I did. I love Hakeem and think there will never be another player like him but disagree that he is better than any of the players I mentioned. I've never heard him ranked ahead of Russell, Wilt, Kareem by anyone who is a respected historian or expert of the game. I can't recall him behind put ahead of Shaq either by anyone either but I may be mistaken. Feel free to google search and see if any intelligent, well-respected ex players, coaches or even writers who have followed for the NBA for a long amount of time put Dream ahead of those 4 guys. I don't think you will find much but I could be wrong. I suspect Jordan might rank Dream as the #1 Center of his era based on quotes from MJ I've read so that actually counts for something.
Stats: Shaq > Dream Titles: Shaq > Dream Finals Appearances: Shaq > Dream Certainly, Dream outplayed a young Shaq in the Finals but not by as much as people think. Shaq is the most dominant player since Wilt. How is it such a stretch to put him ahead of Dream?
I argee 100% with everything you just said. Dream was great no doubt but I just don't think he was better than the people you named. I would rank him as the 5th greatest center to ever play the game with Moses Malone being a close 6th.
Yes Russell didn't avg a lot of points, but you do know that he avg 20 something rebs. and won 11 rings with 3 stright MVP's right?
Eh, of the 10 players on your list only Russell and perhaps Jabbar would be considered on par with Hakeem defensively. In terms of skills, it's hard to compare players from different positions skill-wise. Having said that, other than perhaps Jordan and Jabbar there are no other players that had the full compliment of skills on offense and defense. From the center position, there is no player in history that had as varied and exceptional a level of skill and athleticism as Hakeem. We don't really need to speculate on that either because Hakeem faced Jabbar and his Lakers, Ewing and his thug Knicks, Robinson and his Spurs teams, and Shaq when he was dominating the league. The better winner and leader thing is totally subjective. Magic had Jabbar and Worthy, Bird had McHale and Parrish, Jordan had Pippen, Shaq had Kobe, and Hakeem had who? Give Hakeem any of those players in their primes and he probably has 5 or 6 rings instead of 2.
b/c they judge them based on "rings" or MVPs or things like that dude. get that through your head. russell won 11 rings. that's why he's heralded the way he is. you can say he's arguably the best defensive player of all time (hakeem is no slouch either), but hakeem was miles better than him offensively. shaq is just more notorious and well-liked and popular. he got 4 rings too. shaq was more dominant offensively in terms of pure strength, but hakeem was just as dominant (remember shaq had some of the greatest guards to ever play the game--penny, wade, and kobe were all-nba when shaq played with them. dream never had one until drexler). and defensively, well it's not even close. hakeem outplayed ewing, david... shaq would never shut those guys down the way dream did. remember, shaq won his rings playing against the likes of rik smits, and no-name centers. hakeem won his against some of the greatest centers of all time. but o well, i've watched hakeem only since the 90-91 season, but he was a top 3 2-way player of all time to me. and when you want to list the top players of all time, i want a guy who's dominant on BOTH ends.
so magic playing with worthy and kareem didn't help? had sampson been healthy, dream would have won more rings too. magic never had to persevere through tough times like most stars do who go to bad franchises. him and larry bird went directly to great teams who have great players on that team. the lakers and celts have THREE hall-of-game players. hakeem is a more dominant player than magic or bird in a game (those 2 were horrible defensively). but they get love b/c they won more (on better teams), and they played in bigger markets.
a lot of stats were inflated back then. no way would anyone avg 20 rebounds in today's game. i never said he wasn't a great player, i just said he wasn't a complete player. you do know hakeem averaged 2.6 steals for one year right? tell me another big man who does that. again, BOTH ENDS PEOPLE. basketball is played on BOTH ENDS. it's like saying steve nash winning 2 MVPs make him better than john stockton or gary payton.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda type reasoning doesn't count. It's about what the guy accomplished and not what he could have if X,Y and Z would have happened for him. And now you're really losing credibility by saying Magic and ESPECIALLY Bird were horrible defenders. Larry Bird is probably one of the best team defenders to ever play the game. He was well known for being a big, strong SF with some of the largest, strongest hands in the league. He also was a monster on the defensive boards.
This guy is no expert commentator or ESPN pundit but he has a little street cred. "Hakeem is No. 1 to me because he had the total package," Horry said. "He got better as his career went on. Most players get better in years one through five then sort of level off. He got better in years eight, nine 10 and beyond. He had everything. Jump hooks. Fadeaways. Crossovers. He could shoot a three if he wanted to, and he played great defense. I would have to go with Shaq at No. 2 only for the reason I haven't played with Timmy long enough. Shaq is so dominant in the post. He's so big. The year he won MVP, he showed he can play defense and offense. He's started to pick up his defense this year because he's healthy. "Dream (Olajuwon) and Tim always play defense. It's depending on how Shaq feels that day as to whether he's going to play D.
I understand your love for the Dream, but theres no way in hell hes in the same class as Magic and Bird.
magic WAS a horrible defender. i lived in LA up to my 20th birthday so i saw a lot of the lakers dude. ok, larry bird was a very good team defender, but camby is a good team defender. what i'm saying is hakeem was a MONSTER overall defender. and offensively he was also dominant. that puts him over those 2 guys. get it? you're simply ranking guys based on team success (which is not wrong), but i'm ranking on who's more skilled, better, along with team success.
No love for Dr. J? He was great enough to carry a league and force a merger. Dream's Top 10. O and D and Clutch. If you were going to build an all-time team from the best five year stretches, Dream is your choice for Center. At least he is mine. Shaq? eh. He led the league in scoring a couple of times, but beyond that, the only major category he ever led the league in was FG%. Shaq never led the league in total rebounds, offensive rebounds, defensive rebounds, or blocked shots. He never finished close to the top 10 in steals. Shaq could run when he wanted, Dream ran all the time... and that's one of the big differences... Dream just gave more consistent effort than Shaq. Plus, I'd like to see Shaq try and play a game without water.
I beg to differ. Winning those championships wasn't just predicated on having Dream. We had a lot of role players show up big. Names like Robert Horry, Vernon Maxwell, Mario Elie, Kenny Smith, Sam Cassell, and so on... Like Dream said when he received his MVP award in 1994. Basketball is a team sport. Your scope of view is too one-sighted. I think what spoiled us was the amazing teamwork, grit, and chemistry we had during those clutchcity years.
Magic was not a bad defender... it's just that the build that made him such a dominant point guard on the offensive end worked against him on the other end when it came to playing man D. No way any guy as big as Magic can handle little water bug PGs. That's why he often guarded the other team's 3 or even 4.
Its true that the role players stepped up big for the rockets in their championship years. But if you're going to use this fact to reduce Hakeem's accomplishments, can you name a single championship team where role players didn't step up? Yes, basketball is a team sport, and hakeem is a very humble man.
No way. Dream was far more versatile than Shaq and I think he would bring more to a team than Shaq. Shaq won titles on teams with another great player in their prime or just entering their prime. Dream did it without another superstar caliber player the first time and the second time with one who was just past his prime.
