I've seen a number of fans make the claim that Olajuwon is the best center of all time. They're wrong, but quite a few people have said it.
It could be said that the best "teammate" Olajuwon had was Clyde Drexler, although he did play with Sampson during the best part of Sampson's career.
I would not consider the 90s to be the best era for big men... you basically had 4 or 5 Hall of Fame (HOF) quality centers in the league in Shaq, Olajuwon, Ewing, Robinson and possibly Zo. Maybe Mutombo if you want to go that far. But that was IT.
In the 70s, we had Jabbar, Walton when he was healthy, Cowens, Reed, Hayes, Unseld, Thurmond, Jerry Lucas, Wilt, Walt Bellamy, Bob Lanier, Moses Malone, Bob McAdoo, plus Artis Gilmore, Dan Issel and Mel Daniels from the ABA. Not all of those guys played throughout the 70s, but they were all there during that generation.
All of the NBA guys I named are Hall of Famers, Issel is a HOF as well, but Gilmore certainly should be in there too, and even Daniels has a decent argument, although I don’t see him ever making it, unfortunately.
Olajuwon did destroy Ewing in the 94 finals, no question about that. And while ...
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Article written by Richard Tanzil
Hakeem Olajuwon: NOT The Greatest Center of All Time?!
February 23rd, 2010 by Richard Tanzil Leave a reply »
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