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Hakeem over Timmy....travesty!!!!!
‘Big Shot Rob’ shoots straight on ‘The Dream’
by Rick Olivares
FOURTEEN years ago, Sports Illustrated ran a feature where the National Basketball Association (NBA) stars of yesteryears were pitted against the stars of the day. Then-Houston Rocket forward Robert Horry was pitted against former New York Knick Bill Bradley in the article.
When interviewed for the piece, Bradley, a former three-term US senator, could only utter one word when told of the matchup: “Help!”
Horry, now comfortably retired after having won seven championship rings with three different teams, was obviously pleased and surprised when told of the good senator’s comments.
“For him to say that, I feel very honored. I’m fortunate. One very lucky guy because few people have been able to accomplish what I’ve done,” softly said the former Alabama Crimson Tide player who seemed to be pleased with the reception of the NBA Legends who are in Manila to play an exhibition match dubbed, the 2009 NBA Asia Challenge.
The NBA players, who will be supported by a selection from the Developmental League, will tip off against their Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) counterparts on Friday at 7:30 p.m. at the Araneta Coliseum.
Solar Sports chief operating officer Peter Chanliong, a Los Angeles native who is never shy to declare his devotion for the hometown Lakers, told the assembled media horde in a Makati City restaurant that it was a dream for him because three of the legends participating in the 2009 NBA Asia Challenge had a purple and gold legacy—Horry, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Vlade Divac.
“Get this guy a jersey,” teased the six-foot-nine Horry, who referred to Chanliong suiting up for the NBA team that will also count Tim Hardaway and Dominique Wilkins in the lineup.
The PBA contingent will feature legends Allan Caidic, Alvin Patrimonio, Benjie Paras and Ronnie Magsanoc, and will be supported by current stars Wynne Arboleda and Arwind Santos, among others. The event is the biggest involving NBA players outside North America and Europe.
“I’m older than you guys,” gamely protested the boss of Solar Sports who proudly received from Abdul-Jabbar a game jersey with his surname printed on the back. “This is cool.”
In an exclusive interview with the BusinessMirror, Horry, although several years removed from active compe ion, said he looks forward to hitting some of those big shots that he made a career out of while playing for the Houston Rockets, Phoenix Suns, Lakers and San Antonio Spurs in a career that saw him win seven championship rings.
“It’s hard to stay away from the game that I love so much and it has been a long and joyous ride. I am happy to be able to do what I did in the league and work with great players and coaches. Sometimes when I sit back and look back, I just go, ‘Wow! I did that?’ Now hopefully we can put on a show for the fans in Manila. I keep hearing how crazy this country is about basketball,” he said.
When asked who was the best center he ever played with, Horry, who played the middle for the Crimson Tide, didn’t bat an eyelash when he declared former Houston Rockets’ great Hakeem Olajuwon as the top slotman.
“He was so talented and could do so many different things. I’d put him on top and Tim [Duncan] and Shaquille [O’Neal] can trade places for second and third.”
Horry then paused, smiled, and made sure he was clear with his intentions, “Hey, Shaq and Tim...I love you guys, okay?”
He let out a laugh. Clearly he was having fun. With time left for one question, I asked how he’d like to be remembered. Horry, who still looks lean and in game shape, coolly replied: “I’m just a guy who got the opportunity to knock down some big shots for a championship or two. It can’t get any better than that.”
Hakeem over Timmy....travesty!!!!!
he certainly played with three of the best big men.
The great thing is, as great as Horry was, even he couldn't get the Suns a championship.
Hakeem was great but Timmy has done it longer and with more consistency. I'd say Tim is the best big man out of that bunch. Tim was certainly better than Hakeem at rebounding but I'd give Hakeem the edge with jump shot and shot blocking. Tim has the better post moves while Hakeem had amazing ability to put the ball on the floor and the shimmy shake.
Damn, that's a tough one. I feel ya Rob.
Agreed. I would accept an argument that they were equal...but Duncan was not better. Dream's footwork was incredible to watch. It was one of the things that started my love for great post players.
Yeah, Olajuwon is definitely the most creative scorer I have ever seen at the 4 or 5. About the only thing he couldn't do was hit the three. Otherwise, the pull-up J was good. He could face up and put the ball on the floor and easily blow by his man. Quick spins off the block and an unguardable baseline fadeaway off the spin that Jordan seemed to have copied in his later years. Great pivot moves that confused the out of whoever ad the misfortune of being in front of him. Then, you can't forget his famous offensive rebound and tip-in to steal game 1 of the 95 Finals in OT.
The thing is...Hakeem kicked everyone's ass at some point.
Kareem, Barkley, Malone, Shaq, Ewing, Drob, the entire Celtics frontline....he got everyone, and you can't really say any of them ever got him back. More importantly, he's like the only non-choker ever produced by the city of Houston(and it was a fierce battle that Houston almost won). All that said..he'd have fouled out if he'd had to guard Drob.
I do think Duncan is the guy whose game most resembles Hakeem's though...out of anyone who has ever played in this league.
only in the 2 yrs prime of hakeem kickd everybodys ass
but b4 that he was a fkn nobody, so they base it on 2 yrs of his prime like his been doing that his whoe career.....
Duncan, Olajuwon, and O'Neal, are the three best big men of the past 25 years. The previous 25 years it was Abdul-Jabbar, Russell, and Chamberlain. Quite clearly, those are the six best big men of all-time.
Duncan is a better player than Olajuwon, though. Everyone raves about Olajuwon in 93-94 and 94-95, how he was the best player in the game. Duncan had his own huge seasons in 01-02 and 02-03, was the best player in the game for a longer stretch (you can bring up the fact that Olajuwon played in the Jordan era, but he wasn't even definitively number two throughout, you could have argued for Malone, and Barkley at times) has won two more championships, never been on a team that underacheived to the extent that the Olajuwon, Barkley, and Drexler led Rockets did, and overall has been the greater, more consistent winner of the two.
You can bring up Olajuwon's superior stats, but if you adjust for era, they're relatively even. Nobody today blocks 4 shots a game, and it's extremely rare for a big man to score upwards of 25 ppg. For sure, if Duncan had been selfish and stats obsessed he could have piled on a couple thousand more points.
You do know he was in the finals in 86 right, by beating out an incredible Laker team?but b4 that he was a fkn nobody, so they base it on 2 yrs of his prime like his been doing that his whoe career.....
Yah Hakeem destroyed Kareem in 1986...although Ralph Sampson was the guy that hit the big shot, and that was an insane shot he hit.
Hakeem also destroyed the Celtics in those finals...his stats are absolutely sickening....however, his team still got it's butt kicked into the dirt by the Celts overall.
But Hakeem also dogged it as much as any star in the league...and never let it be overlooked that when he got his face busted, his team went on an 18 game winning streak without him.
Eh, its debatable.
Olajuwon was probobly the best center I ever saw play the game.
You sure you want to stick by this ridiculous comment?only in the 2 yrs prime of hakeem kickd everybodys ass
but b4 that he was a fkn nobody, so they base it on 2 yrs of his prime like his been doing that his whoe career.....
As an individual player, I would take Olajuwon over Duncan. Olajuwon had better low post moves, played better individual defense, can handle the ball well, and can do whatever Duncan could do, only better.
As a team player, I would take Duncan over Olajuwon, but only by a slight margin. I felt that Duncan could read the defense better, understand the angles of the game better (especially later on in his career), is a better passer, and is amount even with the Dream on team defense.
There are a lot of people here who disses Olajuwon and say that he only had a two year peak, but that is not true, he was dominant individually from his rookie season all the way to 96, 97, but he didn't have the exact kind of team around him that would make him successful (ie, no shooters). It was pretty much the same situation with Robinson before Duncan came along, only Robinson carried his team to more wins, and with a worse supporting cast.
Duncan's never tanked it due contract issues and whatnot, which Hakeem did several times, he also hasn't ever tried to squeeze every last penny out of the Spurs like Hakeem did.
Duncan is 10 times the leader and team player Hakeem was.
Duncan has never been the cause of a single chemistry issue on the Spurs, whereas Hakeem was the cause of several of them on the Rockets.
What Hakeem could do, possibly better than any bigman to ever play the game, was score on double and triple teams...this is not to say he could dominate them, but they didn't stop him as effectively as they did most players....and it's obvious why when you watch some of the shots he could get off. Duncan could handle them better than most bigmen to ever play the game, but Hakeem was the best at it that I have seen.
I thought Tim is a power forward?
Hakeem's peak > Duncan's peak.
Duncan's career > Hakeem's career.
While I agree that Tim has won more than Hakeem and Shaq, I find the arrival to that conclusion troubling to say the least.
Saying both Duncan and Olajuwon swept teams in the finals, but Hakeem did it against better compe ion, thus Hakeem > Duncan in talent is troublesome. Their compe ion had nothing to do with how talented they are, and it speaks to the makeup of their respective teams and those of the opposition a lot more. This is not an individual game, but a team game.
Shaq really wasn't much of a winner without some of the best guards in the history of the league, along with some of the greatest coaches in the history of the league. Hakeem won with Rudy Tomjonavich. Rudy, while a great person and one who pretty much popularized the inside out offense, was not on the same level as Phil Jackson or Pat Riley, and Clyde Drexler, as good as anyone during his prime, was no where close to as good as Kobe and Wade when they won their respective championships.
I love Timmy, but .........
Hakeem FTW
ambchang is right...when I was saying Hakeem got all of those guys, I wasn't necessarily talking about actually beating them in a series, he lost to the Jazz himself, so in that sense they did get him back...I was talking about he gave them a statistical ass kicking. His stats from the 86 finals are ungodly...and he still lost badly.
You cannot give indivudals credit for teams achievements...at least not when you are talking superstars, because they didn't all play on equally good teams. I think championships won are a much better judge of role players than Superstars...
The only sort of team achievement you can judge superstars by is whether or not they got their team to the playoffs, the one thing any player deserving of the le superstar should be able to do. This is not to say teamates don't help make the playoffs of course, but one man can carry a team to the playoffs, and his impact on a game to game basis is more easy to discern in the regular seaon when teams don't attempt to take away the teams best player or keep him from making his teamates better by taking them away, every single game. There is no player in NBA history that won a championship pretty much by himself...there are however teams that made the playoffs due to one man...happens all the time in fact. Championships by Superstars are more often influenced by the changes in the supporting cast around them than the changing of the actual superstars themselves.
Or to put it another way, Robert Horry >>>>>>>>> Matt Bonner, and I feel genuinely sorry for those that cannot tell the difference.
I know, I know...Robert Horry played with Hakeem, Shaq....and Tim Duncan, and Matt Bonner didn't.
Last edited by whottt; 09-10-2009 at 01:09 PM.
Sad that I won't get the chance to see said game here in Manila.
"The Dream" was really memorable as I started following the NBA in 1995 when DRob faced him...
Don't get me wrong, Hakeem had great low post moves but I always felt he was a PF playing Center while Tim is a Center playing PF... If that makes sense.
Tim's on the downside of his career but he was and still is a tremendous player. Hakeem had some health issues that kept him from being consistently great. I'll never forget seeing him play for Toronto. That was sad.
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