Getty The Philadelphia 76ers will head to LA to face the Lakers Tuesday.
NBA fans were spoiled with centers in the 90s. Shaquille O’Neal, David Robinson, Patrick Ewing and Hakeem Olajuwon were the crem of the crop.
Before them, there was Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Houston Rockets Hall Of Famer, Hakeem Olajuwon was heavily underrated during his career and is a top 5 NBA center.
Don’t @ Me!
And today? Today’s big man in the NBA is a bit of a novelty.
Anthony Davis, Karl-Anthony Towns, DeAndre Ayton and Joel Embiid easily come to mind, but they’re more big men that can dribble, shoot and post up.
The traditional big man is extinct in some folks mind.
“I think it’s going to come back to that,” Ray Allen told me via Scoop B Radio.
Joel Embiid is a hybrid big man into today’s NBA. He shoots jumpers, plays in the post and rebounds for a Philadelphia 76ers team that currently sits at 39-26 and is in sixth place in the NBA’s Eastern Conference standings.
His footwork is pretty decent. I see a comparison to Houston Rockets legend, Hakeem Olajuwon.
In 17 seasons, Olajuwon averaged 21 points and 11 rebounds per game.
During a recent episode of the Scoop B Radio Podcast, retired NBA vet and former Olajuwon teammate, Tracy Murray tells me that he doesn’t see a comparison between the two and that Embiid would be no match against Olajuwon in his prime.
Check out a snippet from our Q&A below:
Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson: Yeah. And you brought up something. Number one: when you look at that 90’s era of basketball, to me I think we were spoiled. We had David Robinson at the big man position. You had Hakeem, I mean hey, Robert Parrish played until ’96. He was on that Bulls championship team…
Tracy Murray: Robert Parrish! He was a legend too –
Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson: When you look at today’s NBA, some people compare Joel Embiid to Hakeem Olajuwon. Joel Embiid is more of a more of a hybrid of Hakeem and Chris Webber in one. When you see Joel Embiid, do you see anybody else in today’s game that reminds you of Hakeem Olajuwon?
Tracy Murray: I don’t see anybody else and honestly you know, Hakeem in his prime would DESTROY Embiid in my opinion. You know, I may be wrong, I think Embiid is a great player, I think he has a lot of tools, he can do a lot. Dream I think was quicker. More athletic. I see Embiid, he’s strong, he can run the court, but I’ve seen Dream like actually outsprint guards down the court and dunk the ball. His Dream shakes were quick. It’ll have you jumping all over the place and you try to assume where he’s going, he feels you on his back and goes the other way. There were no double teams that could do anything with him. He was scoring on double teams, splitting double teams with the Dream Shake. If you were slow, he would face you up and go to the dribble. No different than Embiid. Embiid has three point range. Back then bigs didn’t have to have three point range. They were told to stay inside. I think if there was an emphasis on bigs back then stepping out and shooting threes, I think Kareem would’ve developed a three, I think Dream would’ve developed a three, I think Pat Ewing would’ve developed a three because they could already shoot the basketball. It’s just different eras. It’s hard to compare eras. It really is. That’s why I’m saying no shade to these guys because they’re all great in their own right. It’s just hard to compare eras because it was a different style of play, it’s a difference the way officials call the games nowadays. You can’t touch anybody. So imagine not being able to touch Michael Jordan. Imagine not being able to touch Hakeem Olajuwon. Clyde Drexler. Rod Strickland. Any of these greats – Shoot, Karl Malone. As physical as he was, imagine not being able to touch him as much as he went to the free throw line in the physical era. Imagine him not being touched and all the fouls he would draw in this era.
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