everyone here is clearly a very committed fan of basketball. i like to think of myself as one too. and none of us can for a moment doubt that both shaq and hakeem were phenomenal talents who helped to redefine the center position during their respective eras of dominance. but, as basketball fans, we ought to appraise the type of basketball each played, and factor that into the calculus we use to evaluate arguments over who is the better player. having done this, i respectfully submit that hakeem was a better player.

this has less to do with how beautifully and effortlessly hakeem played the game (although his agility, footwork, and finesse in the post was truly unequaled), and has much more to do with the fact that shaq did not so much play basketball as he was allowed to make a mockery of its rules. throughout his career, he was permitted to violate the offensive foul rules with absolute impunity. due to his physical gifts, he was able to throw any and every defender off the court, and he regularly did. the problem is that, in basketball, a player is not supposed to be able to do that. i cannot really fault shaq for taking advantage of the leeway that the nba was all to eager to give him in disregarding rules to which every other player still had to adhere to. but i certainly think that the favorable treatment he received throughout his career should count against him when sizing him up against comparable talents who succeeded within the rules of the game. after all, if the rules were enforced against him as he played throughout his best years, he would have fouled out of the vast majority of games. i don't doubt that he would have adapted to the rules had they been enforced, but given his inability throughout his career to develop anything resembling a jumpshot, it's a fair assumption that his gaudy numbers would not look the same (especially his trademark 60% field goal percentage).

i assure you, i do not submit this as some hyper-nostalgic old-timer who is averse to the evolution of the game. rather, i think that inequitable enforcement of basic basketball rules should be taken into account.

in a very close contest, i give hakeem the nod, because he not only played incredibly well, but he played within the rules.

On an unrelated note - where does Duncan rank among all-time big men? I'm a bit tired of the "PF" designation; Duncan has played a center's role for a significant portion of his career. His game screams "center" more than those of Barkley or Malone. So for the sake of argument, let's look at "bigs" instead of separating 4s and 5s.

When Duncan is placed in the same category as Hakeem, Kareem, Wilt, Russell, and Shaq, where exactly does he rank? Anyone have any strong opinions on this?

As for Baylor in 62, he was healthy but was called up by the military; he played most of his games on weekend passes; which means he didn't have to deal with the everyday grind of 4-5 games a week; also, it's unlikely that West would've avgd 30 that year if Baylor hadn't missed 40% of the season.

We agree Anon that the Dream's regular season performance wasn't on par with Shaqs. There simply isn't anyway to look at it. But yeah AYC is right: Shaq and Hakeem were near equal offensive juggernauts in the post season. However, it must be said that Shaq's TS% and 25 PPG average was done in many more games. Still the Dream's best post season scoring performance is better than Shaq's. He averaged less minutes, but still managed to score more points (33 to 31) with a slightly better TS% (56.0 to 55.6). Pure offensive speaking, Shaq still keeps a huge edge when it comes to offensive rebounds (13.3 % to 5.6%), but Olajuwon produced an amazing-for-a-center 4.5 assists per game to Shaq's 3.1 and had a lower turnover percentage once you factor in those assists. Also then we get into the real muck of the problem: what to do about the Dream's phenomenal-but-all-too-short late 80s playoff performances?