Michael Jordan and Shaquille O’Neal have been part of two of the greatest NBA duos of all time. Jordan of course had his iconic partnership with Scottie Pippen in Chicago. Whereas Shaq dominated the NBA alongside Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles.
Both duos had a lot of similarities. They all played under Phil Jackson, threepeated as NBA champions, and had one player that one MVP. Between these two duos, they won 9 NBA championships in the span of 11 years.
But what if Michael Jordan and Shaquille O’Neal had formed their own dynamic duo. If we ask former Bulls star Toni Kukoc, it would have created the greatest lineup in NBA history.
Jordan is considered by many as the greatest player to grace a basketball court. His incredible tenure in the NBA was marked by 6 NBA championships and Finals MVPs, 5 regular-season MVPs, a Defensive Player Of The Year award, and multiple All-Star and All-NBA honors.
As for Shaq, most NBA fans and analysts consider him the most dominant player in the history of the league. Shaq entered the league in 1992 as the most hyped prospect in years. He went on to win 4 NBA championships, 3 Finals MVPs, a regular-season MVPs and went down as one of the most iconic players of all time.
Surely combining two all-time legendary players will result in greatness. And that is exactly what NBA analyst Skip Bayless believes. On yesterday’s Undisputed, Bayless spoke in great detail about why an MJ-Shaq duo would have dominated the NBA to a degree we have not seen before.
Toni Kukoc says MJ and Shaq would've been "best lineup" ever:
"They are the two most ruthless, cold-blooded basketball killers I ever saw. They would terrorize the league and the universe. It would be beyond comprehension." — @RealSkipBayless pic.twitter.com/rVHb3phsgF
— Speakeasy (@speakeasytlkshw) September 15, 2021
Bayless says that Jordan and Shaq would have won 10 NBA championships together without breaking a sweat. Two of the most ruthless NBA players of all time, Jordan and Shaq would feast on the rest of the league and show no mercy against anyone.
“When I rank my all-time list of greatest players, you know who I put at the top? Jordan, I’ve got Magic second, but I got Shaq third on my list. So if I’m gonna combine, hypothetically, 1 and 3. And they do fit together better to me than MJ and Magic.
They are simply the two physically and mentally most dominant I ever saw at their positions. Whatever you wanna call Michael, two-guard I guess, he can play everything. He can play small-forward, he can play point guard. But those two, are the two most ruthless, cold-blooded basketball killers I ever saw. Both of them.
Could they fit? Well, if you could hypothetically make them teammates, they would love to play with each other cause you do have a big man and a two-guard.
Those 3 years (of Shaq in LA), I’ve never seen anything like it. Not the prettiest thing to watch. It could be ugly basketball, it could be football-basketball. But you want to talk about power and strength and the physiological willpower of Shaquille O’Neal, with high skill attach to it. He had all the moves- the little hook shot, the touch, the feel, and he just terrorized my San Antonio Spurs featuring David Robinson and Tim Duncan. He tore those two apart.
If you put that guy with the coldest blooded basketball killer ever in Michael, they would terrorize the league. They would terrorize the universe and the galaxy. It would be beyond comprehension once they got on a roll, they would destroy everybody inside.”
H/T: SportsRush
Skip makes a lot of strong points about why the duo would have run rampant on the rest of the league. With the kind of physical and mental attributes they had, the only thing that could truly stop their dynamic duo would have been their own personal issues.
Jordan and Shaq mixed it up a lot during their career in the NBA. In fact, O’Neal takes pride in being part of the team that handed Michael Jordan the last playoff series loss of his career. But if they had been teammates, Jordan and O’Neal would have been handing losses to the entire league.
