4 thoughts on “Why is Shaquille O’Neal underrated even as an all-time great?”

1. 

   This is a really fun argument, but I gotta say, I disagree.

   Shaq was undeniably incredible, but he took advantage of the illegal defense rules and lack of spacing in his era in a way that was pretty uniquely available to him (same goes for Kareem, Bill and Wilt, to be fair, but they got more out of it). Because nobody was permitted to double him before the catch (and even after the rule changed it still took a few years before the Thibs teams pioneered the strategy effectively), he was capable of using his body to bully guys into the paint, catch it deep, drop step and finish. Because the three was still not a core part of most offenses, he could survive a pick and roll by dropping out repeatedly.

   In the modern game, Shaq would have a guy drop into his lap before the catch, and he’d have to make his baskets on the move in a way his body (and his diet in the post Orlando days) wouldn’t have been well suited to, and his permitter defense liabilities would have been way way more exposed. The world didn’t stop being able to produce really big and strong dudes, they just started to be massive liabilities on D. Same would have gone for Shaq!

   His true prime was wildly short, and he only really won with some of the best coaches and running mates the sport has ever seen. His skills were incredible, but extremely limited. He was a bad passer, a mediocre defender, and a terrible shooter, and if he played later, those things would have had him struggling to be top 15 or 20. IMO, he can’t go above Magic, Bird, Duncan, or Oscar Robinson as a total player. And if you’re going to ignore the total skill level, Wilt was far more dominant and Bill won much more as a player.

   IMO Shaq was born in the perfect era for your argument, early enough to take advantage of the antiquated rules, late enough to avoid the “he didn’t play anybody” argument.

   Nothing but a rules merchant (intentionally inflammatory)!

   1. 

      Hey Bernd!

      I appreciate the take. There’s a lot of good stuff in there. We definitely agree on some things, and disagree on others. It’s all in good fun…

      – Kareem, Wilt, and Russell faced the weakest competitive environment in the history of the NBA. Yet, they couldn’t come close to matching Shaq’s efficiency in the paint. What Shaq did against the big man era is vastly more impressive than what the aforementioned did against overmatched weekend warriors in leagues that never had all of the best basketball players actually playing in the same league. If Shaq’s dominance was a function of the illegal defense rule, then Wilt, Kareem, and Russell should’ve had extraordinary field goal percentages playing against the overmatched frontcourt players of the 60s and 70s. I mean, those field goal percentages are horrifying considering the how weak that era was.

      – I disagree with the framing of Shaq’s dominance as being a function of taking advantage of a rule that was uniquely available to him. It was a rule that existed for 55 years. It wasn’t just a glitch that was fixed; the rule was literally changed because of Shaq’s dominance. Yes, it would be harder for Shaq to score today under current rules, but the current rules are the current rules because of Shaq’s dominance. This is a huge resume builder, and one of the reasons why his place in history is so high.

      – How Shaq would fare in the modern game is not a factor on a list like this. It’s obviously an interesting thought exercise, but Shaq’s place on this list is determined by what he did in his era and how strong his era was. We could easily say that if the rules that Shaq played under were still in place today, he would dominate today’s game. Again, interesting things to think about, but not a factor in determining his place in history.

      – However, I think you’re missing the potential connection between the explosion of the 3-pointer and what that would have done for Shaq’s game. He would’ve had much more space than what he had during his era. In fact, if the league was as good at shooting 3s in the 90s as it is today, Shaq would’ve been even more dominant. Instead he saw clogged lanes, cheap shots from opponents, and swallowed whistles.

      -The idea that the Lakers or Magic would just dump the ball into Shaq and he’d clobber a helpless defender is a gross simplification. Yes, illegal defense forced teams to get creative, but there were plenty of defensive strategies that teams utilized to mimic double teams. Plus, there were several illegal defense violations for every 1 that was actually called, so to suggest that there was a massive change in what Shaq was dealing with is overstating the impact.

      – There were 14 years between Shaq’s spectacular rookie season and his final All-NBA 1st team selection. I would strongly disagree with the notion that his true prime was wildly short.

      -The reason there aren’t big men in today’s game like Shaq is because there literally has been nobody like Shaq in the history of the NBA, before or after. Yes, the traditional big man went the way of the dinosaur for various reasons, but that doesn’t apply to Shaq. If someone as big, strong, and athletic came along, that player would be a dominant force in any era of the NBA.

      -Shaq was most certainly not a bad passer. He was one of the best big man passers of his era.

      – The idea that Shaq won because of some of the best running mates the sport has ever seen is an interesting take. Let’s not confuse 21-23 year old Kobe with prime Kobe. Feel free to peruse the rosters that Shaq won with. That’s actually a cap in his favor, not against. NBA history is littered with championships won by teams with stacked rosters and dynamic duos and trios. Shaq is on the less egregious side compared to many. Why do you gotta do Shaq like that?

      What’s that old saying, “If you’re not a rules merchant, you aren’t trying hard enough”? Yeah, I think that’s it. =)

2. 

   In the spirit of friendly contest:

   -Field goal percentage is undeniably important. Of course, Shaq was great, a full 2% better than Kareem, 4% better than Wilt (admittedly an awful lot better than Bill), but of course Shaq was obviously a much inferior scorer to Dwight Howard, or of course, everyone’s GOAT, DeAndre Jordan (a whopping 9% better than Shaq!). Now some might say “hey, those guys only take shots within a foot of the basket and mostly dunks”, and that kind of shot quality analysis would be something people should consider for ANY player. Something to think about if, for example, certain players scored much more in their prime or for much longer and didn’t exclusively make their living within a foot of the basket.

   -If we’re going to admit that field-goal percentage isn’t the sole marker of dominance, we’d have to consider other things like, for example averaging 45 and 25 in one’s first four years in the league, or winning 11 NBA championships? We might have to consider whether (like Magic, Duncan, Bill or Bird) the player was much of a leader, or left much of a cultural impact on the teams he played for? Did the teams they played for ship them out of town repeatedly for being a cancerous presence?

   -Indeed, the rules were changed to prevent Shaq’s dominance. Are there other rules, say the width of the lane, the free throw plane rules, offensive goaltending rules, or inbounding rules that were changed to try to stop Wilt? What about Kareem? If there were many, many such rules, one would think that would argue the other way!

   -Spacing is a double edged sword! The spacing in Shaq’s era was worse than today, but he had the illegal defense rules. Whether he’d have more or less spacing with different rules and better shooting is open for debate. We do know, for sure, however, that the spacing in Wilt Kareem and Bill’s day was far far worse than in Shaq’s day, and the three-pointer didn’t even exist for much of that window. If you mean to say that shooting would give Shaq more space, how much space do you expect the plumbers and firefighters on Wilt or Bill’s teams afforded them? What would have stopped the other team from throwing hard double-teams at them on every possession? (nothing, that’s exactly what happened)

   -Shaq was one of the best big-man passers of his era? He averaged 2.5 AST per game, just over half of what Bill or Wilt averaged, and a third of Jokic’s average. Less than Unseld, Kareem, Walton, Cowens, Duncan or many many others. Be for real. If he was one of the best of his era, his era needs to look in the mirror.

   -Shaq’s ability to play the modern game needs to matter if we mean to discount the achievements of the people who came before him. If Shaq didn’t get to play against schoolteachers and weekend warriors, he didn’t have to play against the multipositional demons of the modern age, either.

   Seriously though, all in good fun. You make very good points!

   1. 

      Love it, Bernd!

      -It’s not the field goal percentage that’s important; I apologize for not making it clear. It’s the field goal percentage on Shaq’s volume. There are several players who have Rudy Gobert’d their way to high field goal percentages, but nobody has done it on Shaq’s volume. I spent quite a bit of real estate on that in this write-up on Shaq, so I assumed you knew that was the context.

      -Cultural impact is for biographies. That’s not something I weigh on my lists; otherwise, Jackie Robinson is a top-five player in MLB history. These lists are about impact on the court. Leadership does impact winning (which is different from cultural impact), and it’s hard to argue that a guy who was the guy for four NBA champions, six finalists, and nine conference finalists was a locker room cancer. Imagine doing all that in a 30-team league. Imagine not coming close to that in an 8-team league.

      -When I talk about the difference between what Wilt, Russ, and Kareem accomplished versus what Shaq accomplished, it’s in the context that the best players in the world were not their competition. Racial quotas and rival leagues artificially muted their competition. This is not to suggest it was their fault—obviously, they had no control over that. However, it goes a long way toward establishing the competition level. There were zero of these concerns in Shaq’s era. All of the best players in the world were playing in the NBA during Shaq’s career. That was not the case with the aforementioned players. What Shaq did against the best players—a combination of efficiency and volume the league had never seen before—is much more impressive than tall guys taking advantage of a short league that limited the number of black players who could play.

      Similarly, players today have an advantage over Shaq. While all of the best players were playing in the NBA during Shaq’s era, the game was still largely national. Since Shaq’s era, the game has absolutely exploded internationally, which has expanded the player pool and raised the skill level of the average player. In the same way Shaq has a significant advantage over the ’60s and ’70s players, modern players will have a competition advantage over Shaq. It’s not as big as the advantage Shaq has over Wilt, Russ, and Kareem, but it’s still a significant advantage.

      -Do some investigating on Shaq’s passing ability, or maybe just ask your favorite AI if he was a good passer. He’s one of only six true centers to debut since 1980 with 3,000+ career assists. Phil Jackson’s triangle offense in LA evolved to take advantage of Shaq’s ability to pass out of incessant double teams. His job was to score efficiently on massive volume, which he did better than anyone else in NBA history. The fact that he averaged 2.84 assists per game through his age-32 season despite exclusively possessing the ball in the post and taking 20 shots a game highlights his passing ability.

      -Yes, there were other rules that were changed based on player dominance. But those rules were changed while the league did not have all of the best players in the NBA, and when skilled, athletic big men were obsolete. Rules were changing constantly in the early days. This was not the case for the illegal defense rule change and the competitive environment Shaq played in. Shaq caused a fundamental rule of the NBA that had been in place for 54 years to be changed while playing against the most skilled and talented competition the league had seen to that point. This is very different from, “George Mikan is taller than everyone else because basketball isn’t that popular, and he’s better than everyone else because we only let white people play, so let’s widen the lane,” or a derivative involving Wilt.

      -Spacing. Yes, Wilt faced hard double teams, and those double teams came from a shallow, unathletic domestic talent pool that lacked the modern size and explosive athleticism Shaq had to break through. Even if we only count Shaq’s statistics after illegal defense became legal (something Wilt never had to face), Shaq’s field goal percentage on heavy volume dwarfed Wilt’s, Kareem’s, and Russell’s—and Shaq was doing it in a fully developed league. Nobody is questioning the spacing of the ’60s. I’m merely countering your point about the current state of the NBA being difficult for Shaq: if defenders had to pay attention to three-point shooters in the ’90s/00s the way they do today, Shaq would’ve had an even easier time dominating a single, hapless defender in the post. It works both ways. If you’re going to say Shaq would be negatively impacted by developments, then I’m going to say if Shaq had the luxury of today’s developments during his time, he would have been even more dominant.

      -Totally disagree on Shaq needing to fit into today’s game for him to have top-5 status. What matters (for me) is performance relative to peers relative to league strength. Wilt’s performance relative to peers was exceptional in the regular season (not so much in the playoffs, even with an incredibly small league), but the strength of his competition is by far the worst in NBA history. (To be clear: I think Shaq would dominate today’s game. Shaq wouldn’t have to acquiesce to the league as much as the league would to him. However, that’s not my focus here).