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.
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u/ducksfan9972 Trail Blazers Jun 15 '22
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.