Faced better competition or beat better competition?
I don't like casting shade on the Dream because he's one of my 3-4 favorite players of all time, and I have him ranked higher than most people do (definitely top-10, possibly challenging for as high as #5). But the truth is that nearly all his playoff success came during the weakest era in the last 30 years. Between 1988 and 1995 the NBA added SIX expansion teams, and it wasn't like the NBA (especially not the West) had been stacked with talent even before then. Most of the great teams of the era were a superstar, an all-star sidekick, and some role players. Hakeem's Finals teams all had a solid #2 (Ralph Sampson, Otis Thorpe, and Clyde Drexler) and the two times he won, his role players were solid too. Hakeem's great playoff victories were more like him taking on another superstar one-on-one or leading his role players better than the other superstar did. He wasn't beating great teams 1-on-5 or winning "single-handedly" like people make it out to be today.
And outside those two runs, he's got almost nothing. 11 out of the other 16 years, the Dream never made it out of the first round. 14 out of 16, he didn't make it past the second.
Warriors, Mavs, Lakers, Sonics, Jazz, Clippers - nearly everyone in the West beat Hakeem, and not always with their best teams. In 1992 he missed the playoffs despite Thorpe having an all-star year and Kenny Smith/Vernon Maxwell in their prime putting in 31 and 11 as the starting backcourt. That Rockets team got beat out by weak Laker and Clipper squads for the last slot. In the expansion era, in his prime, with Magic retired, with an all-star on his team, he couldn't make the playoffs. In 1987 his Rockets got beat by an awful Sonics team that only won 39 games that year....and in 1989 the McDaniel/Ellis Sonics beat them again. Most of those squads never beat anyone else either - do you even remember the Mavs and Clippers rosters from that era? When has Lebron EVER lost to an unremarkable team? Even when he was carrying scrubs, nothing short of a serious title contender has ever taken him out.
Lebron has 30 playoff series victories. Hakeem only has 16 even though he played 5 more years than Lebron has so far, and half those wins were in that one two-year stretch in '94-'95 when the NBA was full of expansion teams AND Magic had retired early AND Jordan had retired early. Imagine a weak league, then dilute it with expansion, then erase the two biggest superstars. That's why there wasn't a single dominant team in that two-year stretch that Hakeem ran through the playoffs twice. The best team he beat was....?
Take the teams that Lebron took out (the 73-win Warriors, the 62-win Bulls, the 60-win Hawks, the 58-win Spurs, and the 58-win Thunder). Hakeem doesn't have five playoff victories that stack up to those. And it wasn't like Lebron has only beat five real teams and everyone else was a bunch of scrubs - there were another 5-6 teams (pick who you want from the 2007 Pistons, 2011 and 2012 Celtics, 2015 Bulls, 2012 and 2013 and 2014 Pacers) who were actual threats to the rosters that Lebron was carrying against them. You don't win 30 playoff series in only 13 years in a stacked era without proving you can beat real competition.
Yeah, same era where Clyde "I look at the ground when I dribble (right hand only) and launch broke-ass line-drive jumpers" Drexler could average 25-27ppg is an era that would really stifle Lebron.
Last edited:
What?
nikkas literally just look da thread title and hit reply. fukk readin what's actually posted in da thread. 
