Elvin Hayes was a great PF, arguably the greatest. McHale Duncan Malone Hayes 4 best by a landslide IMO in no perticular order. Sorry to KG, Barkley or Dirk but they are not in a class with those 4.
Uh, no. When did Dream clang a bunch of free throws in an NBA Finals game? Dream's playoff averages for FG% and FT% are higher than his regular season averages. Duncan's are both lower.
What is this obsession with people wanting to make Dream a PF? Ralph moved to PF to accomodate Dream. Dream always was a Center. Read his book. He says it much more eloquently than I can.
They are both HOF players, but having said that Hakeem was more dominant on both sides of the ball. The only thing that Duncan has him in stats wise is assists. Hakeem had around 2100 steals for his career, which is out of the world for a center/big man. We all know about the blocks of course . Duncan is a PF so his stats stand out , the Spurs kept him out of the center position even though he is built like a prototypical center. Duncan is top three PFs all time but if you compare his stats with all time great centers he might not stand out as much. Hakeem is in top 5 centers of all time and the other centers he played against were far superior than the PFs Duncan had to play against.
Hakeem over Tim. This is not as close as any Spurs fan would like it to be. Its only closer because Timmy got to play with another star Tony Parker his whole career, David Robinson another Hall of famer to begin with and Manu Ginobili another allstar type player for most of his career too. He had a great coach his entire career and a better run organization who drafted well nearly every year. Hakeem would have won more titles under that situation and in nearly every other category Hakeem already shows he is the better player to prove it.
Watching Dream and watching Duncan, Dream was so much quicker. Remember him running down KJ and blocking him from behind? No way Duncan would even try that. If Dream played with Drexler and Cassell as long as Duncan has played with Manu and Tony, Dream would have more rings than Duncan guaranteed.
Duncan never could carry his teams out of "holes" in playoffs he is the tiger woods of "majors/championships" as they always were front-runners...so Hakeem bc he had so much weight to carry. While Timmy had a big three for Yeats Hakeem didn't until the very end very end of his "prime"-Tim got rested a lot more than Hakeem thus the "longevity"-also the game changed big men were beasts of big men in Dream's days...also dream when "Hakeem" fasted every season yet did all that drinking sum "veggie" juice at night he'd lose what he said in his autobio. Around I think I remember 15 lbs. I forget the exact amount and this would be in what Feb-March or however it was it was important parts of the season.
So true they act like lebrun invented it...lol dream was a C doing it his whole career he was a guard in a center body. The most amazing poise I ever saw in a man playing in ball n clutch down in a hole situations. He was the most dominant big man I ever saw even the great Shaq and Duncan are power and finesse only respectively. Dream was whatever he needed to be.
Here is an objective way to rank players. http://www.basketball-reference.com/friv/ratings.cgi Hakeem is 4th, Duncan is 7th.
Duncan more clutch than Hakeem? I am not sure about that... Also, Hakeem was quite the whiner btw :grin:
I think at this point, this really isn't a debate anymore anywhere outside of Houston. Just like when people used to argue Hakeem over Shaq here. Sad but true.
Duncan has had a better supporting cast over the course of his career. A supporting cast that didn't deteriorate rapidly like Hakeem had to deal with when John Lucas and Lewis Lloyd and Ralph Sampson just suddenly stop contributing because of drugs and injuries. Hakeem is the best center of all time. I always hear the argument for Wilt or Kareem, but they did not have the skill set that Hakeem had. There was not one aspect of Hakeem's game that was bad. Unless you want to say he can't shoot the three. Duncan is the best power forward ever. But his skills don't match Hakeem. Hakeem was a better free throw shooter, a better perimeter player, a better defensive player. Duncan has not won the DPOY, which is a bit surprising, because he is a great defensive player. They both made the Finals in their 2nd year in the league. Hakeem played the 86 Celtics, one of the greatest teams ever. Duncan played the 27-23 8th seeded Knicks in a 50-game season. Hakeem, in his first Finals game in the Boston Garden, had 25 points in the first half against Boston's front line. Just ridiculous. Duncan played against......Marcus Camby.....Chris Dudley?
