[Grantland] Is Hakeem Olajuwon's Post-Up Play Training All It's Cracked Up to Be?

what about a David Robinson Post Up class? He was an MVP you know and won numerous championships

 

I'm not mad.

Haters gonna hate.

 

Stupid article. It's like saying you shouldn't pay so much money to go to college, because you're probably not going to become a phD like your professors, so why even bother.

 

Good point. I just dropped out of school after reading this.

 

^THIS^

Very excellent point sir.

 

I'm pretty sure that if people are buying what Hakeem is selling, it's not his fault. He has a service, and no one is forcing people to buy it.

 

but does he give refunds?

what if they join and their post game gets worse?

 

Terrible analogy.

I'll help you out.

It would be more like if you enrolled yourself in an advanced tax accounting graduate level class when you haven't even mastered junior level accounting yet.

 

I take it you are an accounting student? I am not. So why do I need your 'help' with an unnecessarily specific analogy that may make a lot of sense in your mind, but has no relevance in my world?

Anyway, taking your "better" analogy at face value, I imagine that McGee, Chandler, and Howard are the players that you think haven't mastered "Junior Level Accounting" yet. In what world is it Hakeem's fault that these players want to take his graduate level class? Even if they are not on Hakeem's level, they are in fact starting centers in the NBA, and are not clueless about the subject matter at hand. Therefore, I am sure some of the ideas, techniques, and philosophy that Hakeem teaches will be of use, even if they can't go do a 'Dream Shake' the next day.

Also, given the fact that these are one-on-one classes, don't you think there is a good chance that Hakeem is tailoring his subject matter to each individual player's skills and interests?

 

We really don't know how well he teaches or even what he teaches. We've only seen some short Youtube clips.

But teaching the complicated moves like he shows in his Youtube videos seems futile considering they have not mastered basic post play yet.

 

That's an even worse analogy. It's more like you have certain skills already and want to build on your repertoire. Say you're an accomplished guitar player, but there's another great guitar player you know everyone respects and they've had great success doing it - wouldn't you want to learn something you may not have mastered from that person (if money is no object)?

 

Hakeem made those last two rings a little bit easier for kobe

 

That isn't what we are talking about.

The controversy of the article is that the writer is saying that Hakeem is teaching players very advanced moves before the players have mastered more basic moves.

Using your guitar analogy, it would be like Joe Satriani teaching his most advanced techniques to a talented, yet intermediate guitarist who has no business skipping ahead that far. He's not ready yet.

Most of the centers in the league today are not very good at low block post play. Their skills are mostly rebounding, defense, pick and roll play, etc.

Very few are accomplished low post scorers. Many of them haven't mastered basic post moves. It makes no sense to teach them more elaborate moves.

 

McHale might be a better guy to learn from, because he was a perfectly fundamental post player.

Hakeem was completely different. He did things that very few would even be able to do effectively. He had the talent to pull it off.

McHale would take a dribble, give a shoulder fake, turn and ball fake and bring it across and then go up. A very basic yet effective low post sequence. Very fundamental.

 

I didn't realize Frank Isola changed his name to Brett Koremenos and found work with Grantland. Hmm.

 

Based on what I've heard hakeem emphasize in the videos I've watched, a lot of his focus is not on teaching his specific moves (which 99.9 %) of big men are never going to be able to effectively replicate), but instead it's on getting his students to internalize some more fundamental principles. He always talks about the move and the counter move to get the defender off balance. Any big man will benefit from internalizing that principle, even if their moves are much more limited than Hakeem's. He talks about acting without hesitation. Also, something every big man can utilize. And finally, as others have pointed out, he really emphasizes developing a mindset to dominate. That's incredibly valuable for every player at every position.