The Weird Trend to Overrate Hakeem Olajuwon in All-Time Rankings

Look, I have Hakeem in my top 20 players of all-time.  But the recent lists I have seen from younger guys all seem to put Hakeem as a top 10 or even (egad) top 5 player of all-time.

While overrating a great player such as Hakeem is nowhere near the sin that wildly overrating merely good players is (like Isiah Thomas and Kevin McHale - another recent trend, I see many lists with these guys ranked above Bob Pettit), I really cannot understand the trend.

First, it appears that the "Dream Shake" really has the young guys excited.  Yes, Hakeem had a move that no one else has been able to exactly duplicate since.  Great.  So did George Gervin with his extreme finger roll and Bernard King with his half-beat jumper.  OK,  Does not make you a top 5 or top 10 player.

To place Hakeem as a top 10 player, you'd need to place him above guys like Bird, Magic and Bill Russell.  If you look at the stat "MVP Award Shares" - Bird has 5.6, Magic 5.1, Russell 4.7.  Haleem is 19th with 2.61, slightly behind Bob Pettit's 2.67.

Hakeem was only consider by voters to be a top 3 MVP candidate...........twice.  1992-93 and 1993-94.  The year David supposedly "stole" his MVP, Hakeem actually finished 5th in MVP balloting.  He never led the league in Win Shares or WS/48, he never led the league in VORP.  He is not in the top 10 all-time in any of these stats.

The true argument that should be raging for or against Hakeem is whether he deserves to be higher on the all-time list than Bob Pettit, Moses Malone and/or David Robinson.  This is the strata of player that Hakeem should be compared with.  There is nothing at all in his record (either peak level or consistency over time) that suggests that he should be a top 10 or top 5 player.

So why the sudden surge in overrating?  I would imagine it is because the young guys know that when Michael retired Hakeem won an MVP and won two titles.  Well, the 1994 Rockets would have lost to a pretty average Knicks team had John Starks been able to make any wide open shot.  And the 1995 Magic just collapsed after Nick Anderson blew game one by going 0-4 in the closing seconds of the game.  Neither the Knicks nor the Magic were dynasties or dynasties in the making.  Second, Michael Jordan has reportedly been recorded as saying that he feared Hakeem because he knew he couldn't stop him.  That seems like an odd comment for Jordan to make, so it was probably just a subtle intended slam at some other player. 

Of all-time playoff performers, Hakeem is 15th in Playoff Win Shares and tied for 16th in WS/48:  http://bkref.com/tiny/kBCEW  Of First-team all-NBA players, Hakeem has the 20th most Win Shares as a First-team all-NBA player:  http://bkref.com/tiny/VpDUu  Again, admirable.  But when you have 73 Win Shares as an all-NBA player and Magic and Bird have over 120, how do you get ranked higher on all-time lists than they do?  Because you were greater for a short period of time?  That is not true either. Bird had 2 seasons better than Hakeem's best season; Magic had 4. Moses Malone had 4 seasons where he finished in the top 2 of MVP balloting, including three wins. 

If we are judging players by team playoff success (an area where John Stockton and Karl Malone generally get killed in ratings) Hakeem's teams' career record in playoff series was 16-13.  In 94 and 95 he was a combined 8-0, so the entire remainder of his career he was 8-13, including 9 first round exits and 3 failures to make the playoffs (including 1991-92 where Hakeem was 29 years old).

Stop and consider that for a second -- Hakeem played 18 seasons; his team reached the second round of the playoffs or better in only 6 of those seasons.  Imagine the torching LeBron James would receive if two out of every three years his team was sitting home by Round 2.  he would not be considered by some worthy of being even a top 50 player.  Chris Paul has played 14 seasons and made the second round or better 5 times.

 Karl Malone and Stockton were together for a 16 win and 18 loss playoff series record, and Karl added 3 wins and a loss for the 03-04 Lakers, so Karl was 19-19 in playoff series. Hakeem is not appreciably better.

(Bird's teams, BTW, 24-10 in playoff series).


So, anyway, I have no problem with Hakeem as a top 20 or even arguably top 15 player.  He is not a top 10 player and certainly has no good argument to be a top 5 player.  Let's PLEASE put an end to this one, and then we can move on to address the ridiculous overrating of Isiah and McHale.