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.

My 9-Day Business Trip -- Top 10 Moments

I will save my pat-down experience at DFW for another Blog entry.  It didn't occur outside the U.S., and it, in any event, deserves its own entry.

10.  Met someone in Europe who sold military product to North Korea in 1988.  Discussed Kim Jung-Il's claim to have shot an 18 on an 18-hole course.

9.  Ate at an Italian restaurant where the owner knew my client -- received at least $200 worth of free food and drink (plus we paid for more than that).  Probably the friendliest restaurant experience I have ever had.

8.  Set foot in Iceland on a layover -- the forecast for the entire 10-day period was 40 and raining.  They had us walk off the plane, outside, through a steady rain, no cover, no umbrellas to a bus 30 yards away.  Unclear why they could not move the bus closer to us.  I can add that every building I saw in Iceland was made of some sort of corrugated metal.  Apparently since there are no forests on Iceland they ship in as much corrugated metal as they can. 

Reykjavik from the air resembled Madison, Wisconsin in size.

7.  Flew over the tip of Greenland on the way home -- awfully cool to see a place basically no one will ever go to.

Foreign travel features a lot of heart-stopping moments, which will be featured in items 6-5-4

6.  Reached Iceland, walked through the steady rain to the bus, entered the terminal and got in line for the flight that the board says is "London Heathrow".  About 75% of the way to the gate the sign changed to "Tel Aviv."  Now, it would be cool to go to Tel Aviv, but it is a ways from London.  I just stayed in line - F it, London or Tel Aviv here I come!  It was London.

5.  In Dublin when they give me a boarding card, unnoticed by me was that while my flight left at 3:40 p.m. the boarding card says "Gate Closes at 2:05 p.m."  I first notice this warning at 2:10 p.m. while having a snack.   I sprint to the security line, sweating profusely, hoping no one notices that I cannot go forward to the gate. No one mentions anything at all. I am at the gate by 2:18.  I stop sweating around 2:30.  I have no idea whether the "Gate Closes" time was merely advisory, an error, or just not enforced.

4.  At Gate 402, PA announcement, "For those Americans traveling to Chicago, please go to U.S. pre-screening by Gate 408."  Now:  a) I had been through pre-screening back around Gate 301; b) every video board in the place says "Chicago - Gate 402"; and c) I doubt there is even pre-screening down by Gate 408.  I walk up to the gate agent - "Um, pre-screening at Gate 408?"  Reply - what are you talking about?  "The announcement said...."  Reply - there was never any such announcement.  Walk back to my seat, confused, 4 different Americans ask me, "So, do we go down to Gate 408?"  Sorry folks, no, we are all just sharing a mass hallucination.  Stay here.


3.  I ate at a London restaurant that is considered the best/most popular new restaurant in London -- it was very good, not super awesome.  But the two things that will stick with me are:  a) every guy was 20+ years older than his date; b) every guy was a 4-6 out of 10 and his date was an 8-10.   I am not sure you could attend a Miss USA pageant and see this many beautiful women in one location.  Client had to guaranty that the table would spend 600 pounds or we couldn't get a table.

2.  I am pretty sure my town car driver on the way back was either a spy or a representative of the Russian government, but he thought I was HILARIOUS (which further aroused my suspicions).  And he also loved 1980s-90s NBA basketball.  We talked Jordan/Shaq/Barkley for 15 minutes.  At the end of the drive, he gave me his card and said, "Man, if you are ever in London again, I really want you to call and I will drive you around again.  We can talk some NBA."  The guys was like 40 years old.

1.  I met up with an old law school friend, which I always enjoy.  Her husband was SUPER pissed that his train was late and it took him 2 hours to reach the restaurant.  But he bought me dinner anyway, an offer which I probably should not have accepted so quickly (but sometimes my dad's cheapness really comes out of my DNA).

"HM, let us buy you dinner."
Me - Really?
"Sure.  Why not?"
Me - OK.

Lesson for all those who interact with me - never offer me free stuff.  I will take it.


HM

Ariana Grande Dumps Pete Davidson

http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/celebrity/inside-ariana-grande-and-pete-davidsons-split-he-is-incredibly-heartbroken-exclusive/ar-BBOqqNC?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=DELLDHP17

When I was 25, I met a woman named Jordan.  Absolutely gorgeous, absolutely a gold digger.  I always say, "We met in an elevator - she was wearing a swimsuit, and I was wearing a suit and tie.  We both saw what we really were interested in seeing."

Anyway, whatever I am, I am.  If I am in decent shape, I can be a good solid 7.  If not, well, 5.  She was a 9 or 10. 

We dated for three weeks.  Then she just absolutely dumped me.  "This is ridiculous; it is going nowhere.  We are done."  The funny thing about it is, this 3 week experience does not make anywhere near close to my 10 worst experiences with females I dated.  Why?  Well, who could possibly expect that this would ever occur.  It always hurts to be bumped, but I can tell you that in two weeks Pete Davidson will be 100% fine.  He played a starring role in the NBA.  So now he might have to go back to being a 9th man in the Spanish League, but you cannot take that brief moment of stardom away from him.

HM

22.5 Plus and 30 Plus "Game Scores" -- Who is the Best?

The idea of a "Game Score" statistic is basically to determine whether someone had a good game or not (rather than me searching through the box score, what generally would these stats, when combined, say about a player.

A Game Score is calculated as noted here   https://captaincalculator.com/sports/basketball/game-score-calculator/

That calculator will also allow you to plug in some standard values for a player and figure out what that guy is probably doing on a nightly basis.  For example, LeBron so uniformly goes 27-7-7 with a steal and a block that the people have lobbied to have the 27-7-7 part called a "LeBron."  So if you plug in those values and have him shoot 50% from the floor and 70% from the line and turn it over 4 times, that is a 20.1 Game Score.

It is fair to say that a typical LeBron "Game Score" would be pretty welcome news to any coach in the league for any guy he had.  The inventor of Game Score says he intended for 10 to be a "good" starter Game Score.  I would consider the scale (based upon reviews I have done) to be as follows:

Good bench Game Score - 7
OK Starter Game Score - 10
Good Night for a Starter - 15
Very Good - 22,5
Outstanding (top 2 in the league that night) - 30
Superstar Level (rare for even great players) - 40
Call the Media - 50
Historically great 60 (it has happened 3 times)


With that as a baseline, I considered this question -- what NBA greats have had the most 22.5+ and 30+ games, and, more importantly, what percentage of their overall games were at these levels?

There were 23 guys who appeared on at least one of the "most total games" lists, limited to the top 20 in either category.

Of these 23 guys, here are how they did in percentage of regular season games over 22.5 Game Score

1.  Jordan 53%
James 51.3%
Durant 41.1%
Barkley 38.5%
David Robinson 35.6%
Karl Malone 35.5%
Larry Bird 34.3%
Shaq 34%
Hakeem 33.6%
Harden 33.5%
Curry 33.3%
Magic 33.2%
Iverson 31.2%
Nique 30.55%
Westbrook 30.3%
CP3 - 30%
Kobe 29.9%
Wade 29.8%
Clyde Drexler 25.7%
Dirk 21.5%
Stockton 20.2%
Garnett 19.9%
Duncan 19.3%

So, we should probably stop here.  Basketball-reference.com has records back to 1980.  So Bird and Magic are all in.  Kareem only gets the declining part of his career, Wilt, Oscar, West, Mikan, Pettit get nothing. 

And what we see is that Good Team Defense is not generally rewarded (Duncan, KG, Stockton, Wade, Kobe, CP3 all plus defenders) while big scoring generally is rewarded (Iverson and Dominique Wilkins are not better players than KG or Duncan). 

But, if you do a grading curve and say 10% get A's, 25% get B's, 35% get C's, 20% get Ds and 10% get Fs, you'd have

2 As - Jordan, James,
1 A minus -- Durant

1 B+ Barkley

6 Bs -- David, Karl, Bird, Shaq, Hakeem, Harden

8 Cs - Curry, Magic, Iverson, Nique, Westbrook, CP3, Kobe, Wade

1 D+  Drexler

2 Ds - Dirk, Stockton

1 D minus - Garnett

1 F - Duncan



On the 30 Plus Game Score, Michael Jordan so completely dominates this stat that he gets an A+ and literally no one else deserves an A.  Michael destroys the curve.

1 A plus -- Jordan 24%
1 B+ - James 14.3%

8 Bs - Barkley 13.2%, Harden 12.95%, Bird 12.5%, David 11.6%, Curry 11.4%, Durant and Hakeem 10.5%, Shaq 10.3%

5 Cs - Magic 9.7%, Karl Malone 9.4%, Iverson 8.9%, Westbrook 8.8%, Kobe 8.3%

4 D's -- Wade & Nique 7.8%, Clyde 7.5%, CP3 7.3%

4 Fs -- Dirk, Stockton, KG, Duncan (all under 4%).



The lesson here is that a Game Score of 30 is pretty rare, even for great players.  Jordan did it every 4 games, James every 7 games, but generally doing it even once out of every  8 games is pretty awesome and every 10 games is hard to do even for all-time greats.


If you drop down to 15+ as a Game Score, you will see that Jordan and James and Durant all are "good" or better 80% of the time (Jordan and James 81%, Durant 79%).  Charles and Karl are in the 70s and then everyone else is in the 60s or 50s.  Remarkably, Bird only had a 15+ Game Score 53% of the time, next to last after Stockton (50%).

 
We can examine that another time, but what is the answer here?  Who are the best and most consistent in the 22.5 and 30 Game Scores?

The guys who are top 12 players in those categories combined:

12th - Magic (ekes in, by far the least consistent of these 12)
11th - Shaq
10th - Curry (wins tie with Shaq as Curry has a 7th place v. Shaq's 8th)
9th - Karl Malone
8th -- Hakeem
7th - Harden
6th - Durant
5th - David Robinson
4th - Bird
3rd - Barkley
2nd - James
1st - Jordan

Upside surprises - Harden, David, Barkley

Downside surprises - Kobe, Russ, CP3.