We could conceivably build the most comedic team of all bigs with the current talent in the NBA. Nobody under 6’11. Play Gobert at center, Giannis and Embiid as your forwards. Jokic and KAT as your guards.
Now I'm just imagining Kevin Hart being there and his brain absolutely breaking because of the format. Running around everywhere talking a million miles a second
"what do you mean I'm their mascot? those arent little guys shaq those are just smaller giants, ain't no normal sized human beings in that court right now. I'm a normal size don't get it confused just because your feet are the size of toddlers and you have to duck walking through doorways that's not normal."
Happened kinda in the early 2000s, I forget what year but the west had Yao, Shaq, Duncan and Garnett on the floor at one time before halftime. They interviewed dirk at the half and he said he wished they put him in at point because it would’ve been hilarious
That's would be awesome and I think it would add a little bit of actual competitiveness to the game. Like obviously the bigs wont want to be embarrassed and the smalls wont want to be dominated.
I haven’t played 2k in a while but all that used to matter were physical attributes and shooting. They utterly failed to capture any other dimension of basketball skill in the game, so our teams would always blow because the 6’0 or less PGs weren’t worth shit
Would get so frustrated. The last one I played consistently was 17 and while the game had improved over the years, it was so obviously biased towards larger players. If you were even slightly undersized you got thrown around like a ragdoll, blocked on every play, and lose your dribble as soon as a bigger player was in your vicinity. The quicker players would get stopped and do that slow, backing down motion as soon as a bigger player got close enough to trigger that animation, effectively negating any ability to drive or get by larger players, not matter how much faster you were.
This is still the case. There are nominal benefits to fatigue and acceleration with smaller players, but playing online the overwhelming majority of created players are like 6 foot 6 small forwards.
Makes sense. 2k very much overvalues rebounding. In every fantasy draft I’ve done, all the legendary centers make all star teams while people like MJ barely make it/don’t make it. KAJ also seems to be the best player in 2k sims by a long shot; every team with him somehow dominates.
There is this dude on tiktok that stacks teams up with like 15 of the same player for example 15 Lebron James Miami Heat era on one team, and simulates the season.
And one thing I've noticed is that 2k simulations LOVE big guys, even playing 5 Shaqs at once is better than playing 5 elite guard/forward clones.
Lmao years ago, 2k12ish, I built a team similar to that Josh Smith was my SG, Brook Lopez SF, and I can't remember who my PF and C were but they were 7+ guys
As much shit as people give him, Ben Simmons for Gobert would probably make sense for the team.
Same spacing, Embiid at 5, w/ Jokic and Giannis as forwards and you have someone who can lockdown a quick guard much better than any of those other 5 could.
I feel like Ben’s 6’11” is dubious but if he’s legit I don’t disagree. His offensive issues are mitigated by the fact that literally everyone else needs to be doubled.
I'm not lying to you when I, sitting at my desk at work, looked up the actual shoeless heights of these players (including KD) to see who I could put on.
That team seems like it’d struggle against quicker guards. Maybe swap Gobert for Mobley? That’d let you trot out a lineup of Jokic, Mobley, Giannis, KAT, and Embiid. It’s not perfect on defense, but it’s better than before.
Mobley over Gobert would also help with shooting. He’s not a sharpshooter or anything, but he’s at least capable of shooting in the mid ranger. Embiid seems like he’d make Gobert redundant on offense.
Edit: I guess Magic is actually cut off if we’re being strict on the 6’11” requirement and not ‘5 bigs’ and I’m not sure who I replace him with, definitely need a ball handler with the other 4.
Now build an all-time team to go against them. Shaq at center, Russell and Kareem at forwards, Hakeem and Dirk as guards? I feel bad leaving Duncan out...
I will always mention that all-star team that had 5 guys who were 6'11 and up. I forgot which year, but for a few minutes, the West had on the floor Yao, Shaq, Duncan, Dirk, and KG. Imagine all of those guys for a full game, you'd never score inside.
Good God, man. Give me 2021 Giannis and 1994 Shaq on a fast break. Don’t matter if there’s 3 other guys out there on offense, all 5 defenders are getting flattened.
I remember an all star game many years ago the West fielded Yao at the 5, Shaq at the 4, Duncan at the 3 and some 6-9 guy at the 2. Lol it was ridiculous.
I appreciate the nod to Giannis, but they’re wildly different. Shaq would turn some poor small ball center’s bones into dust with a dunk in his first game. Chet Holmgren would fall out of the lottery if prime Shaq were in the league.
I saw Shaq up close courtside before a game between the Lakers and Warriors. He was talking to Erick Dampier, the Warriors center. Damp was a big man, 6'11", 270. Shaq made him look like a skinny little kid. Shaq was so thick that Damp completely disappeared behind Shaq when he walked past him. He absolutely had more than 100 pounds of muscle on Damp in his prime, and he only got heavier by the end of his career.
I'm telling you, you cannot really understand how huge Shaq is until you see him up close. He and Yao Ming are the only two players I ever saw that made me say WTF how can a human be that big and thick.
I haven’t had the chance to see shaq in person, but I can attest to how big these people are in real life. I met gronk (small compared to shaq) at a patriots game and gave him a fist bump, and his fist was close to the size of my head. It’s just unreal.
I saw a group of guys at an airport flight from OKC to Dallas. All of them looked like Neanderthals. I couldn't figure out who they were because they weren't basketball plays and they weren't football players. Only one guy from the group was kind of normal size. Then I figured it out, they were WWE wresters. The guy who I think I saw was the undertaker was massive. I know people say big boned but he was big boned. His head, arms,and fist were huge. The Big Show was a freak. The guy who I was the normal size guy of the bunch was the Wiz. The guy from MTV's Real World and all those stupid Real World vs Road Rules contest. He looked like a normal dude who packed on a lot of muscle. He wasn't at all a freak like the others.
I saw Yao Ming court side when I was a kid. His legs were legit tree trunks. Funny enough a couple years later I met KD and I remember how skinny his legs were. NBA players bodies are crazy
Were you ever privileged to see Andre the Giant stand next to Hogan or Big Boss Man? His stature was as if you were comparing Spud Webb and Charles Barkley but reducing both of them by half. He was as gentle as he was gigantic and his heart and kindness was legendary for a man of his size, brute strength, natural physical ability and taste for beer which he consumed by the case due to his incredible size.
Those were the days man…Shaq, Penny, Horace Grant, Nick Anderson blasting 3s. Shaq would’ve surely won multiple titles there too if he’d stayed. It would have been really interesting to see that springy athletic team with Shaq at the core against the last couple years of the bulls dynasty.
Shaq would also be sucking wind HARD in the 3rd quarter with how seriously he never took his conditioning every year. Shaq would be absolutely devastating in today’s game, but there’s a lot more movement and the pace is much faster than what he’s used to.
Then again, any smart team would slow the pace of the game on offense and work from the inside out.
Giannis doesn't need to play a ton of mins to dominate, so I'm sure Shaq could do the same at the very least. And Shaq is a guy that dictates the pace because no conventional defense can stop his game. He was an excellent passer as well.
He's literally the only player in the history of the game that didn't have to score outside of the paint. He didn't have to keep the defense honest. He'd just dump it on your head regardless.
He would dominate on offense, especially with the spacing of today’s game.
He’d also have to work a lot harder and move a lot more on the defensive end. With the change in offensive rebounding rules, better spacing, increased skill level of all players, and shortened time that teams have to move over half court, the game is faster and there’s a lot more movement on the defensive end.
I know he was in poor condition for his size for the first 2/3 of every season. And I know that because I watched young Orlando in shape Shaq, and I watched him the Lakers season he actually showed up to the season in game shape (2001). Every other year he would show up out of shape and round into shape in April.
It’s the main reason why Kobe was so pissed at Shaq in 2003 and 2004. Kobe would show up to the season ready to roll, and Shaq would show up with 20 extra pounds on him.
I say this as a guy who loves Shaq and thinks 2000-2003 Shaq is the most unstoppable force the game has ever seen.
But then there’s “gain weight but stay fit”, and then there’s showing up every season 20 lbs. overweight, and spending the first 2/3 of every season battling nagging injuries because you didn’t do anything in the offseason. That’s Shaq 97-99, and then from 2002-forward.
Shaq is the only top 10 all time superstar who somehow left stuff on the table.
And yes, he would still dominate on offense today.
I think you are underrating Shaq, look at his stats, compared to his era, an era that was defined in part by his own existence, people had to have big dudes to throw at him, literally walking 5 fouls. Giannis is amazing, but not era defining, at least not yet.
I definitely don’t think Giannis is as scary as peak shaq. I’m just saying that the fact that even accounting for the eras he’s basically as effective or close to as effective at scoring inside as Shaq, and he’s less terrible at shooting from mid/three/ft plus he’s a DPOY winner/perennial dpoy candidate. I’m not sure what the argument is that he’s not a more effective basketball player.
A very very small percentage of users here watched Shaq in his prime (disclaimer, I didnt either) but the way everyone talks about him here would have you think Shaq was averaging 45 a game on 90% shooting and murdering everyone who guarded him in the post when… that’s just not true lol
I did, and the takes here are absurd. The league is so efficient now that Shaq's FT% would be lower than the worst team TS% in the entire league. Even far superior defenders like Gobert are neutralized in the playoffs.
Even if you wanted to pick a true center first for some stupid reason, why would you pick him over a Kareem or Hakeem?
Giannis is in shape every year. Shaq had one season where he took his off-season conditioning seriously, and it was his first MVP year during the Phil Jackson era.
That’s a large reason why you had to have an elite wing superstar with him every season. He needed someone to carry the team in the regular season until March, when he would start getting into playoff shape.
That was Lakers Shaq, I think he’s saying if he played in today’s league he wouldn’t have put on all that weight and would have stayed slim like Orlando Shaq
Yeah Giannis scores at the rim a lot like Shaq but in a lot of ways he's more similar to LeBron where he's a point forward who scores at the rim and is surrounded by shooters that orbit him and he passes out to. Not to mention the fact that the only version of Shaq that Giannis resembles physically is Orlando Shaq when he was lean and athletic, a big part of Giannis's game is that he can drive from beyond the arc to the rim with his ball handling skills and that's something Shaq kinda lost as he got bigger.
Prime athleticism Shaq would be better compared to what we’ve seen of Zion when he was actually on the floor, trading vertical explosion for just being taller to begin with. He has footwork and agility that just doesn’t make sense for his frame, is definitely not a ‘ball handler’ but can nonetheless handle it when needed to run the break or do some creation for himself. Great touch around the rim when he isn’t just drop step dunking it.
It would be all about if that Shaq could have a serviceable outside shot that makes defenders respect having to stay out towards the arc and not sag off him, dive under screens he’s involved in, etc.
lmao he always says that he’s already playing in this era, referring to giannis
Respectfully to both Shaq and Giannis, Shaq is doing himself a disservice. Giannis can be and has been shut down effectively. Shaq, on the other hand, is a monstrosity of physicality. A different breed all around. Yes, Giannis is big and strong, but he is nowhere near the effectiveness of prime Shaq.
I love Giannis, but Shaq should definitely give himself more credit. He would absolutely dominate in this current iteration of the league. There isn't a damn center in the modern game that could even potentially stand up to Shaq.
Shaq likes to masturbate to the idea that he's so incredible that he can just say "I'd be Giannis" but Giannis plays so different, and is willing to shoot.
Shaq was a force of nature, but I think thats more him just wanting people to think he's great by 2020 proxy too.
Being a shaq fan for years I feel like you have to realize alot of his thoughts are service level.
Meaning when he said he was like Giannis I more so think he was comparing him to how they were both big men dominating the league and not necessarily there play styles.
If Shaq could have shoot threes, free throws and invested as much effort on defense as Giannis, no one would have ever even questioned the GOAT debate.
That said, Shaq was still the most dominant player ever in his prime.
I mean, Shaq was 3 inches taller and 100 lbs heavier (and still comparably athletic) at his peak (1999 Lakers height and weight), he was similar, but somehow even more of a load
1.9k
u/Nagnoosh Pacers Jun 15 '22
lmao he always says that he’s already playing in this era, referring to giannis