<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Co-Sportsman of the Year will go down as one of the best centers ever. Based on stats, in the history of the NBA only Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Hakeem Olajuwon and Shaquille O'Neal can match Robinson as an all-around center, i.e., a pivotman who excelled in all three areas of the pivotman game. (Don't jump out of your seat -- we'll get to Bill Russell soon.) Alonzo Mourning (20.3 points, 9.8 rebounds, 3 blocks, stats that don't include his numbers from this season, which was cut short when 'Zo announced his retirement two weeks ago) and Bob Lanier (20.1 points, 10.1 rebounds) come close. Note that blocked shots were not kept when Chamberlain played but we can safely assume he would've surpassed Robinson's average. Russell outrebounded Robinson, and, as with Chamberlain, would've out-shot-blocked him. But Russell couldn't match The Admiral as a scorer. That doesn't mean I rank Robinson ahead of Russell -- it merely says that the Admiral was more of a scoring threat. Nate Thurmond, who was kind of a combination center-prototype power forward, was, like Russell, a better rebounder than Robinson but not a better scorer. Moses Malone scored and rebounded about as well as Robinson but wasn't nearly as good of a shot blocker. Patrick Ewing was as good a scorer but not quite as good a rebounder and not close to Robinson as a shot blocker. It's hard to rate George Mikan, the towering man-in-the-middle force of the NBA's first decade who averaged 22.6 points per game -- not only weren't blocked shots kept but rebounds were calculated only in his last few seasons. The point of all this is clear: Robinson is one of the best centers in history; better, on an all-around basis, than Robert Parish, Willis Reed, Bill Walton, Jack Sikma, Dave Cowens and Artis Gilmore.</div> Full Story by Jack McCallum
Undoubtedly great. I think he would have gone down as even greater had he not lost two years in his prime. Nevertheless, he had the best rookie season of the past 15 years, and not too shabby a career to go with it.
Great player,great person and a true winner.Winning the title last year in his last ever season in the NBA.You can't end your career in a better style.
I agree on him being a great person. He's the only reason why I don't hate the Spurs for defeating the Nets. But the argument stands, can he really be compared with Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Hakeem Olajuwon and Shaquille O'Neal as one of the best all-around Center? Yes, definitely.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting InNETSweTrust:</div><div class="quote_post">But the argument stands, can he really be compared with Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Hakeem Olajuwon and Shaquille O'Neal as one of the best all-around Center?</div> Of course,he has done ALOT in his career which deserves his name to be put up with the best centers of all-time.It is also difficult to compare when some played in completely different era's.Robinson and Olajuwon in their primes schooled Shaq who many feel is a top 2/3 center in the history of the game.He deserves to be in the same class as those above.
Not only did he school Shaq a couple times, and play Ewing and Olajuwon straight up in some epic battles, he was himself a very dominating force. He is one of four players ever to record a quadruple double, and one of the few to score over 70 points in a single game, and he is the ONLY PLAYER IN HISTORY to do both in his career.. I remember reading an old Beckett Basketball guide from 1990, and in it Robinson was raved about, and his rookie card was so in demand because folks thought he could be the greatest center ever. Well, he met a lot of the demands with a phenomenal rookie year, a phenomenal career that was actually dampened by his '97 season(imagine what he could have kept doing if he'd never gotten hurt; of course, then he wouldn't have had TD by his side), an MVP and two titles. Sorry, just had to rave about him for a while. The league has lost so many epic centers recently, with Ewing and Dream going out of commish, and now Admiral and Zo retiring. This is a sad time for the league, losing guys who excelled on and off the court.
