and hakeem never faced a weak finals team like the 03 nets. before this thread started I actually was almost in favor of saying they're about even, but when you count the teams duncan played against to win the rings its just hard to say that. the only truly great team they faced, the lakers, they never beat I believe. now phoenix is a really good team that makes the resume look a little better, but as someone else pointed out, he was dominated by stoudemire.
Ok sure, the Rockets had the better team. But look at the competition. Hakeem was going up against another all-time great in Patrick Ewind, while Duncan went up against Kenyon Martin. The Knicks had Ewing, John Starks, Charles Oakley, Derek Harper, Derrick Mason, and just hard nose players. And the Nets had Jason Kidd, Richard Jefferson, K-Mart, and scrubs besides that. And still even though the Dream had Patrick Ewing on him the entire series, he beat him out. It was the center play that was the key in that series, and Hakeem dominated. The competition is no contest, so looking at that you can't compare Hakeem and Tim Duncan. But the amount of years Hakeem played and the stiff competition he played against in the age of good centers makes him better than TD.
But see, I just have a difficult time using that data—correct or not—to compare the virtues of Hakeem Olajuwon to the deficiencies of Tim Duncan and vice versa. There’s one thing I enjoy less than comparing players of different eras—comparing players by comparing the eras in which they played. Whose fault is that, and how can they control such circumstances? And I’m not sure your comparison of the Ewing-led Knicks and the Kidd-led Nets is as overmatched as you appear to think, though I expect the Knicks would’ve beaten the Nets. One thing is for sure, the two teams’ respective styles would certainly not mesh, so something would have to give.
yeah, and hakeem just rolled over come playoff time.... you are hands down the stupidest person on this board. are you even a rockets fan? because you troll more than anybody here.
Parker turned 21 during the playoffs (how many years had he been playing professional basketball at that point?), and averaged 14.7 points per game. Manu Ginobili was a second year player that was 25, and about to be 26 and scored 13 points per game. Stephen Jackson was 25 years old and scored 12.8 points per game in the playoffs. Malik Rose scored 9.3 points per game, and had 5.8 rebounds off the bench. They also had Bruce Bowen, who had made second team All Defense two years in a row at that point. Yes, David Robinson (NBA All-Star just two seasons prior) was so old that he was able to grab seventeen rebounds in their final win in the finals. But yes, a team that has players like Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, David Robinson, Stephen Jackson, Speedy Claxton, Bruce Bowen, Malik Rose, Steve Kerr, Kevin Willis, and Steve Smith is horribly weak... Hmm...and wasn't the 2003 playoffs the year that Dirk Nowitzki suffered that knee injury (while the series was tied 1-1) that kept him out the rest of the series? I don't remember Olajuwon getting a break that big in the 1994 playoffs... In 2003, Tim Duncan played with three players(I won't count Steve Smith, since he only scored 6.8 ppg) that had either been a perennial all-star, former MVP and Olympian (Steve Smith was also an Olympian) or were about to be all-stars. In 1994, Olajuwon had Otis Thorpe (made one all-star game in his entire career) and rookie Sam Cassell, who would not make his first (and most likely only) all-star game for another ten seasons. ____________________________________________________________ In 1994, Olajuwon was NBA regular season MVP, NBA Defensive player of the year, and Finals MVP. In 1993, Olajuwon averaged 26.1 points per game. In 1994, Olajuwon averaged 27.3 points per game. In 1995 he averaged 27.8 points per game. In 1996 Olajuwon averaged 26.9 points per game. Tim Duncan has averaged more than 23.3 points per game in his career only once (25.5) . In total, Olajuwon averaged over 23.3 points per game for eight seasons. In 1990, Hakeem Olajuwon averaged (in a season in which he played all 82 games) 14.00 rebounds a game. Tim Duncan has never even had a season in which he grabbed 13 rebounds a game. Olajuwon averaged 13 or more rebounds per game for four seasons in his career. In 1990, Olajuwon averaged 4.59 blocks per game. Yes, 4.59 blocks per game... Tim Duncan has never averaged more than 2.9 blocks a game in his entire career. Hakeem Olajuwon averaged more than 2.9 blocks nine seasons in his career, and not slightly over 2.9... 85-86 - 3.40 86-87 - 3.39 88-89 - 3.44 89-90 - 4.59 90-91 - 3.95 91-92 - 4.34 92-93 - 4.17 93-94 - 3.71 94-95 - 3.36 The most steals per game Tim Duncan has averaged is 0.9. In his entire career Hakeem Olajuwon never averaged so few steals per game. Olajuwon's worst steals per game average is better than Tim Duncan's best. 84-85 - 1.21 85-86 - 1.97 86-87 - 1.87 87-88 - 2.05 88-89 - 2.60 89-90 - 2.12 90-91 - 2.16 91-92 - 1.81 92-93 - 1.83 93-94 - 1.60 94-95 - 1.85 95-96 - 1.57 96-97 - 1.50 97-98 - 1.79 98-99 - 1.64 99-00 - 0.93 00-01 - 1.21 01-02 - 1.21 Hakeem Olajuwon's career field goal percentage is .512. Tim Duncan's career field goal percentage is .509 . Hakeem Olajuwon's career free throw percentage is .712. Tim Duncan's career free throw percentage is .680. Hakeem Olajuwon had a career playoff average of 25.9 points per game. Tim Duncan has a career playoff average of 23.9 points per game. Hakeem Olajuwon had a career playoff average of 3.26 blocks per game. Tim Duncan has a career playoff average of 2.8 blocks per game. Hakeem Olajuwon averaged 1.69 steals per game in the playoffs. Tim Duncan averages 0.7 steals per game in the playoffs. Hakeem Olajuwon had a career playoff field goal percentage of .528. Tim Duncan has a career playoff field goal percentage of .509. Hakeem Olajuwon had a career playoff FT percentage of .719. Tim Duncan has a career playoff FT percentage of .698. Hakeem Olajuwon averaged 2.92 turnovers per game in the playoffs. Tim Duncan averages 3.18 turnovers per game in the playoffs. Tim Duncan is a great player, Olajuwon was better. http://www.nba.com/playerfile/hakeem_olajuwon/ http://www.nba.com/playerfile/tim_duncan/career_stats.html
If Duncan's defense is so terrific, why does Amare Stoudemire just torch him whenever they play? Even in a weaker era where even a guy like Marcus Camby won a DPOY, Duncan never won a single Defensive player of the year award. Hakeem won it twice playing in an era with elite defenders like David Robinson, Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, younger Dikembe, Gary Payton, Dennis Rodman. There's a pretty considerable gap between the 2 defensively.
Right, and one player was given a lot more (Duncan), faced lesser competition (Duncan). If we were comparing franchises, then yes the Spurs of the 00's accomplished more than the Rockets of the 90's. However, if you're just comparing who was a better player of Hakeem or Duncan, absolutely you have to account for things like who had the better coaching, teammates, and faced weaker competition (Duncan, Duncan, and Duncan). Those are external factors which have nothing to do with Duncan or Hakeem. This isn't a debate over which franchise accomplished more. Yet every thing you cite is a team accomplishment (winning %, titles won, etc). This is about 2 individual players. As for the dynasty talk, you can call them what you want but most dynasties dominate their era. Almost all dynasties have a repeat championship as part of the resume, something the Spurs haven't done. The Spurs were also owned by Phil Jackson's Lakers before Kobe-Shaq were busted up (lost 3 of 4 times to them in the 00's). You don't think of a dynasty (Patriots, Bulls, etc) as being owned by a better team from the same era, but then winning most of their titles without having to go through the team that owned them. I'd call the Spurs a pseudo and not a full fledged dynasty. Plus 2 of their rings are complete asterisk rings.
The only concession I'll make in this argument is Duncan has had a better coach. Rudy was never a strong X & Os guy. The matchup problems with the Sonics, was due to them playing an illegal zone. However, 2 defenders would some times get to the left block and wait on Hakeem to get there. Rudy, rarely tried to offset that strategy. Hakeem greater than Duncan. Popovich greater than Rudy. More rings for Duncan.
Never said there wasn’t a gap, rdsgonzo13. I don’t think the points you presented are so strong, however. First, Amare torches pretty much anyone, but in regards to Duncan’s defense of him, it’s really pretty good. You also have to take into account that the year Amare blew up and averaged 30+ PPG in the Spurs series, this had as much to do with the Spurs’ specific team defensive philosophy in that series as with any concession Duncan gave Stoudemire. Duncan will never win a Defensive Player of the Year award and it still won’t reduce how effective he is. The awards are a frivolity, seldom ever given to those who deserve them most. (And those whose votes count rely more on reputation than objective analysis. For example, Kobe Bryant is a perennial All-Defensive Team selection based solely on back-to-back years of solid perimeter contain-defense in the Playoffs . . . which occurred a decade ago. Nothing he’s done since validates his selection.) But again, I agree: Olajuwon is the superior defender—I mentioned that already—and also the superior player. I just don’t think the gap is as wide as you.
Right, which is the folly, ultimately, in comparing eras and franchises, I suppose. But realize that I intended it merely as food for thought—an invitation to think on how fans, sportswriters, and players will perceive Tim Duncan after it’s all said and done. The debate as to who is better individually is pretty cut and dry, in my opinion. Though I believe you sell Duncan and the Spurs much shorter than they deserve. As is your right, of course. I didn’t make myself clear enough regarding dynasties and their oft-usage. I find it tiresome and irrelevant, personally, but that doesn’t stop a million people from talking up the subject of whether one team or another was, is, or could be a dynasty. It’s front-page stuff of little meaning—nothing more. That being said, there could stand to be a little qualification of what a dynasty—in sports terms—is. (And no, I don’t think the Spurs apply, off the cuff, but assuming they win their 4th in 9 years, they’re definitely doggedly persistent in ways few teams in history have been.)
What was the Spurs philosophy? To let Amare run wild and score 37 ppg? Do you seriously not think they wanted to contain him to a better degree than they did? I don't buy the whole "Amare torches everyone". We're not talkign about Shaq here, some kind of all time great who's unguardable. He's a good, but not a great player and if you want to put Duncan as an all time great defender, he should be slowing down a guy like Amare. Amare exposes Duncan's lack of footspeed and lateral agility. It's just that the Suns overall defense (including Amare) is so poor that the Spurs win anyway, but that's because their team is better (and Stern loves the Spurs). Do you really tihnk that Tim Duncan is a great defender? As for Kobe Bryant, there's a difference between getting the All-defense teams and actually winning DPOY, which Bryant never has. I just can't think of too many great defenders of our generation (Mutombo, Hakeem, DRob, MJ, Rodman) come to mind who didnt win DPOY at some point in their careers. The only one I can think of is Scottie Pippen and he played in an era of some great defenders while Tim hasn't.
We're admittedly drifting from the beaten path here, but hopefully everyone else will indulge us. The difference is really in name only—it’s a meaningless distinction if one feels both rewards are largely invalid and chosen purely on reputation and recent word of mouth, as I do. You’re more than free to put more stock in them than I, however. It certainly doesn't change my opinion of Duncan's defensive ability. What they wished to do in 2005 was win the series by any means necessary. According to beat writers on the scene and other affiliated sources, it involved just that. Would they have liked to have stopped him completely? Sure, who wouldn’t? But funneling a large portion of scoring opportunities toward one specific player or play-set is something the Spurs have done throughout the years, and to some success, one could say. And this is especially crucial given the Suns’ multitude of scoring options. An admittedly simplified example: Phoenix’s three-point barrages that year were the kiss of death to every opponent in the league, and given the way Phoenix notoriously dissuades aggressive help defense on the pick-and-roll/fade by stacking both sides of the perimeter with able three-point shooters, one has to make a choice. Consequently, the game in which Amare scored the fewest points happened to be the only one which the Suns won during the series, striking a whopping 50% on 9 of 18 shooting from beyond the 3-point line; shot-distribution among the Suns players that game also happened to be the most balanced they'd seen, i.e., most potent and difficult to contain. Yes, I do, one of the very best we have today, as well as one of the most woefully underrated. But we can agree to disagree. I stand by my statements.
I don't know how much you follow SA beat writers, but they have a pretty recurring theme when an offensive player goes off on their Spurs. In 95, they claimed the idea was to let Hakeem run wild by single covering him with David (which was completely false, but a theme pushed hard by the SA media). In 05, they claimed Amare scored 37 ppg by design. Again, not wanting to give the guy any credit or assign any blame to Tim. Just like your post. This year with Deron it was the same thing. "Our game plan was to contain all the other players and let Deron go off". I'm sure they'll have the same story ready for Lebron James, even though he's the only Cav worth a damn. Spurs beat writers will push any angle to avoid admitting one of their beloved Spurs was outplayed. Homer journalism. Regardless, even if the strategy is to leave Tim on an island with Amare and not provide help Defense, he still needs to do better than allowing 37 ppg to make that strategy work. The Spurs won that series in spite of Amare going off on them and Duncan was exposed defensively. They won because of how explosive their offense was against Phoenix. The Rockets in 95 feared Nick Anderson and Dennis Scott's 3 point shooting so much that they said Hakeem go play Shaq one on one, without double team help. While Shaq fared well, he didn't dominate the series with 40 point games night in and night out like Amare did on TD. So it's completely false to say that just because you aren't given help against a guy, he's going to buckwild and light up the scoreboard. If Hakeem had allowed 40 ppg to Shaq, he would have failed individually as a defender. Believe me, Popovich doesnt tell Duncan let Amare blow by you and dunk in your grill. Regarding Duncan's great defense, can you cite me some occasions in playoff series where he's faced a bigtime scorer and slowed the guy down considerably in the playoffs with his great D? I didn't think his D on Dirk was anything special last yr in the playoffs (Dirk went nuts on SA), we know Amare's had great success scoring on him, and even Boozer had a quality offensive series against SA this past WCF. I think of Duncan as more solid than spectacular defensively. Not too many mistakes or stupid plays, but then nothing special either.
And yet I don't feel the least bit guilty, nor is what I wrote completely false by any means. Yet I don’t blame you for your skepticism regarding the beat writers—I share it, too—but I should’ve written “and [un]affiliated sources,” sources who are quite beyond the home-team jingoism and are prepared to enforce their points with articulate analysis. YMMV. But let me clarify: I bring it up only because you presented a specific example as a "gotcha" point, one which I felt deserved some background. I realize I may sound like a Tim Duncan apologist by this point, but so be it. It's entirely within the realm of possibility that he is not quite as good and not near as bad as we respectively think he is. I'm cool with that. Not right off hand, no, but I think our disagreement has more to do with how you and I individually approach defensive virtue and principles. There’s certainly no crime in that, but we’ve both probably grown a bit too long in the tooth to adopt any other point of view by now. At any rate, it’s probably not worth weighing down this thread any more than we already have. It's been fun conversing with you, though.
