's another thing about Hakeem's career that was so impressive. He completely refined and changed his game in the early 90's and was just as, if not even more dominant. He never once averaged over 3 assists per game until 92-93, but then did it ever year for 6 straight seasons.

anyway, here's the video:

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Video Title: Hakeem Olajuwon: Pre-UH Thru 1994
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This thread makes me cry inside. Robinson was more athletic? /sigh

 

He evidently was too young to watch them play or he wouldn't even begin to post something like that. But if you just want to go by stats - lets look at the head-to-head matchups.

Reg. season (head-to-head)
Robinson: 19.6 PPG, 11.2 RPG Olajuwon: 21.9 PPG, 11.3 RPG
Postseason (head-to-head)
Robinson: 23.8 PPG, 11.3 RPG Olajuwon: 35.3 PPG, 12.5 RPG

 

He makes a good argument, by the numbers. And the analysis seems pretty well-balanced.

He also says that those who want to weight the postseason/career accomplishments more heavily can make a legitimate case that Olajuwon goes ahead of Robinson.

[rquoter]
Olajuwon is close enough in third that backers who want to put more weight on his career and postseason value could certainly make an argument in favor of the other center from the Lone Star state, though it's much more difficult to argue for Olajuwon vis-à-vis O'Neal
[/rquoter]

That sounds fair to me. And he's right -- it's hard to come up with an objective, performance-oriented evaluation where Hakeem ranks ahead of Shaq. The best we can resort to is to argue that Shaq didn't have to face the same level of competition. That's pretty tough to quantify, though.

 

Yes, he had prime Kemp athleticism. Athleticism isnt defined solely by vertical leap. Look at Shaq. Nothing impressive about his vertical, but he's one of the best athletes the NBA has ever seen. Olajuwon didn't have Kemp's vertical, but he did have more agility, quickness, and better timing. He even had enough speed to chase down guards.

Yes...he was called the "reignman" because he played in Seattle, which is known for its constant rain.

 

We can also toss in the fact that for his whole career (excluding his rookie year), Shaq has played with an all-star wing. That accounts for a lot when people try to compare players by using the number of championships they have.

 

The argument may be sound, doesn't make the conclusion right, though. I know your a stats guy....and I like them, too.

But there is no argument on earth that can possibly say Robinson was better than Shaq, which is what the guy is saying. Same as what the other guy said as well. You just can't. It doesn't matter what the stats say. Robinson himself would say Shaq (and Hakeem) were better than him. Robinson's mom would say it. There are few, who actually watched both players play, who'd make the argument. Doesn't matter who they played with, didn't play with, what some complex mixture of their stats, say, David Robinson was not better than Shaq....ever.

Which basically means, to me, the logic behind the argument actually isn't right.

I am definitely a homer. BUT, outside of state specific issues (where NYers might rank Ewing higher, Texans Robinson/Olajuwon higher), if you did a poll, and thousands upon thousands voted, or you did a poll, and just people associated with the sport voted, or you did a poll and just players who played at the same time as all 4 voted, or just coaches voted, or just writers voted, or whomever, the list would always come out as follows:

1. Shaq
2. Hakeem
3. D. Rob
4. Ewing

 

Thats because it's legendary