Greatest players of all time (Number 7)

[PauloCatarino]

Originally Posted by Dornado

Everyone is in love with this "its not close" nonsense... nobody who seriously watched David Robinson and Patrick Ewing play in their primes would say that they were "not close" to Tim Duncan. They may not have the resume Duncan has, but either one of those guys would have more than held their own against Duncan, and I love Duncan. Ewing was an old-ass man by the time Duncan came into the league.

Finally someone dares to speak the truth.

Duncan has the greatest career, but a prime d-Rob and P-Ew were BETTER than Tim Duncan. At the very least, his peers.

[Luke]

No they weren't. They put up prettier stats and had bigger regular season games, but neither of those guys did it in the post season like Timmy did, and certainly didn't do it as consistently as Duncan.

It's not close.

[Luke]

And whoever is voting for Oscar is still at least three spots premature.

[e-monk]

David Robinson would be a handful for Duncan - I think Ewing's fall away jumpshot game would be easier for Duncan to deal with than Robinson running up and down the court and Robinson's D coupled with his size and athletic advantages would make Timmy work awfully damn hard for his money

[Luke]

In the regular season D-Rob would probably run Duncan off the court. But in a playoff, slow paced atmosphere Robinson doesn't have the back to the basket game to match Duncan for 48 minutes.

He's still an all time great though, I love D-Rob.

[PauloCatarino]

Originally Posted by Dee-Zy

I reiterated it because somebody asked what are the arguments for Hakeem over Shaq. Calm down.

Shaq may have played against the same competition for a little while but he didn't win shit until he got Kobe and all the big superstars of the 90s like Ewing, Hakeem, DRob, Barkley, Malone are gone.

Like ANY OTHER great player in history, Shaq only won championships when he had the right team alongside him.
BUT, before that, he was leading the league in scoring in his 3rd season while carrying the Magic to the Finals (at age 22) playing with rejects like Nick Anderson and Dennis Scott.
Shaq's younger years in the NBA were filled with team disapointment, but with stellar individual play (this was the guy putting up a 29/13 season at age 21!).

Oh, and btw, you should check out Hakeem's team achievments till his 2 Cinderella years...

And just because MJ was playing baseball, that discredits Hakeem? If anything, it shows that Hakeem was the second top dog during arguably the decade of the second highest level level of competition, the 90s (and no, the 2000s are not the most competitive decade).

Hakeem was a monster of a player. But he was comparable to D-rob and P-Ew. Shaq (besides being an inferior defender) was a much, much more dominant center.

Trying to deny this is trying to reinvent NBA history.

[hroz]

Originally Posted by PauloCatarino

Like ANY OTHER great player in history, Shaq only won championships when he had the right team alongside him.
BUT, before that, he was leading the league in scoring in his 3rd season while carrying the Magic to the Finals (at age 22) playing with rejects like Nick Anderson and Dennis Scott.
Shaq's younger years in the NBA were filled with team disapointment, but with stellar individual play (this was the guy putting up a 29/13 season at age 21!).

Oh, and btw, you should check out Hakeem's team achievments till his 2 Cinderella years...



Hakeem was a monster of a player. But he was comparable to D-rob and P-Ew. Shaq (besides being an inferior defender) was a much, much more dominant center.

Trying to deny this is trying to reinvent NBA history.

Hakeem led his team to the 86 finals beat kareem and magic and the rest of the Lakers on the way and took birds celtics to 6 games. Hakeem was never as marketable as shaq and never had the support that shaq had.

Hakeem in his 2nd season at 23 Took on Kareem and beat him. Shaq beat Jordan Hakeem beat magic and Kareem count the no of times the Lakers didn't make the finals with magic and Kareem. Then they put a damn good show on against the Celts not just go down 4 and 0. Plus hardaway is quite a good side kick. As was Sampson admittedly.

Hakeem was a perrenial all NBA player. Despite the odd injuries.

My question stands. 10 seconds to go do u want the ball in Hakeem or shaqs hands. Or 10 seconds to go who do you want defending Kareem.

[hroz]

Originally Posted by PauloCatarino

Like ANY OTHER great player in history, Shaq only won championships when he had the right team alongside him.
BUT, before that, he was leading the league in scoring in his 3rd season while carrying the Magic to the Finals (at age 22) playing with rejects like Nick Anderson and Dennis Scott.
Shaq's younger years in the NBA were filled with team disapointment, but with stellar individual play (this was the guy putting up a 29/13 season at age 21!).

Oh, and btw, you should check out Hakeem's team achievments till his 2 Cinderella years...



Hakeem was a monster of a player. But he was comparable to D-rob and P-Ew. Shaq (besides being an inferior defender) was a much, much more dominant center.

Trying to deny this is trying to reinvent NBA history.

84/85 2nd in ROY to Jordan/All defensive 2nd team
Rockets record 29–53 in 83–84 to 48–34 in 84–85
85/86 Led Rockets to the finals(beating lakers 4-1 and outplaying Kareem)/ All NBA 2nd team
Lakers coach Pat Riley remarked "We tried everything. We put four bodies on him. We helped from different angles. He's just a great player."
86/87 All NBA 1st team/ Sampson goes down for the season. Leads his team to the 2nd round of playoffs. 3 starters from last year are missing.
87/88 All NBA 1st team/ Sampson is traded. Playoff exit in 1st round. Against a Mavs team that took the champion lakers to 7 games.
88/89 All NBA 1st team/ 1st round exit again but Hakeem averages 37.5 ppg and 16.8 rpg, plus a record for points in a four-game playoff series (150). But lose 3-1 to Dallas again. Hakeem leads the league in rebounds by an average of over 1bpg to Charles.
89/90 All NBA 2nd team/Leads the league in rebounds by over 2 rpg over Robinson. Plus leads league in blocked shots 4.5 bpg (Ewing gets 1st team)
90/91 All NBA 3rd team despite missing a lot of the season. But still put up ridiculous numbers out rebounding and blocking everyone in the league(he didnt play enough games for his stats to be included though) (Ewing Robinson get 1st and 2nd)
91/92 Hakeem's worst season he looked like he didnt care definately the only season I feel he can be criticized for.
92/93 All NBA 1st team/2nd in voting for MVP to Charles.

He had 2 bad seasons.
One due to injury. Though he produced on the court.
The other he didn't seem interested.

Let's not pretend like other centers of his immediate generation are comparable to him.

[e-monk]

fwiw Duncan played Shaq pretty equal in most of their head-to-head match-ups maybe even outplayed him - Kobe beasting on the Spurs was usually the difference

[Dornado]

Prime Shaq was likely guarded by David Robinson in most of those match-ups... no reason to waste Timmy's energy and fouls.

[e-monk]

Originally Posted by Dornado

Prime Shaq was likely guarded by David Robinson in most of those match-ups... no reason to waste Timmy's energy and fouls.

not really - in the last 2 years Drob was active he played 20 minutes a game in the playoffs and they had another face off in Shaq's final Lakers season - they didnt always guard each other in those series but they did plenty

[GTA Addict]

Shaq didn't go through Jordan to get his titles either - so what? I don't really see the Shaq/Hakeem competition debate one way or the other. Hakeem went through more all-time greats for his titles, but Shaq's prime occurred during the tough, grind-out defensive era (99-04) and he dominated.

I voted Shaq. Arguably more dominant than some of the guys ahead of him, but stuff like all the missed games, the laziness, and some other questionable intangibles are legitimate knocks against him. He could've won more MVPs and might have had another title if not for one of the worst ever Finals performances by a superstar from Kobe in 04.

[Dornado]

Originally Posted by e-monk

not really - in the last 2 years Drob was active he played 20 minutes a game in the playoffs and they had another face off in Shaq's final Lakers season - they didnt always guard each other in those series but they did plenty

I didn't realize we were only talking about the playoffs.... D-Rob did play sparingly the last time they met in the playoffs and was hurt the series before... other than that he' played a decent amount of minutes. I guess my point is that it isn't so simple as to say it was a Duncan/O'Neal match-up.

[e-monk]

Originally Posted by Dornado

I didn't realize we were only talking about the playoffs.... D-Rob did play sparingly the last time they met in the playoffs and was hurt the series before... other than that he' played a decent amount of minutes. I guess my point is that it isn't so simple as to say it was a Duncan/O'Neal match-up.

it never is - in any case both teams schemed, zoned and double teamed etc

[e-monk]

Originally Posted by GTA Addict

Shaq didn't go through Jordan to get his titles either - so what? I don't really see the Shaq/Hakeem competition debate one way or the other. Hakeem went through more all-time greats for his titles, but Shaq's prime occurred during the tough, grind-out defensive era (99-04) and he dominated.

I voted Shaq. Arguably more dominant than some of the guys ahead of him, but stuff like all the missed games, the laziness, and some other questionable intangibles are legitimate knocks against him. He could've won more MVPs and might have had another title if not for one of the worst ever Finals performances by a superstar from Kobe in 04.

that's a little overstated given the fact that Malone got hurt, Payton's ego impolded and Shaq got out-worked by Ben Wallace there was plenty of blame to go around - the one win they did get was when Kobe went off for 33 points but after that for the rest of the series he got reined in by PJ