Hakeem "Arguably" a top echelon center of all time?

maybe I'm crazy (crazy biased that is....but crazy none the less), but I find the Dream to be the greatest Center of all time. Compare him to the other 4.

Russel- couldn't hit the ocean if he was thrown out of a boat on offense. GREAT defensive player. They made the statistic of blocked shots because of him. But would you give him the ball with under 5 seconds to play down by 1? I wouldn't.

Wilt-scored a lot....on and off the court(that joke is just great). But he couldn't gaurd a bucket of water. I think Dream would have slowed him down, but also would have tourched him like he did Robinson the night they stold Dream's MVP and gave it to the Admrial.....what a game. Only imigne that game everytime he played Chamberlin......wow, what could have been.

Shaq- well, first there is the free throws (his, not Nick Anderson's). Then there is the D....not bad, but no Russel or Dream. Plus he has ALWAYS had a better supporting cast. ALWAYS. Drexler was one. Pippen proved he WAS NOT one of the top 50 of all time (in fact, take his spot away and give it to Dominique Wilkens.....I'm not even kidding)., and Steve doesn't know how to use teammates not named "Cuttinio." Barkley was over the hill at this point. Shaq had Penny (IN HIS PRIME.....with Little Penny for crying out loud), and Kobe. Love him or hate him, Kobe is a superstar. GREAT. Plus both teams were loaded with great peacies around Shaq. Are you seriously going to argue that Otis Thorpe, Kenny Smith, Carl Herrea,Mario Elie and Pete Chilcut (though I love them all) could have won more than 15 games without Dream? SEROUSLY!

Mikan-This might be the only legitimate case. He CHANGED the game into what we know it today. The first big man. There is a basketball drill named after him.Though I've never seen him play, we must keep in mind, he never played against anyone over 6'8". Dream played against GREAT centers on a nightly basis.

Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe you agree. Thoughts?

 

Hakeem was Bill Russell with amazing offense. Why and how anyone could put him in the top echelon has always been beyond me. Put Hakeem on that team and they would have won just as much if not more.

Russell routinely got outplayed by Wilt from everything I've seen and read. Russell was on a simply amazing team as w whole.

 

Robert Horry has played with Shaq, Hakeem, and Duncan, and earlier in the playoffs I heard him interviewed on the radio. Given the choice of one of these three, he said he'd pick Hakeem to win a game, without a doubt.

In the closing minutes of a game, Dream could beat you on offense, with a field goal or with his free throws. But Dream could also seal a win with his defense. Remember John Starks' last second shot in game 6 of the '93-'94 Finals? Starks was on fire that game, and his three pointer would've won the series - except Hakeem switched on defense, chased Starks to the corner, and blocked the shot.

Dream was relentless on defense, whether shutting down the lane, pilfering an inbounds pass, stealing the ball from guards on the perimeter for a breakaway, or running people down on the fast break and rejecting them. He used to knock away post-entry passes to Kareem, even though he was at a tremendous height disadvantage. In my mind, his defense is what elevates him over Shaq/Duncan/Ewing/Robinson. I never saw Russell or Wilt play, and only saw Abdul-Jabbar at the tail end of his career, so I can't say for sure Dream was better than those guys. But he definitely belongs in the upper echelon.

 

I choose by far Hakeem in his best years, over Shaq in his best years.

 

It goes

Wilt
Jabbar
Dream
Shaq
Russell

Russell is top 5 exclusively for his rings. People overrate his impact on the court, and often neglect to mention that almost the entire Celtic roster back then was full of Hall of Famers. People say he defended Wilt the best, yet Wilt absolutely dominated Russell all the time. He was a terrific defender, but far from an offensive juggernaut. Isn't his career shooting percentage around 44%? For a big man that's absolutely ridiculous.

Wilt and Jabbar go to the top for obvious reasons. Both dominated defensively and offensively. Dream might very well not be the #1 all time leader in blocked shots if they kept track of blocks in Wilts era, or didn't introduce blocks in the middle of Jabbar's career. However Dream has one thing over all the centers on that list. He's still in the top 10 all time in steals, and is #1 all time in blocks regardless. Even if he was #3 all time assuming Wilt and Jabbar did toggle more blocks in their career than him, it doesn't stop him from being one of if not the best defending big man of all time.

Shaq is at #4 for obvious reasons. His numbers in the finals against Dream were great. Really the only thing that's separated Dream from other big men in Shaq's era was that Dream could match Shaq point for point, rebound for rebound, and was a superior defender despite not being able to dominate Shaq 1 on 1 defensively. Three rings in the stronger Western Conference furthers his case stronger.

 

Hakeem will dream shake all of those suckers.
Does anyone remember how fierce Hakeem's game was when he was young?
The Lakers got beat by Ralph's shot, but it was Hakeem CONSTANTLY throwing dunks down, blocking shots, grabing boards. This was against Kareem!
Hakeem made Amare look like Kirk Rambis.

Also, Hakeem faced Ewing, Shaq, Barkley, Karl Malone, David Robinson and took them all to school.

Hakeem is by far the best center, because his game was so complete, plus he was the quickest player.

What can Bill Russell seriously do about the baseline fadeway or dreamshake or dreambabyhook shot? Dream can also hit the fifteen footer also.

no contest.

 

I think it is difficult and somehow not fair to compare players from different eras and make the judgement who is better than who, the games (rules) are simply different between different eras. Players respond to their opponents

By the way, does anyone have the stats of Russel and Wilt when they play head to head? My impression is theire individual stats when playing each other are pretty even.

 

i think it's funnier that someone here would take duncan over dream. are you f-ing insane? move duncan to center where's he's been scared to play his entire career and dream would tear him apart. put any of the spurs championship teams into dream's era and we would have bounced them just like a couple other great pf-led teams. (jazz, suns). that being said i'd probably take duncan first in a list of the greatest pf's ever.

l

 

Duncan gets double teamed. Dream gets quadrouple teamed.

 

I think it depends on how you define top echelon. Maybe the author feels the top echelon is the best 3 centers of all time, in which cast Hakeem is arguably a top echelon center. The top 2 centers are Wilt and Kareem (you get the occasional wingnut that puts Russell in the top 2, but both these guys would/did eat his lunch). There will always be debates on who comes after that. Hakeem is somewhere in the 3-5 range with Shaq and Russell. He is arguably 3rd best, or he could be as low as 5th best. From that point of view, there is nothing wrong with the article. Even entering the converstaion of the best centers of all time should be seen as an honor, not a slight.

 

SportsIllustrated has become a trash magazine over the years. No credibility at all so I take this article with a grain of salt.

 

I think the wingnuts are the guys that put Wilt in the top 2. He couldn't win. He didn't make his teammates better. Those are the earmarks of the greatest players. Wilt should have won at least 5 or 6 championships if he was that great. If we are just using statistics and talent to come up with the greatest players, then we have to put Pistol Pete, Tiny Archibald, and Iceman on the list of the top guards of all time. Wilt was an extremely talented player with the greatest physical tools that the league had seen up until his time. But he was selfish and got sidetracked in his career with all the personal acolades and failed to see the bigger picture. No matter how much talent you got, no matter how high you can jump, no matter how tall or strong you are, the signs of greatness are players that win it all.........e.g. MJ, Bird, Magic, Kareem, Hakeem, Duncan, etc.

 

Shaq is one of the most overrated players in any sport in history. All he does is shove people, dunk, and miss free throws. Olajuwon was about 100 times better. He actually had skills.

 

Wilt won as much as Hakeem did. You can't just count championships, otherwise you end up with crazy ideas like Horry is better than Barkley or Cousey is better than Stockton. Basketball is a team sport. A single player cannot make his team win the title. Wilt had the misfortune of playing most of his career against the best team in NBA history. That doesn't mean he was not a great player. The fact is, you put Wilt on the Celtics and Russell on the Warriors and chances are he is the one with 11 championships.

 

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/3221852
Olajuwon averaged 32.8 points and 11.5 rebounds in the four-game sweep over Shaq and the Magic. It was a lesson about who was at the head of the class and who still had learn.

In fact, O'Neal openly admits that he watched the videotapes of the 1995 Finals many times in order to study Olajuwon's footwork, to glean any tips he could.

"I studied those tapes, especially in the weeks and months right after that series was over," O'Neal said. "Hakeem is the man at the very top. I tried to incorporate some of his moves into my game. But I must say that I'm incapable of re-creating that footwork.

"It's hard for me to believe that all that was 10 years ago. It shows you that I've been here a long time. I've been here a long time and had to put in work to get to where I am.

"A lot of it started with that series against Houston. That was the first time that I almost made it, and I didn't want to feel like that anymore. So I made a promise to myself that if I ever did get back I had to dominate. I didn't ever want to have that feeling again.

"It all started with Hakeem. In my mind, it all ends with Hakeem. He's No. 1. No question. Always will be. I saw it up close."

 

Bill Russell won a college championship as well. Bill russell was just a winner, With all that other talent wilt might not have been a good fit for the celtics, considering he didn't start winnin when he worried less about his own stats and got other involved.

 

The top centers are hard to compare, it's so subjective.

But I think Hakeem was the best power forward ever, and definitely a top 3 center.

Shaq was unstoppable early in his career, but he won his rings only when he wasn't as effective and Kobe had "matured" a bit. I would take Hakeem over Shaq, what you lost in field goal percentage you got back in reb, defense, blocks, and steals. Not a bad deal at all.

 

Sports illustrated sucks anyways.

 

Hakeem was never a PF...

 

You do realize that Shaq has a higher rebounding average than Hakeem, right?