The golden era of NBA big men might be over, but players like Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid give some old-school fans a little joy with their supreme technical ability in a seven-foot frame.
Robert Horry played with Shaquille O’Neal, Tim Duncan, and Hakeem Olajuwon, winning seven championships in his career on teams with each of them. He picked Hakeem to be the best out of the bunch in a recent appearance on ‘All The Smoke; with Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes.
“In all the teams I played for, the one common thing was big men. Think about Shaq, Tim Duncan, and if you said right now, ‘Name the top five big men, I played with three of them. Dream (Hakeem Olajuwon) is number one by far. Nobody wants to talk about it. I think you have these guys who are quiet, like Dream is a quiet guy, you can’t get him to do much, to say much. Sometimes, we veer away from him, we don’t talk about him. But to me, if you look at what he put together. Defensive Player of the Year and MVP in one season, all-time shot blocker, those things that you look at his history and what he’s done for the game. This dude didn’t play basketball growing up. We all went to college where they teach you. In UoH, they rolled the ball out and let him get to work. His body of work was just incredible. He’s a good dude too.”
Robert Horry says he’s taking Hakeem over Shaq and Duncan
(Via @shobasketball) pic.twitter.com/29qcpqw3pI
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) May 30, 2023
Horry was never a superstar in the NBA, averaging 7.0 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 2.1 assists over his career. But you don’t get role-players better than him when you look back at history. There’s a reason seven championship teams wanted him, and it’s because he was a prototypical 3-and-D rotation player before the position became a necessity for modern NBA teams.
Horry is also affectionately known as ‘Big Shot Bob’ for his incredible track record with hitting game-winners or game-tying shots when his team needs him the most.
Hakeem Olajuwon Was Special
Hakeem Olajuwon was drafted No. 1 in the 1984 Draft, two picks ahead of Michael Jordan. Even though MJ went No. 3, nobody says Hakeem was a bad pick because of everything he went on to achieve in the sport. He averaged 21.8 points, 11.1 rebounds, 3.1 blocks, and 2.5 assists over his career and is widely considered one of the greatest defenders the game has ever seen. He also changed how big-men play in the post with his signature ‘Dream Shake’, a move that modern big men use quite often.
His impact on the game is understated because he couldn’t win titles or even face Jordan in the NBA Finals during the ’90s. But the two seasons MJ didn’t make the Finals in his prime, Hakeem swooped in and won back-to-back championships, cementing himself as the greatest Rockets’ player ever and earning the respect of players like Horry and Shaq himself to call him the greatest big man in the game’s history.
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