The reason I don't like to compare eras is because there's no way we would know what would happen if Hakeem would have lived during those times. Instead of: coulda-shoulda-woulda. I like to use: What has he done today/career. I mean, who knows? Hakeem might have been shutdown by Russell. And Wilt could have had his best games against Hakeem. I do feel that Hakeem would have been a great defender/rebounder over-all. But we don't know if he would have learned all the skills of today. I mean, Hakeem had trouble playing against Mark Eaton. You just never know about the past/other eras.
And Hakeem didn't? Regardless of whether Russell got more blocked shots or not, it doesn't really matter. So maybe Russell is the best defensive player of all time, what's that make Hakeem? Second or third? That doesn't really give Russell much of an edge at all when comparing the players. When you really want to look at the disparity in the two players game it's on the offensive end. In my opinion. 44% career shooting for a center, along with a 56% free-throw percentage means Russell was a weak offensive player. Sure, he could get enough putbacks to raise his career scoring average to a decent 15 per game, but when you compare him to the most creative offensive center of all time, it's not even a contest.
Hakeem played against- an aging Jabbar A young Shaq A mvp Robinson A very good Mourning A highly touted Ewing and he whipped them all!!!!! Hakeem went up against some very tough competition He would have given both Chamberlain and Russell fits in his prime. And he was quick enough to block both of them. MHO
If Russell had shown an inkling of the offesnive prowess of Olajuwon maybe I could agree with you that if they switched eras both players could have interchangeable success, but Russell never even came close. Wilt, however is different. He dominated on both ends of the court then, and could most likely dominate on both ends of the court now. Russell couldn't even dominate on the offensive end in his era, I have a hard time seeing him being able to do it now. I mean, isn't offense half of the game of basketball? I don't understand why Russell's offensive shortcomings (44%/15ppg) are completely ignored. It's half the game!!!
Good post DCKid. I agree totally. Russell is well known for his team mentality, he was a 'great passer' and defender. If Ben Wallace became a great passer, but never developed his offense, would he be considered better than Dream? I guess he would, since Bill Russell is pretty much the same player. Even if Russell was a better defender than Dream, its not by much...but does that make him a better player overall? Dream destroys him offensively speaking and is close if not equal defensively. How can he NOT be considered to be at least as good a player as Russell? Only reason are the championships he won...with all the HOF players that were on his team who could beat them though? I wonder how many rings the rockets would've won if we had Stockton , and Drexler in their primes.
This is exactly true. It's my opinion that Hakeem is a better player than Bill Russell, but so what? Maybe some think Russell is better, and that's fine. But when the media acts like Russell is an entire tier above Olajuwon...it's just plain laughable. If anything, they're in the same group, and that's what this thread was about...the media's notion that Hakeem isn't even in the same class.
If Dream had made love to the camera a little more and taken a course to Americanize his accent, there would be little doubt in the ignorant media of his greatness to be included with Wilt with Russell and with Jabbar. As Doc Robert explained in his post, Dream was simply the most dominant basketball player from baseline to baseline - ever.
The way I would rank them is primarily how much they dominated when they were playing at their era. How much better are they compared to the typical center at that time? If you ask yourself this, you'd think of wilt or russell first, then Olajuwon... You made some great points DavidS!
But Russell DID NOT dominate on one entire end of the floor... Olajuwon dominated on both ends. So, I don't see how you can say Russell was more dominant.
How many championship rings did he win????? Please don't tell me that they have great players around him as an excuse. Is there a possibility Russell made those guys around him really really good? You CANNOT COMPARE ERAs, PERIOD. Using another analogy, Its like saying, who's more powerful, USA now or the Roman Empire? And some of the people's answers here would b "We would kick their arse, no way if they can handle our fire power, if they are here now, we'd still kick their arse, doesn't matter how great they were" Maybe Hakeem is probably the most complete center ever, but that doesn't me that he's the best center ever, its a team game...
See, to me that's just a lazy argument. To me all the championships he won were more of a result of the "Dream Team" he played with being dominant than it was Bill Russell being dominant. What? So I shouldn't even factor in the multiple hall of famers he played with in determining how he managed to win so many rings. Please. Of course there's a possibility, and I'm 99% positive he did make his teammates better. But so what? It's still the team who won the championships, not just Bill Russell. I agree with you that you can't compare eras. So, let me ask you how you make the assessment that Russell is a whole entire class above Hakeem? Like you said in your previous post, you compare how dominant they were in their particular era. I told you Hakeem dominated on both ends of the floor while Russell did not. He just didn't have the ability to dominate on the offensive end of the floor. And then you fall back on the whole, "how many rings did he win" argument, which never made any sense to me. He didn't win any rings, his TEAM did! I guess you would argue that Scottie Pippen is a better player than Olajuwon.
Chen, Hakeem dominated every center he faced, in such a devasting manner that most, smart teams doubled and tripled him, but the Rockets never had to double the other center. You don't look at season stats, just look at the playoffs. Hakeem freaking dominated like only Shaq has (for a center) in the last 20 years!! 20 years. Since Moses Malone. For 20 years in the prime of basketball history, only 2 centers have without a doubt dominated their position in the playoffs. Kareem does not match up with Wilt and Russell or Shaq and Hakeem. The big four are: Wilt/Russell Shaq/Hakeem Hakeem did the most with his talents of the 4, but that's the homey in me. I'm with BK, just call them the big 4 and don't include a player like Kareem were was widely regarded as not effective in the late '70s until Magic revived him, and I'll be happy. As for Russell, Dream is flat out a vastly superior offensive player to Russell, and they are even on defense. The only thing Russell dominated offensively was what his team dominated, and that is the NBA championships. Russell dominated the defensive end and the entire Celtics team dominated the offensive end. There is no question that Russell was the man on the team, and made the Celtics what they were, but don't slight the others....they were top tier players at the time, on their own merits. Cousy and Sharman were dominating before Russell came. Havlichek dominated after Russell left. In between, there was KC Jones (his college teammate), Sam Jones, Tommy Heinsohn. Those teams were *stacked* But Hakeem still dominated in every playoff he played until he got too old. You cannot take that away from him by saying Russell one more rings. 20 years of only 2 dominated centers. That's all you need to compare.
I totally agree here -- the key issue isn't Hakeem's absolute ranking, it's the fact that he's excluded from the circle of three. The media may agree to disagree about how those three rank relative to each other, but they don't disagree that they're in the same tier. Name some centers in the next tier, and Hakeem has to be considerably closer to the big three in stature than to that second tier. And can anybody make a solid case that any of the big three came closer to being a one-man team than Hakeem? He has to be a a part of the Big Four -- nothing more and nothing less. And no, it's not acceptable to say, "well, he's absolutely one of the top ten of all time..."
DCKid and Hamachi have perfectly summed up what I was protesting. I'm not saying Hakeem's the best ever. I'm just saying a distinction should not be drawn between him and Chamberlain, Russell, and Abdul-Jibber-Jabber. Hakeem was as good, as dominant, as they were. It's a "big four", at least.
I agree that he should be the top 4 or 5 center of all time, no doubt in my mind...IMO he didn't dominate the game as much as Wilt or Russell did back then. He was at David Robinson's and Patrick Ewing's level for most of his career for as long as I can remember (Still pretty damn good but nothing that stands out to be considered legendary). I remembered he couldn't get over the sonic's defense for years....He wasn't considered a notch above everyone else with the exception of <b>ONLY a few years</b> (the championship years). If he kept that level up for 8-10 years, that's another thing...
Ummm...no, he didn't. Hakeem was outplayed by Kareem early in his career. That evened out before Jabbar retired, but not to the point of Olajuwon "dominating" him. The young Shaq was outplayed by Olajuwon, but it wasn't a tremendous advantage. An argument can be made that the two big men canceled each other out, and the teammates were the difference in the 1995 finals. No need to comment on the last couple of seasons.
Chen He absolutely dominated the 1986 Lakers in crushing them 4-1, Kareem had no chance even with double teams. Hakeem scored 30+ and led rebounds in each win of that series, and had a 40 pt game. That was the defending champion Lakers. The Celtics threw Walton, McHale and Parish in double teams at him to finally stop him, but a lot of people call the '86 Celtics the best team ever; so excuse Hakeem for not beating them, like you seem to excuse Wilt for never really beating Russell. Fact is: The Magic Lakers are widely considered the best team ever, too, and Hakeem crushed them with both his point guards out. They could not stop him. And it is unfair to say that he couldn't get past the Sonics. He crushed them, and they had to triple team him. What? he scored 47 points or something in the elimination game. That's like saying Wilt could not get passed the Celtics. You are being unfair by saying Wilt dominated when he never could get past the Celts, and unfair especially when you consider Kareem was say lame at getting past anyone without Magic. The Sonics had to invent a defense specifically to stop Hakeem. Ewing and Robinson had no chance man-on-man to Hakeem, and they couldn't really beat double teams consistently like he could. Rik Smits gave Ewing fits in the playoffs. By contrast, Kareem wasn't even doubled in 1974 against a 6'8 Cowens until the 7th game. And Cowens scored 27 pts that game to win it, because he finally got defensive help.
edc, A 2nd yr Dream embarrassed Kareem in 1986 to the point that they had to take him off of Dream. I also do not recall Dream receiving double team help on Shaq in that finals, whereas Shaq did get enormous help, after witnessing San Antonio's futile attempt to man him with Robinson...futile. The ability for Dream to man-up on Shaq is a large reason why we swept them, because we could play that whole team honestly. Your argument that Shaq and Dream's numbers were similar might work except for the fact we swept them, and for the fact Shaq said Dream was much better. Now, explain to me when Ewing, Mourning and Robinson played him evenly.
How many playoff series out of how many total playoff series played can you say he completely dominated to that degree? You just mentioned one, can you mention more? David Robinson series? How many more? I wonder what that percentage will be of him dominating series versus the total number of series played? Ok, I'll just ask you another question that makes my point more clear. During his career, how many years can you say that, "Hakeem is head and shoulders the best player in the game this year"? Once or maybe twice when he won the MVP? HeyP, the Sonics rattled Hakeem for many years, There's a great possibility if the Sonics were playing us in the first champtionship year, we would have lost....
I'm sure if you look at head to head stats for each of these players when they play Hakeem, I'm so sure it will be very very close in numbers. That finals, hakeem outplayed Ewing, but not by much...he killed Robinson ONCE in the playoff series, but in most regular season games against each other, they would both be a wash statistically...He didn't play with Mourning enough to really tell, I don't remember him dominating Mourning in any way when they played...I'm sure its a wash statistically also...
