Robert Horry says Hakeem Olajuwon and not Shaquille O’Neal was the best big man he played with

[Lebron Wire]

Former Laker Robert Horry may have thrown a bit of shade at his old teammate Shaquille O'Neal while on the podcast "All The Smoke."

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[Stan.Helsing]

Well, Horry played with Hakeem, Shaq and Duncan when each was at their primes... and won titles with all three. So if Horry says Hakeem was better than the other two... can't really argue with that as he would know best.

Personally, I think Hakeem is probably the best big man to ever play the game. Best 1-on-1 skills and footwork on offense, and the best defender too. One could make arguments for putting Wilt and Kareem over him because their primes were in a different era... but he is the best big I have seen after the NBA and ABA merged. It is quite criminal that people rank guys like Shaq and Tim Duncan over Hakeem in the all-time lists. Especially Duncan, since Shaq was dominant in his own right because of his size. Duncan was like Hakeem-lite, similar to how Kobe was like Jordan-lite. Both were great players but did not peak as high as the originals. Hakeem would have burned Tim Duncan (who was too slow to keep up with Hakeem) if they came into the league at the same time, and probably would have burned him worse than he did to David Robinson.

 

[dude12]

A case can be made for each guy….and Jabbar, Wilt and Russell

 

[Chupacabra]

Key phrase is "That he played with". Olajuwon was, in fact, better than Shaq. However, it doesn't mean that Shaq wasn't more dominant over a longer period of time.

 

[SacTownKid]

Key phrase is "That he played with". Olajuwon was, in fact, better than Shaq. However, it doesn't mean that Shaq wasn't more dominant over a longer period of time.

While in some ways I think Shaq gets a littler underrated in terms of his skill, Shaq started to truly dominate once Ewing, Hakeem, and Robinson either started to faze out or break down. Vlade, Miller, Magloire, Camby, a broken down Sabonis and even Mutombo weren't a match. Although Sabonis had his moments for sure. Mourning was obviously a step under the Ewings and Olajuwons. Yao was the only real hope for competition and we know how that ended.

 

[KingsFanSince85]

We saw Olajuwon vs. Shaq in the 1995 Finals. Hakeem was 32 years old. Shaq was 23 years old and, more importantly, as fit and in the best athletic shape of his NBA career. It wasn't much of a contest. Hakeem was the superior player. On both ends of the floor.

Shaq became more dominate in the post over the years as he gained more weight, but was also slower and less agile than he was in 1995 when Hakeem got the better of him.

IMO Robert Horry is spot on with his assessment.