This is the second part in my series in which I prove that Hakeem Olajuwon was far from overrated. In my first post we examined how Hakeem performed well in his first round playoff series and was not to blame for said exits. In this post, we are going to look at the fact that Hakeem didn’t make an All NBA first team numerous times in his prime.
Hakeem didn’t make the All-NBA first team many times for a great number of reasons. Let’s look at it year by year. Remember, as we will see these types of honors are far from everything:
1990: Patrick Ewing made the All-NBA first team over Hakeem, but this was misjudged. Ewing put up 28.6 – 10.9 – 2.2 – 1.0 – 4.0 on 55.1% shooting. Impressive numbers no doubt. Here’s how Hakeem did: 24.3 – 14.0 – 2.9 – 2.1 – 4.6 on 50.1% shooting. Hakeem won both the rebounding and blocks crown, both incredibly difficult feats in and of themselves, and are even more difficult to do once one considers that Hakeem did both in a season. Ewing scored more on better efficiency, but Hakeem was the better Rebounder, Passer, and overall defender this season. Outside of basic stats Hakeem led the league in Defensive Rating, Defensive Box Plus/Minus, and Defensive Win Shares. Ewing didn't league the league in the anything.
1991: Ewing would make the All-NBA second team at Center and David Robinson would make the 1st team. However, Hakeem missed 26 games, yet still made an All-NBA team, which is very difficult to do. After missing 26 games, there was absolutely no way he was going to make the All-NBA first team. Additionally, one must remember, in today’s league that is severely lacking in big men, any one of those 3 Centers would be All-NBA first team. Despite injuries let’s look at how each big man faired:
Hakeem: 21.2 – 13.8 – 2.3 – 2.2 – 3.9 on 50.8% shooting. Hakeem won his second consecutive blocks crown in this season as well.
Ewing: 25.0 – 10.5 – 2.8 – 0.9 – 3.0 on 51.4% shooting
David: 25.6 – 13.0 – 2.5 – 1.5 – 3.9 on 55.2% shooting
With Ewing only missing one game and Robinson playing all 82 games, leading the other two in scoring, and being the rebounding champ it’s not hard to see why they placed Robinson first and Ewing second. Had Hakeem been healthy he very well may have made the All-NBA first team.
1992: Hakeem does not make a single All-NBA team, but as aforementioned he missed 12 games this season and his team did not make the playoffs. Without Hakeem the Rockets were 2-10 on the season, which is lottery bound at a 13-69 pace, which would have been one of the worst records in NBA history. Without David Robinson (who was All-NBA first team) this season, the Spurs were 5-9, so there is a case to be made that Hakeem was more valuable to his teams' success than Robinson. The Rockets allowed 8.4 less ppg in the games Hakeem played in vs the games he missed. According to a study I have done which I plan on posting later, this is one of the biggest point differences ever.
1993: Hakeem, healthy again, makes the All-NBA first team.
1994: Same
1995: Robinson wins MVP over him and Shaq gets the 2nd team nod over Hakeem because of his amazing regular season. However, in the playoffs where it actually matters, Hakeem outplayed both of them.
1995 WCF vs. Robinson:
Hakeem: 35.3 – 12.5 – 5.0 – 1.3 – 4.2 on 56.0% shooting
Big Dave: 23.8 – 11.3 – 2.7 – 1.5 – 2.2 on 44.9% shooting
Hakeem absolutely outplayed Robinson here in his MVP season.As a Spurs fan, this series really hurts to watch.
1995 NBA Finals vs. Shaq:
Hakeem: 32.8 – 11.5 – 5.5 – 2.0 – 2.0 on 48.3% shooting
Shaq: 28.0 – 12.5 – 6.3 – 0.3 – 2.5 on 59.5% shooting
Shaq barely had more rebounds, assists, and blocks than Hakeem but Hakeem had much more points and steals than Shaq. Additionally, Hakeem forced Shaq into many many TO’s, causing him to turn the ball over 5.3 times per game, so Hakeem’s Assist to TO ratio was better than Shaq’s. Additionally, Shaq may have gotten more blocks but Hakeem out defended him overall, and Hakeem outscored Shaq in every game of the Finals.
1996: David Robinson beat out Hakeem for the first team and I believe that this was justified. But overall, this is understandable as this was one of the best seasons (maybe even his personal best season) Robinson ever had. To put into perspective how good Big Dave’s season was, he posted a PER of 29.4, a mark that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (whom many consider the GOAT C) only topped once in his career, which was in his 3rd season before he reached his peak. This could have been because the league was not as strong in 1972 as it would be in the later years of the 70’s, and certainly wasn’t as strong as the 80’s and 90’s were. That is of course not to say that Robinson had a greater peak than either Hakeem or Kareem, but it is to show how great of a season Robinson had. Robinson’s PER was so good in fact that it even led the league, despite Michael Jordan (debatably) having his best season and leading the Bulls to a 72-win season. Lastly, Robinson led the Spurs to be #3 in defensive rating that season, yet when he was injured for basically the entirety of the ’97 season the Spurs were dead last in the league in defensive rating.
1985-1986 seasons
Some would even claim that Hakeem should have made the All-NBA first teams in his first two seasons in the league. I do think this is unfair, since Hakeem was not in his prime. Despite this, we will see that Hakeem actually deserved to be All-NBA first team in the '86 season.
After posting a fantastic rookie season, Hakeem really stepped it up in his second season. In the playoffs he led a decent but far from great cast to the NBA Finals, where they pushed the greatest team of all-time (1986 Celtics) to 6 games. Hakeem led the Rockets in 4/5 of the basic categories in the Finals, which up to this point no Center had ever done. On the way to the Finals the Rockets dethroned the reigning champ Lakers, who featured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Abdul-Jabbar got the All-NBA first team nod over Hakeem, yet Hakeem thoroughly outplayed Kareem in the 1986 WCF. Here are their statlines:
Hakeem: 31.0 – 11.2 – 2.0 – 2.2 – 4.0 with 1.4 TO’s per game and a True Shooting % of .584.
Kareem: 27.0 – 6.8 – 3.4 – 0.8 – 2.4 with 3.8 TO’s per game and a True Shooting % of .528.
Not only did Hakeem best Kareem statistically, but he was more clutch as well. The Lakers were up 1-0 in the series with a chance to go up 2-0. Here’s how the two player’s faired in this pivotal game:
Hakeem: 22 – 13 – 2 – 4 – 6 with 1 TO and a TS% of .477.
Kareem: 21 – 4 – 2 – 2 – 1 with 4 TO’s and a TS% of .346.
The Rockets tied the series with this win.
With a chance to go up 2-1, here’s how they faired:
Hakeem: 40 – 12 – 3 – 2 – 2 with 2 TO’s and a TS% of .578.
Kareem: 33 – 4 – 6 – 0 – 5 with 3 TO’s and a TS% of .559.
The Rockets would take control of the series 2-1.
Hakeem once again outplayed Kareem in game 4 to take a commanding 3-1 lead. In Game 5, the Lakers needed a win to keep their back-to-back dreams alive. Hakeem outscored Kareem and out defended him, forcing Kareem to 7 TO’s.
Hakeem outplayed Kareem through and through, proving that he deserved the All-NBA 1st team nod over Kareem, despite only being 23 years old. What really seals the deal is that Kareem had a better supporting cast than Hakeem did, yet the Rockets won through Hakeems leadership.
Conclusion
Hakeem may not have been All-NBA first team many times in his prime, but with the exception of 1 season (1996) Hakeem was either injured or the All-NBA C’s in front of him were misguided picks. In a few seasons Hakeem proved that he was the leagues’ best Center in the playoffs by out playing the other Centers that were ahead of him, including: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O’Neal, and David Robinson. I can’t think of any other Center that outplayed that many All-time great Centers during the course of their career. If anything, Hakeem is underrated since so few talk about this, and as a result is anything but overrated.
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