Dude brought the Knicks to 2 Finals trips. You can argue that he wasn’t putting up the same numbers in 1999 but he was old; superstars centers from his era like The Dream and The Admiral were also pretty much busted by 1999.
In the 1994 run, the Knicks could had won the title if not for that Hakeem block and John Starks playing horribly overall. Yes, Ewing shot the ball horribly at .363 (raw), but he was never acclaimed as an offensive superstar anyway. He was always known to be a defensive beast. Hakeem averaged 9.1 rebounds and 3.9 blocks while Ewing 12.4 and 4.3. I’m not saying that Ewing played better than Hakeem; just that defensively, Ewing was still pulling his weight.
The Bulls acknowledged that the Knicks were their nemesis and the toughest nuts to crack in their title runs. Not anyone else, but the Knicks that were led by Ewing. Obviously there is no pity trophy for runner-ups, but there can only be one winning team and basketball is also a team sport; no matter how good Ewing was, he still need his teammates to be good enough.
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He’s definitely one of the top 50 or so players or all time and one of the best big men to ever play.
Consistently a great player and great defensive anchor for some really tough knicks teams that really didn’t have much talent outside of him.
Those Knicks teams were tough, played good defense, and were definitely deep, but there wasn’t much top end talent ever on the knicks in the 90s outside of him.
His second fiddles were Kiki VDW, starks, Charles Smith, Mark Jackson, and a bunch of other average-ish players.
He was a walking 26/10/2 blocks type guy.
But he was just overshadowed by MJ and Hakeem who were better players.
It’s true he doesn’t get talked about that much in public discourse, but very few players do.
Like, who does the media really talk about from that era? MJ, Hakeem, Shaq in the later 90s. Chuck of course but that’s also because he’s on TV. There just isn’t much public discourse at all outside of the upper echelon of players in the past besides these “why does nobody talk about x top 50 player?” threads.
I mean, the guy was 29/10/2 blocks on a knicks team in 1990 that was seriously void of talent on the offensive end.
I’m not sure which big of his era was definitively better than him other than Hakeem.
Dream owned him.
Dream owned literally every other important center in the 90s lol.
Ewing was a beast on defense, but not so hot on offense. Starks played like garbage too; sad to see. But hey, at least the Bulls had some competition.
I think so just because of general circumstances. His teams were never that talented around him. His skillset would have worked way better with more offensive firepower, but instead he carried both the offense and defense most of the time with other bruisers around him.
The other thing is that Ewing peaked kind of early and people act like mid-late-90s Ewing was him at his best but he was a whole different beast in the 80s. Wild athlete and size and skill.
Ewing in 89 and 90 was the best center in the league and arguably the third best player overall behind Jordan and Magic.
I feel like he is both underappreciated and overrated.
He is unappreciated in the sense that because he wasn’t a champ, or an MVP, most newer fans don’t really remember him or mention his name in the conversation with all time great centers. Like whenever a Philly or a Denver fan tries to put Embiid and Jokic in the great centres convo, they go straight to Wilt, Shaq, Hakeem, Kareem, Bill Russell, etc. And just skip over guys like Moses Malone, Robinson, Ewing, who even if you think Joker or Embiid are better, should at least be in the discussion.
At the same time, I feel like he was also overrated because his college career was so great and he played in New York. He was constantly compared with his contemporaries like Hakeem, Shaq and David Robinson, but he was really a tier below them. I feel like his offense especially was overrated for the fact that he didn’t have another elite scorer alongside him for his prime, and wasn’t great in the clutch. But his defense was elite.
Yes
Not to mention he’s got the dopest high-tops. Im ride die #33 Hi Ewings.
I’ve always been a fuck Nike hooper. If you spend that much $ telling me you’re cool I’m not buying it. Also was bestowed #33 for HS Varsity BBall. Been all about the Ewjngs since the first time someone crossed paths with me in the 33 Hi.