Considering how these past 10 people have posted 10 different thoughts, Rosen did an ok job. I disagree with him, but I'd probably disagree with all of you guys too.
Rosen seems like a grumpy old man. His picks are WRONG! I don't care how selfish Wilt was, in terms of pure player talent, not necessarily team success, he has to be number one. He was a one of a kind. Hakeem has to be in the top three, I was never that impressed with Kareem; he scored a ton of points. Had Walton not been injured so much, he would have been one of the greatest. Russell was great but did not have an "all around game." Wilt and Hakeem, my top two. Both were freaks of nature; giants who could do what smaller athletic men could do and better. The first time I saw Hakeem on a basketball court (UH), I was amazed. I knew he was special. His lateral quickness was breathtaking.
I never knew they raised the basket before. When did they change it back to 10 ft? I can't imagine playing on a 12 ft goal, it would feel like those old MTV Rock and Jock games where they brought in the higher goals for more points.
what did i say about this guy when it came to barkley and shaq???? he says barkley isn't a top 8 or whatever PF because he was out of shape and didn't play D, but shaq is #3 center???? what a hypocrite. aparantly he missed the nba finals when dream destroyed an in shape shaq (probably the best shaq has ever been in his career when you look back at it) in a 4 game sweep. this guy is a complete idiot.
It's definantly biased in here. I love Hakeem as much as the next guy, but you have to look at this in reality. In Shaq's 3 titles, the guy could not be stopped. A routine triple team wouldn't even phase him. He would be fouled w/o it being called 90% of the time. If he got the ball low enough, it was an automatic 2 points. I can't think of a single player who drew more fouls than him. No, he didn't have nearly the skills of Hakeem, but who knows if we'll ever see anyone as dominant as Shaq again. Shaq basically played with a 2 man team and beat everyone. We struggled against the Sonics and Jazz with much better all around teams. You can't tell me either that Hakeem's prime was only 2 years and they happened to be the years we won.
In all fairness, Jordan played when Hakeem was dominant. Shaq was dominant after Jordan retired. That said, I certainly put Hakeem above Shaq. In fact, I'd say Hakeem is somewhere in #s 2-4 with Jabbar and Russell, right behind Wilt.
it's true, as ugly as Shaq's game was, you can't argue with results which is what he provided, possession after possession, in a way taht few centers ever did before or since. A LOT of neutral observers not on a Rockets BBS at this point and afterwards, with some justification, will rank him above Olajuwon on the scale, it's just something that will happen due to the fact, that love him or hate him, Shaq was a great, great player at the end of the day in terms of both producing and winning. But the argument that Olajuwon's career achievements were or are clearly greater than Shaq's now smacks of massive homerism and delusion.
THe best he has ever been in his career? Better than the 00-02 shaq? Good grief, the 86 Olajuwon was skinnier and probably faster and more athletic than the 95 Olajuwon. Which one was better?
-This post is laughable. We struggled against the Jazz? We beat them twice and lost to them twice, the last 2 times when Hakeem was 34 and 35 years old. What's comical about this argument is that the Jazz swept the Lakers with O'Neal in both those years. I guess it doesn't count when O'Neal gets smoked by the Jazz right in his prime youth years but when a mid 30's hakeem can't by the Jazz it's an indictment of his game? Crazy. People need to think before they post crap. Shaq's Lakers never beat the Jazz. Ever. Ask David Robinson or Jordan who was better out of Hakeem or Shaq. David slowed Shaq to 21-22 ppg in the playoffs in his absoulte prime and allwoed 35 ppg to hakeem.
Statistically, Shaq was as good in 95 as he was from 00-02. That may be deceiving but he certainly didn't take the leap that hakeem did from 86 to 95. Shaq greatly benefitted from the decline of hakeem, drob, ewing, zo, etc. If he was the best ever, he'd have fared better agaisnst a declining drob in the playoffs. DRob contained shaq very well, so this unstoppable thing only really applied when faced with scrub centers, not elite ones. BTW, there are many non-rocket fans who rank hakeem over shaq. It's perfectly debatable as to who's better. Hakeem was clearly much better defensively than shaq so you have to really think shaq was miles better than hakeem offensively, which is a stretch since hakeem torched his contemporary HOF centers in the playoffs in his peak years. not to mention he hit his FT's and was an asset in the clutch, unlike an Oneal. Saying hakeem is bteter than shaq is a far cry from saying kobe is better than mj, which is what u are insinuating. Are robert horry and michael jordan rockets homers and deluded? Both rank hakeem over shaq and horry just happened to play with both at their peaks. That should tell you something. horry won 3 rings with shaq and still ranks hakeem as better.
True, but Shaq has never won without a second top 10 player next to him. Hakeem has. Heck, Hakeem has won without another top 30 player next to him.
David Robinson's PER was 5 pts higher than hakeem in 93-94 and 94-95. KG had the highest PER in the NBA last year, ahead of Shaq and Tim Duncan. Enough said. here are the stats from shaq's MVP year and 94-95 94-95 99-00 PPG 29.3 29.7 FG% 58% 57% REB 11.5 13.7 BLK 2.4 3.0 ASS 2.7 3.8 -THe stats show shaq was only slightly better in his MVP year than in 94-95. His assists are up % wise and boards are up. He definitely improved his passing from his errant early years. But clearly not a night and day difference. You can't seriously refer to a 2.0 PER increase as some huge jump; it's very slight and statistically insignificant. This is not a guy who continued to refine and improve his game every year. He had a pretty constant game and never really improved on his major weaknesses (FT shooting and defense, particularly the pick n roll).
When people compare Shaq to Hakeem please don't use titles as a point because there isn't any there to begin with. Shaq had Kobe. Kobe had Shaq. They coexisted well enough for 3 titles. But in the end, it's not hard to win titles when you had arguably 2 of the top 5 players in the league on your team. Dream DID get to two finals with Sampson and lost both times (understandably to the Celtics) but until 94-95, he didn't have anyone that stood beside him that was as great as Kobe. Dream was just a one man wrecking crew. And with that in mind, I think the 93/94 championship trumps any of the 3 titles Shaq has. Dream molded his own greatness and took a quantum leap over everyone in the league at that time.
