Best Big Men to Ever Play the Game

[MEbenhoe]

Also worth noting. To win those two titles, Hakeem had to go up against Patrick Ewing and Shaq in their primes in the finals. In the Spurs three championships Duncan has had to contend with a frontcourt of Kurt Thomas and an aging declining Patrick Ewing with the help of David Robinson, Jason Collins, and Ben Wallace.

Hakeem during his career had to match up with the likes of Shaq, David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, Dikembe Mutombo, Mark Eaton, Moses Malone, and probably even more that I'm forgetting all in their primes. The only top big men in their primes Duncan has ever had to face are Shaq and Garnett. And yet Hakeem still comes out looking better on the stat sheet.

[Pudge714]

Assani,
Your group A group B thing is really dumb.
It works under the assumption they will be equally distributed.
Also a lot of the players in group B still haven't finished there careers.
Also since you gave specifics there is no need to break it up into generalities and I can directly say, I think player 20 is better than player 15 for x,y,z.

When you use titles as a measure and it is a horrible measure imo. You have to factor in that people like Bird had better supporting casts, but also had better teams like the Showtime Lakers to compete with. Eliminating, which teams have better supporting casts than the Spurs if you eliminate there respective best players not that many. You say that Duncan has 2 teammates in the 30-45 group, which would give the spurs a total of three player in the top 50 in the league. According to your list only Phoenix has that, I think I may have misread that.

[THAY3R]

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Championships mean absolutely nothing in terms of how good an individual player is. Until you understand that, having a discussion on this is pointless.

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Nothing?? Are you serious? Absolutely nothing?

Winning means a lot. And you're wrong...in basketball one player can definitely make a team contenders by himself.

Name your 10 best players of all time...how many of them havn't won a championship? The point you're missing is that I'm not just going by titles. If Hakeem had constantly gotten to the Finals but lost, then I'd give him more credit. I'm not just talking about championships, but winning overall.

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This is such a flawed statement.

If Hakeem's team was less "one dimensional" and it wasn't "just Hakeem", if he had a better supporting cast, he WOULD win more, make the finals more, win more titles, etc.

[kidcolin]

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Championships mean absolutely nothing in terms of how good an individual player is. Until you understand that, having a discussion on this is pointless.

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As much as Assani gets criticized for cherry picking stats, people love to twist things he says to make a point against him. He refutes Vyse's bad "KG wins the sabermetric battle" with PER (which I made as well, in addition to other stats), and then we get a whole page of "lol use PER here ignore it with Nash." He was making a really simple point. Now, he's said time and time again he's concerned with winning, and people keep coming back with "LOL championships."

Furthermore, like Clark said, it's a better barometer in the NBA than anywhere else. One player really makes a difference. How many all time greats haven't won one? Just off the top of my head Barkley is the only one that springs to mind (I'm sure I'm missing some), but he got to the finals and had a team good enough to win one against arguably the greatest team ever. It is somewhat of a biased stat because when a team gets hold of an All Time Great they usually do their best to build a contender around them (lol Minnesota). Also, ATG's also have the pull to move to a contender, usually a place with drawing power (Kareem to the Lakers, for example). But still, the list of ATGs without rings is a short one.

I think Assani is wrong here, but I don't think it's worth getting worked up about. If Duncan manages another 3-4 years of current level production (next year will be a strong indication if he's declining or not), he'll be very close to Hakeem, though I'd still give the Dream the nod.

[Assani Fisher]

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Also worth noting. To win those two titles, Hakeem had to go up against Patrick Ewing and Shaq in their primes in the finals. In the Spurs three championships Duncan has had to contend with a frontcourt of Kurt Thomas and an aging declining Patrick Ewing with the help of David Robinson, Jason Collins, and Ben Wallace.

Hakeem during his career had to match up with the likes of Shaq, David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, Dikembe Mutombo, Mark Eaton, Moses Malone, and probably even more that I'm forgetting all in their primes. The only top big men in their primes Duncan has ever had to face are Shaq and Garnett. And yet Hakeem still comes out looking better on the stat sheet.

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LOL....your analysis is so ridiculously one sided here. It simply isn't even worth debating if you're going to go about it like this. Seriously, I just love how you include Mark Eaton for Olajuwon but then don't include Ben Wallace for Duncan. Thats just ridiculous.

First off, Shaq wasn't in his prime when Hakeem faced him.

Secondly, Shaq in his prime(when Duncan faced him) was better than anyone Hakeem ever faced, and KG was probably better than anyone Hakeem ever faced either!

Here, lets match up players that were/are in their prime during Duncan's career versus players that were in their primes during Hakeem's career. I'll leave it up to you to decide which one was better in each matchup. I'll list Duncan's on the right and Hakeem's on the left:

D Robinson/Shaq
Moses Malone/KG
Ewing/Amare
Alonzo/Dwight Howard
Mutombo/Chris Bosh
Eaton/Ben Wallace

Like I said, I'll let you compare the matchups, but if you honestly think that the left side is better than the right, then you're crazy. Moreover, I didn't even mention Gasol, Camby, Chandler, Yao Ming, Okafor, or Jermaine O Neal!

[Assani Fisher]

[ QUOTE ]
Assani,
Your group A group B thing is really dumb.
It works under the assumption they will be equally distributed.
Also a lot of the players in group B still haven't finished there careers.
Also since you gave specifics there is no need to break it up into generalities and I can directly say, I think player 20 is better than player 15 for x,y,z.

When you use titles as a measure and it is a horrible measure imo. You have to factor in that people like Bird had better supporting casts, but also had better teams like the Showtime Lakers to compete with. Eliminating, which teams have better supporting casts than the Spurs if you eliminate there respective best players not that many. You say that Duncan has 2 teammates in the 30-45 group, which would give the spurs a total of three player in the top 50 in the league. According to your list only Phoenix has that, I think I may have misread that.

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The entire point of Group A vs Group B was to show that I wasn't biased. Do you really think I'm biased regarding the players of today versus the players of yesteryear?

Yes, Duncan has 3 players in the top 50. That is good, but it certainly isn't greatest of all time worthy. And no, in addittion to Phoenix I also think that Chicago and Detroit have 3 in the top 50.

You're now again going with the "yes he had a weaker supporting cast, but his opponents were weaker also" defense...I simply don't think its true. Look at the years that Hakeem won and compare the other teams. Then do the same for Duncan's wins. Teams like Shaq's Lakers, Nash's Suns, Dirk's Mavs, those stacked Blazers and Kings teams, and so on were just as good as any teams in Hakeem's title years imo.

[MEbenhoe]

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First off, Shaq wasn't in his prime when Hakeem faced him.

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lol at Shaq's 92-93 through 97-98 stats of 23.4/13.9, 29.3/13.2, 29.3/11.4, 26.6/11.0, 26.2/12.5, and 28.3/11.4 not being in his prime.


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Here, lets match up players that were/are in their prime during Duncan's career versus players that were in their primes during Hakeem's career. I'll leave it up to you to decide which one was better in each matchup. I'll list Duncan's on the right and Hakeem's on the left:

D Robinson/Shaq
Moses Malone/KG
Ewing/Amare
Alonzo/Dwight Howard
Mutombo/Chris Bosh
Eaton/Ben Wallace

Like I said, I'll let you compare the matchups, but if you honestly think that the left side is better than the right, then you're crazy. Moreover, I didn't even mention Gasol, Camby, Chandler, Yao Ming, Okafor, or Jermaine O Neal!

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You suffer greatly from a recency effect. First of all not including Shaq for Hakeem is ridiculous. So your comparisons should actually look like:

Shaq/Shaq = push
D Robinson/KG = Robinson is better
Moses Malone/Amare = Moses
Ewing/Dwight Howard = Ewing
Alonzo/Bosh = hard to tell because bosh is still so young but taking them both at that point in their career its a push
Eaton/Ben Wallace = I'll give you a push although I think Wallace's defensive prowess is a bit overrated
Mutombo/Any of the guys on your list except probably Yao after a couple more good years = Mutombo

[Assani Fisher]

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First off, Shaq wasn't in his prime when Hakeem faced him.

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lol at Shaq's 92-93 through 97-98 stats of 23.4/13.9, 29.3/13.2, 29.3/11.4, 26.6/11.0, 26.2/12.5, and 28.3/11.4 not being in his prime.


[ QUOTE ]
Here, lets match up players that were/are in their prime during Duncan's career versus players that were in their primes during Hakeem's career. I'll leave it up to you to decide which one was better in each matchup. I'll list Duncan's on the right and Hakeem's on the left:

D Robinson/Shaq
Moses Malone/KG
Ewing/Amare
Alonzo/Dwight Howard
Mutombo/Chris Bosh
Eaton/Ben Wallace

Like I said, I'll let you compare the matchups, but if you honestly think that the left side is better than the right, then you're crazy. Moreover, I didn't even mention Gasol, Camby, Chandler, Yao Ming, Okafor, or Jermaine O Neal!

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You suffer greatly from a recency effect. First of all not including Shaq for Hakeem is ridiculous. So your comparisons should actually look like:

Shaq/Shaq = push
D Robinson/KG = Robinson is better
Moses Malone/Amare = Moses
Ewing/Dwight Howard = Ewing
Alonzo/Bosh = hard to tell because bosh is still so young but taking them both at that point in their career its a push
Eaton/Ben Wallace = I'll give you a push although I think Wallace's defensive prowess is a bit overrated
Mutombo/Any of the guys on your list except probably Yao after a couple more good years = Mutombo

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I don't believe you're serious. Honestly, I 100% do not believe that you believe what you just wrote.

[MEbenhoe]

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The entire point of Group A vs Group B was to show that I wasn't biased. Do you really think I'm biased regarding the players of today versus the players of yesteryear?

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If your list of great players is equally distributed between players drafted 1986 and after and players drafted before then, then yes you are very biased regarding players of today versus players of yesteryear.

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Yes, Duncan has 3 players in the top 50. That is good, but it certainly isn't greatest of all time worthy. And no, in addittion to Phoenix I also think that Chicago and Detroit have 3 in the top 50.

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Garnett has 0 other players in the top 50, Hakeem had 0 or 1 at best other top 50 players on his team when he won his two titles, and for most of his career never had much help in Houston.

[MEbenhoe]

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First off, Shaq wasn't in his prime when Hakeem faced him.

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lol at Shaq's 92-93 through 97-98 stats of 23.4/13.9, 29.3/13.2, 29.3/11.4, 26.6/11.0, 26.2/12.5, and 28.3/11.4 not being in his prime.


[ QUOTE ]
Here, lets match up players that were/are in their prime during Duncan's career versus players that were in their primes during Hakeem's career. I'll leave it up to you to decide which one was better in each matchup. I'll list Duncan's on the right and Hakeem's on the left:

D Robinson/Shaq
Moses Malone/KG
Ewing/Amare
Alonzo/Dwight Howard
Mutombo/Chris Bosh
Eaton/Ben Wallace

Like I said, I'll let you compare the matchups, but if you honestly think that the left side is better than the right, then you're crazy. Moreover, I didn't even mention Gasol, Camby, Chandler, Yao Ming, Okafor, or Jermaine O Neal!

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You suffer greatly from a recency effect. First of all not including Shaq for Hakeem is ridiculous. So your comparisons should actually look like:

Shaq/Shaq = push
D Robinson/KG = Robinson is better
Moses Malone/Amare = Moses
Ewing/Dwight Howard = Ewing
Alonzo/Bosh = hard to tell because bosh is still so young but taking them both at that point in their career its a push
Eaton/Ben Wallace = I'll give you a push although I think Wallace's defensive prowess is a bit overrated
Mutombo/Any of the guys on your list except probably Yao after a couple more good years = Mutombo

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I don't believe you're serious. Honestly, I 100% do not believe that you believe what you just wrote.

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What part do you not agree with?