Shaquille O’Neal seems to believe he deserves to be ranked higher in our list of the 10 greatest No. 1 overall draft picks.
“Thoughts, I say hell naw.”
While he has a problem with the ranking, we do thank O’Neal for sharing our content. You can check out our expanded ranking of the 20 greatest No. 1 overall draft picks in NBA history to see why we have him at fifth.
The 51-year-old didn’t openly state who he thinks he is better than, but you can make some guesses. It’s highly doubtful that O’Neal considers himself to be greater than LeBron James, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, or Magic Johnson. All three of them are generally considered among the five greatest players of all time and are really a cut above the rest. That means we are left with just Tim Duncan.
Is Shaquille O’Neal A Greater Player Than Tim Duncan?
O’Neal and Duncan were the two premier bigs in the NBA in the early 2000s and had some epic battles in the postseason as well. They are undoubtedly all-time greats, but was O’Neal better than the San Antonio Spurs icon?
We did a career comparison of Duncan and O’Neal, with the former easily coming out on top. Duncan won more championships (5 to 4) and MVPs (2 to 1) while making more All-NBA teams (15 to 14) and All-Defensive teams (15-3). He also has 206.5 win shares, compared to 181.7 for O’Neal.
The only category where Shaq came out on top was career player efficiency rating, where he holds a 26.4-24.2 edge. O’Neal was undoubtedly an incredible player, and his peak was perhaps greater than Duncan’s, but when you look at their entire careers, you come to the conclusion that the Spurs big man is greater.
Shaquille O’Neal Named Tim Duncan As One Opponent He Couldn’t Break
What makes this strong disagreement at what we assume to be about him being ranked below Duncan so interesting, is something Shaq mentioned in his autobiography. He was full of praise for his former rival, and O’Neal even admitted Duncan was the only big man he could never break.
“The Spurs won because of Tim Duncan, a guy I could never break. I could talk trash to Patrick Ewing, get in David Robinson’s face, get a rise out of Alonzo Mourning, but when I went at Tim he’d look at me like he was bored. Whenever I run into a Tim Duncan fan who will claim Tim Duncan is the GOAT, I won’t disagree with him.”
For him to say he wouldn’t have a problem if someone told him Duncan is the GOAT and then presumably take issue with being ranked below him, is a bit weird. It isn’t even as if the Spurs big man fell off massively after the release of the autobiography.
“Shaq Uncut: My Story”, came out in November 2011, and after that, Duncan made it to the NBA Finals twice and won a championship in 2014. He was certainly not in his prime, did make the All-NBA First Team in 2013, so he wasn’t a slouch by any means either. Perhaps O’Neal still changed his mind on this subject for some reason that only he knows.
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