<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Locke:</div><div class="quote_post">He was playing more of a veteran role in Portland, with scorers like Rasheed Wallace, Damon Stoudamire, Steve Smith and Arvydas Sabonis around him. Is Barkley's numbers with the Rockets a fair indication of his ability and his career? Or Hakeem's numbers from his later years?</div> My point is, even on the Portland team, he wasn't even the best player. Stat wise, talent wise etc........Scottie Pippen had his best years in Chicago along side the greatest player (MJ), but didn't do a damn after that. To Barkley's defense, he had his best years with Phoenix, and was CLEARLY our best player with the Rockets (with a injured Hakeem). Barkley played well everywhere he went, but Scottie couldn't do that. Hakeem basically played his whole career with the Rockets, outside of 1 or 2 throwaway years with the Toronto. When he was traded, he was damn near 40 years old. So that's not really an accurate comparison.
Between Barkley and Pippen, I'd say Barkely was definitely the better player, and a better leader. I actually think Barkley is generally underrated as a player. One interesting stat that you don't hear: no other player in NBA history had more consecutive years of averaging more than 10 rebounds a game. He did it every year except his rookie season (15 straight years).
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">My point is, even on the Portland team, he wasn't even the best player. Stat wise, talent wise etc........Scottie Pippen had his best years in Chicago along side the greatest player (MJ), but didn't do a damn after that. To Barkley's defense, he had his best years with Phoenix, and was CLEARLY our best player with the Rockets (with a injured Hakeem). Barkley played well everywhere he went, but Scottie couldn't do that. Hakeem basically played his whole career with the Rockets, outside of 1 or 2 throwaway years with the Toronto. When he was traded, he was damn near 40 years old. So that's not really an accurate comparison.</div> Does it matter if some players don't exactly age well? Was Reggie the best player last season on the Pacers when he retired? Its pretty damn hard to be the best player on a team when you're thirty four or thirty six years old while younger, stronger, and faster players are creeping up in the wings. There will always be someone better than you, and it just so happened that they were on the same team with Pippen. Does that mean anything? Not really. Pippen's game deteriorated faster compared to Barkley but I don't think that takes away anything from Pippen's career. If you take a look at Glen Rice, he was an amazing player back in his prime as well, but as years went on it was obvious his body was catching up to him. Its impossible to measure a player's career by their later years, since obviously age has caught up with them. If you take a look at Pippen's Blazers years and say he wasn't a great player, then you're seriously fooling yourself.
