This is a logic gap I noticed, here. How did/does Duncan make his teammates better Olajuwon? If we go strictly by numbers would win on almost every account, even by assists and getting the ball to open teammates. It's silly to think Duncan could go head to head against the players at 3 with evenly matched teams and win. Maybe, it's the Spurs organization that makes his teammates. On the other hand, I do agree that some players can make their teams play better. There's a metric (assist, working to teammates strength, getting them their hotzones, and floor general aspect to it. If we judged on those merits, alone. I think Magic would be the best. He could flourish with any set of players. You could throw Big O, Bird, West, and LeBron (you wouldn't take him over Duncan, I actually would, if we are talking about bottom of the barrel team). As far as big men go, I would say Bill Russell ... along with Shaq and Wilt (who were both more unselfish than advertised). I want to see you prove Duncan made his teammates better than last two. I could argue Dream beat much greater teams in his title runs with lesser talent around him than Duncan.
The only thing Duncan was better than Dream at was recognizing that his teammates were coming into their own and stepped aside. Even then, that act of selflessness doesn't equate to "making a teammate better".
Maybe, because he was talented enough to do that. I should also pretend that he didn't pass out of double-triple team defenses to a 3 point shooter.
5 championships? the year stockton beat the rockets, you aren't going to tell me that the rockets didn't have better players on that team than duncan's fifth championship. the only player hakeem ever really allowed to play "on his level" was clyde, and even then that championship is seen as hakeem destroying robinson and shaq. the facts are that the only time hakeem was about to win a championship was when HE dominated the league. other than that, there are a lot of first round exits. manu and tony are good, not great players, but tim has 4 championships with them and 1 with david. That's making his teammates better. Kobe, Lebron, Wilt, even Jordan, has never been able to get more outta the players they had as tim has.
Your moniker matches up with the reaction I get every time I read one of your posts. I could go into great depths in responding back to what you wrote up there but any sane NBA fan on here can see that would be a waste of my time.
Haha i feel the exact same way. I even pulled up the rosters to compare and wouldn't you know it, what is wrong again.
There weren't a lot of first round exits? Oh but that isn't on hakeem, that was management's fault. I would say for the exact same reason tim was a better teammate is why hakeem had all those first round exits: it's because hakeem was only concerned about getting his numbers. Tim has never been about that. I am almost certain that you don't remember that the rockets were going to trade hakeem because (it was alleged) that he was faking an injury and all those first round exits were wearing out their welcome on the team. again, hakeem was great, and one of the greatest, but he wasn't greater than duncan, and he had a lot of baggage early in his career.
In the championship year, the wcf (it's legendary, there is no doubt), but let's be honest could there possibly have been an easier way to score a basket then doing 3 dream shakes in a row, and then flipping over his head blind and seeing it roll in the basket? lol You gotta admit, looking back on it that that was pretty crazy. Also, robinson's biggest problem was that he felt his talent could actually guard all of those dream shakes, if he would have just stood there like shaq did and be a wall, he would have fared better, hahah
Yes, Olajuwon took shots that would be bad shots for other players, but they weren't bad shots for him. Anybody else shoots the falling out of bounds dreamshake that you mentioned and yeah, it's a bad shot. For Olajuwon though, it was a high percentage shot that he routinely made. That's what made him so unique and unguardable. Here's a segment of NBA Open Court where Barkley mentions (at 5:28 mark) about how Olajuwon's shots were shots that you'd normally want an opponent to take. As Charles said, that's what made him so amazing. http://www.nba.com/video/channels/nba_tv/2011/11/29/opencourt_dream_ewing.nba/ If most any player took the same shots that Steph Curry takes then those would be bad shots, but they aren't bad shots for Curry because he makes them regularly. You could even say the same thing for the sky hook. It would be a bad shot for most any player but it was the most unstoppable shot in the history of the game when Jabbar shot it. As for Olajuwon vs Duncan, it's pretty simple for me, Olajuwon was better on both ends of the floor. Duncan got double teamed but he never saw the 3 on 1, 4 on 1 zone defenses like what got thrown at Hakeem. That's another thing that makes Olajuwon so amazing, he was continually attacking 2, 3 or 4 defenders and he still always shot over 50% from the floor every season until he was 35. I use to laugh when people would say that Hakeem shouldn't shoot when he had multiple defenders on him. I never understood why people wanted him to pass the ball to teammates that were shooting in the mid to low 40% range when he was still shooting over 50% against anything that the opposition could throw at him. Defensively, Duncan was excellent but Olajuwon was the greatest combination of speed and power for a big man that the NBA has ever seen. Hakeem's athleticism allowed him to do things that no other big man has ever dreamed of doing.
Huh? Olajuwon shot 56% from the floor in those WCF while still dishing out 5ast /game. He was scoring at will. Why would he pass the ball more? The man was on fire, he ripped out the Spurs heart with those moves while still shooting 56%. Why wouldn't you want him shooting those shots?
I agree hakeem was unarguable. The only thing I will say about ducan not seeing the same triple teams as hakeem was partly due to the fact that the opponent knew hakeem would still try to score, whereas duncan would burn you will his teammates. duncan was the perfect nba player, he did everything right.
I must say this much, he's a perfect NBA player, but aspect of his game is beyond amazing at. His post game is fantastic, but do you think was as dominant offensively as Shaq, Wilt, MJ, Kobe, LeBron, Bird, or Dream. Even defensively, I can say the same, he's a very good player, but I can remember several series where he got torched by opposing power forwards or thoroughly outplayed ... Dirk (06), Amare (05, 07, 10), Gasol (08), while he was never going to be matched against Shaq or an Olajuwon for an entire game. I think he's a fantastic team defender and can shut down really good offensive players with help. I still don't see him as an Olajuwon or Mutombo type defender who is going to completely erase a talented offensive player out of a series.
Yes, he was as dominate offensively as any of those players except MJ. Duncan beat you with everything in all facets of the game, beyond scoring. here is a quote: "Bird averaged 28 points, 12 rebounds, 8 assists, 2 steals per 100 possessions in the playoffs for his career!" Duncan has averaged 30 points, 17 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 blocks per 100 possessions in the playoffs. He's done that in 239 games... ACROSS 17 YEARS.
Teams didn't have to send 3 or 4 players at Duncan because he wasn't the same type of offensive threat as Olajuwon. Go back and look at the stats from each of their championship years. Olajuwon scored considerably more while shooting a higher FG%. Duncan may burn you with his teammates but so did Olajuwon. Again, go back and look at their championship years and you'll see that Olajuwon averaged slightly more ast/game than Duncan. Like I said earlier, Hakeem was a much better offensive player, they were pretty equal passers and Hakeem was a far superior defender.
And Olajuwon averaged 33.7 pts, 14.6 reb, 4.1 ast, 4.2 blk and 2.2 stl per 100 possessions in the playoffs.
People can argue Olajuwon vs. Duncan all they want. The real travesty is Kobe being ranked ahead of Hakeem. It's a joke and it's not funny.
Eh, it's just because he's a Laker. If he was anywhere but Los Angeles, Kobe's legacy would be much less in the eyes of the media and casual fans.
Nobody is saying that olajuwon wasn't great, but individual stats don't prove everything. olajuwon was a great player individually, but rings don't lie and tim's got 5 and he beat more quality opponents to get them. hakeem beat patrick and a young shaq. tim beat kobe and a seasoned shaq (twice), he beat the loaded "ssol" suns team, he beat kd and westbrook and lebron (twice) and wade (once), and he nearly beat them twice for 6 rings. come on man, I know you love hakeem, but he was not better in the playoffs than tim was.
