Hakeem vs Prime Drob

[Rake2204]

I'm guessing because:

1) Malone and Barkley weren't head to head matchups

2) Shaq was several years away from his prime when Hakeem played him in 95, which I'm guessing for many gives him a bit of an 'out' in terms of getting outplayed, in contrast to Robinson who was the MVP and at his absolute peak. And most importantly that series of up and under shakes and shimmies that literally faked Robinson out of his shoes, has been re-played over and over and etched itself into our collective conscience. I think if a single play has been used to define a player's career, that did so for both Hakeem and Robinson. That entire 95 run( and winning the 94 title) propelled Hakeem to near-mythic heights, that seems to be measured separately from what otherwise was an indistinguishable career from his contemporaries.

Well stated. I agree about the Hakeem highlight. It seems that single shimmy clip against Robinson has done more for his legacy than many other legitimate aspects.

Also, while I agree regarding Barkley and Malone not being head-to-head matchups, Olajuwon dominated those teams all the same. What it tends to break down to, for me, is Hakeem Olajuwon was unstoppable - by anyone - in the 1995 playoffs. I'm not sure prime Shaq, Patrick Ewing, Dikembe Mutombo, or much of anyone would have been able to do much with Hakeem in '95.

But, as is clearly apparent, it is relatively difficult for me to tackle this topic without allowing my bias to slip through. I know one of my favorite players of all-time was not on the same level as his opponent, but the perceived disparity has felt like overkill.

It just saddens me that DRob never managed to put it together for the playoffs. Just confounding.

I recall an absolute debacle of a playoff run in '94 (where I felt Robinson was going to be named MVP - the year of the 71 points, the quadruple double, and leading his team in assists). They were dropped by the Jazz in round 1 and Robinson did not fare well (20ppg, 10rpg, 41% shooting).

However, '94 aside, I felt he actually did put things together in the playoffs more than many tend to recall. For instance, he averaged 24 and 12 his rookie year in the playoffs, bringing the Spurs to the cusp of the conference finals. I think he sometimes unjustifiably took the blame for team shortcomings. With the Warriors' strategy in '91, I'm not sure there was much more he could have done than the 26ppg (on 69% shooting?!), 14rpg, and 4bpg he tallied.

I'm not sure Robinson was ever built to be a "give me the ball and I will vanquish everyone all the time" type of guy, so maybe that's the rub against him. But I thought he had many postseasons where he went hard, though it gets murky once Duncan showed up, with Robinson willingly ceding the throne and whatnot (which ultimately led to the promised land, twice).

[Stringer Bell]

Hakeem's postseason runs in the 94 and 95 championship years were amazing.

Despite the Magic being swept, a young Shaq fared much better than Ewing and Robinson did against Olajuwon. He just got very little help compared to Hakeem.

Everyone remembers John Starks's game 7 brick-fest, but Ewing played terrible offensively throughout the series. He did a great job at blocking shots, but his horrendous shooting really hurt the Knicks.

You could argue that Robinson fared better against Hakeem than Ewing did. Given the extremely close nature of the series, the Knicks would have won if Ewing had just performed marginally better offensively than needing 160 FG attempts to score 132 points.

[Dragonyeuw]

But, as is clearly apparent, it is relatively difficult for me to tackle this topic without allowing my bias to slip through. I know one of my favorite players of all-time was not on the same level as his opponent, but the perceived disparity has felt like overkill.

I don't believe the disparity was all that great. Before 94, Hakeem wasn't considered superior to Robinson, in fact the admiral was considered the best center by many, it was definitely up for debate at least. Hakeem's 95 run kinda reminds me of Dirk in 2011, where everything just seemed to come together and sparked an incredible hotstreak at the right moment. Funny enough they were both 32 at the time.

[played0ut]

hakeem destroyed DRob because he was out for vengeance because he feels like he was robbed of the MVP. Then bam. He proved who the better player was. Drob got completely and utterly shat on.

true say.

@1:14

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_-9Z2LF4fI

That's my trophy. How can they disrespect me an give him MY trophy?!

that was me on your cp btw.

[LAZERUSS]

Yeah--which I always found odd because Hakeem was not a strong MVP candidate in 95'. He finished 5th in MVP voting while being on the #6 seed and missing 10 games. Hakeem acted as if Robinson had narrowly beaten him for the MVP.

Here are their career head-to-head numbers:

Robinson 20/11/3 on 49% with 2.2 spg and 3.3 bpg
Hakeem 22/11/3 on 44% with 1.9 spg and 3.4 bpg

Hakeem was the better player because he stepped up in the playoffs while Robinson notoriously declined relative to his RS performance levels. Robinson is top 10 all-time if you look only at the RS.

Hakeem outplayed Robinson in four games of the '95 WCF's. In the other two games of that series, Robinson outplayed Hakeem. And in their 42 other H2H games, it was almost dead-even, except Robinson outshot Hakeem by a considerable margin. Oh, and D-Rob's Spurs held a 30-12 record in those 42 games.

[LAZERUSS]

Hakeem's postseason runs in the 94 and 95 championship years were amazing.

Despite the Magic being swept, a young Shaq fared much better than Ewing and Robinson did against Olajuwon. He just got very little help compared to Hakeem.

Everyone remembers John Starks's game 7 brick-fest, but Ewing played terrible offensively throughout the series. He did a great job at blocking shots, but his horrendous shooting really hurt the Knicks.

You could argue that Robinson fared better against Hakeem than Ewing did. Given the extremely close nature of the series, the Knicks would have won if Ewing had just performed marginally better offensively than needing 160 FG attempts to score 132 points.

Fared much better is an understatement...

This from Colts18...

I decided to rewatch the 1995 finals and chart each possession to see to how effective Shaq and Hakeem were on the court. A special shout out to Jordanbulls for providing the video of this series


Total:
Hakeem: 253 touches, 140 doubles (55.3%)
Shaq: 221 touches, 146 doubles (66.1%)

Here are their stats when they were guarded by each other:
Shaq 32-57 (56.1 FG%), 6-8 FT, 67.3 double teamed%, .578 TS%, 17 assists, 1 O-reb allowed to Hakeem
Hakeem: 31-75 (41.3 FG%), 9-13 FT, 60.2 double teamed%, .446 TS%, 8 assists, 3 O-reb allowed to Shaq

Shaq blocked 2 Hakeem shots, Hakeem blocked 0 Shaq shots. Hakeem did make a 3P on Shaq. Hakeem guarded Shaq on 73.3% of the touches he had, while Shaq guarded Hakeem on 69.6% of his touches. Hakeem got a lot more fastbreak touches than Shaq so in the halfcourt, they guarded each other about even.

When they weren't being guarded by each other, Shaq was being guarded by Charles Jones and Hakeem by Horace Grant.

Shaq vs Jones: 7-11 FG (63.6 FG%), 35 doubles in 52 touches (67.3%), 2 assists
Hakeem vs Grant: 13-24 (54.2 FG%), 33 double teams in 58 touches (56.9%), 6 assists

Jump shots:
Hakeem: 27-62 (43.5%)
Shaq: 2-7 (28.6%)

The vast majority of Shaq's shots were close range hooks.

Dunks:
Hakeem: 1 dunk (vs grant)
Shaq: 9 dunks (2 of them were in Hakeem's face)

Fouls drawn on offense:
Shaq: 37 (17 on Hakeem)
Hakeem: 21 (9 on Shaq)

Hakeem did draw 4 Shaq charges.

Shaq was called for 5 travels, Hakeem 2.

Plus/Minus (Houston outscored Orlando by 28 points total):
On court:
Shaq: -12 in 180 minutes
Hakeem: +17 in 179 minutes

Off court:
Shaq: -16 in 16:37 of action (Houston scored 133 points per 48 in the minutes Shaq missed)
Hakeem: +11 in 17:11 of action (134 points per 48 in the minutes he was off the court)

Interestingly enough, in 2 of the games, the Magic outscored the Rockets when Shaq was on the court. The magic were -8 in about 9 minutes of action without Shaq in game (lost by just 2 points). In game 3, they were -4 in the minutes Shaq missed in a game where they lost by 3 points. In game 1, the Rockets outscored the magic by 9 in the minutes Hakeem missed, but they were outscored by a combined 4 points in games 3 and 4 without Hakeem.

Observations:
-Orlando was for some reason really committed to doubling Hakeem in game 1. They were throwing a lot of hard doubles. Hakeem had 5 assists in that game, all of them 3 pointers, 4 came off of doubles (one was a triple team). I'm guessing it was a response to Hakeem's series vs Robinson. For the rest of the series, Orlando didn't double Hakeem as much and they threw softer doubles.

-Hakeem made like 5 or 6 baskets in transition to Shaq's 1 or so. So while Shaq didn't get credit for giving up those buckets since he didn't guard, a few of those times Shaq was slow in transition. Shaq got about 3 or shots

-One of the commentators compared Horry to Scottie Pippen and Walton took the comment seriously. They are vastly different players IMO

-I'm not sure why Penny wasn't more aggressive. Kenny Smith couldn't guard him at all. When Penny did drive to the basket, he made a few shots over Hakeem.

-Drexler was the man in this series. He really wanted to get his first title badly. For some reason, people rarely talk about him despite him getting more WS than Hakeem in that playoff run

-It's fashionable these days to **** on Hakeem's cast in 94, but this cast was much better than that one. The guards outplayed Orlando's guards. Horry played really well. The 3P shooters benefited a lot from the shortened 3P line.

-Contrary to popular belief, handchecking wasn't allowed in 95. The refs called like 2 handchecking fouls in this series

-I'm so thankful the NBA got rid of the illegal defense. The refs called like 5 of them in each game. It destroyed the flow of the game and limited the ways you could double team a player.

And how about Hakeem's TEAMMATES in that series?

Hakeem's TEAMMATES, collectively, had a considerably higher TS% in that series, than Hakeem, himself. So, those that favor this stat, had better prepared to explain that. Looks to me like Houston won that series DESPITE Hakeem.

Meanwhile, Shaq's TS% in that Finals was far greater than what his teammates gave him.

Hakeem shot 55-115 from the field, 1-1 from the arc, and 18-26 from the line.
His teammates shot 70-136 from 2pt range, 36-91 from the arc, and 77-97 from the line.

Shaq shot 44-74 from the field, and 24-42 from the line.
His teammates shot 78-156 from 2 pt range, 41-118 from the arc, and 37-47 from the line.

Using a TRUE TS%, Hakeem shot .508. His teammates collectively shot .589.

Shaq shot a TRUE TS% of .589. His teammates shot a collective .533.


Hell, Hakeem didn't even shoot the post-season NBA average in eFG% (.488 to the league average of .504.)

[Round Mound]

Hakeem`s Prime Was From 1985 to 1995 (ages 22-32). He Definetly Outplayed Robinson From 89-95.

[jayfan]

Fared much better is an understatement...

This from Colts18...




And how about Hakeem's TEAMMATES in that series?

Come on, Lazeruss. Do you have to hijack every Hakeem-related thread with this drivel?




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[LAZERUSS]

Come on, Lazeruss. Do you have to hijack every Hakeem-related thread with this drivel?








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"Drivel?"

You mean FACTS, right?

[jayfan]

"Drivel?"

You mean FACTS, right?

Drivel fits fine. But I'm not joining you in this hijack.

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