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Ah, the GOAT. It’s that never-ending argument that can be looked at any number of ways.
Is it the man with the most titles? Might it be the guy with the best stats? The player with the most MVPs? Some, in-our-head, combination of all these things? The argument is as subjective as it gets, and ask any number of fans from any number of different cities, and you’re sure to get a wide variety of answers.
Well, one normally business-analytics-centered website recently made an attempt to answer that question using a purely analytics-driven viewpoint, and the answer turned out to be what all of us Houston Rockets fans have known all-along: Hakeem Olajuwon is the true GOAT when the chips were down in the playoffs.
the biggest thing i dont see them taking into account is games played.
hakeem has far less games played than a lot of those guys he was compared to. hes ranked (tied) at 42nd at 145 games, but has 49 guys ahead of him when removing ties. almost every guy he was compared to has more games, and some have A LOT more games. duncan has more than 100 games more played.
as part of that, hakeem had 15 seasons in the playoffs, of those he played 5 or less playoff games 8 seasons. in perspective, robinson played in 13 playoffs and had 5 or less games 4 times. (these equate to 1st round exits)
10 or less games 10 times, robinson 5 times.
his PPG is much higher, but assists and rebounds are not terribly far off from robinson, yet DR played 5 less minutes per game average.
26/11/3 39.6 average HO
18/10.6/2.3 34.3 average DR.
thats just robinson who is an all time great but never put in any argument for GOAT.
just rockets fan site propaganda.
So I read the article and he did a decent job but it's not a purely analytics analysis because he IMO arbitrarily includes some of the 11 categories and then weights them all the same. Ranking steals, blocks for example equally with points is seriously not good imo.
There is zero consideration for making life easy on your teammates by drawing double teams or setting them up with sweet passes etc.
That's why you see Robert Horry ranking around guys like oh....Karl Malone.
Horry for example wins the Turn Over category because he spent a lot of his pro career catching and shooting in the playoffs and that gets weighted the same as points scored.
P.S. I love Olajuwon and think he's often grossly under-rated. I remember the year he went through 3-4 HOF centers en route for a championship and he was amazing. At his prime I consider him as good as anyone.
Watching Hakeem and Kobe Bryant play basketball makes me wonder why more kids coming up dont play soccer as well. Kobe played soccer until he was 14, and Hakeem played until he was 18. Respectively, their footwork was amongst the best Ive ever seen at their respective positions. They have both mentioned that there was a positive transfer of learning from soccer to basketball. Thats the thing Ill always remember about Hakeem, especially being a Knicks fan. Patrick Ewing just tripped over his own ankles on numerous occassions in the playoffs trying to guard Hakeem.
Watching Hakeem and Kobe Bryant play basketball makes me wonder why more kids coming up dont play soccer as well. Kobe played soccer until he was 14, and Hakeem played until he was 18. Respectively, their footwork was amongst the best Ive ever seen at their respective positions. They have both mentioned that there was a positive transfer of learning from soccer to basketball. Thats the thing Ill always remember about Hakeem, especially being a Knicks fan. Patrick Ewing just tripped over his own ankles on numerous occassions in the playoffs trying to guard Hakeem.
Great insight, really appreciate the post.
Steve Nash (Off memory so don't crucfy me if wrong) was a heckuva soccer player too if I recall?
Watching Hakeem and Kobe Bryant play basketball makes me wonder why more kids coming up dont play soccer as well. Kobe played soccer until he was 14, and Hakeem played until he was 18. Respectively, their footwork was amongst the best Ive ever seen at their respective positions. They have both mentioned that there was a positive transfer of learning from soccer to basketball. Thats the thing Ill always remember about Hakeem, especially being a Knicks fan. Patrick Ewing just tripped over his own ankles on numerous occassions in the playoffs trying to guard Hakeem.
Sooner than later, that may happen. I'm betting Kobe took up soccer growing up in Italy. The youth development is still way better than in the USA, though it is coming along.
Sooner than later, that may happen. I'm betting Kobe took up soccer growing up in Italy. The youth development is still way better than in the USA, though it is coming along.
Once concussion fears and college scholarships start pushing the A+ talent in the US to soccer that will all change.
Football in the US is really heading into a transformation, not sure what it is but it's coming.
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