During his prime, NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal was the most dominant player the sport of basketball has ever known. At the height of his powers, Shaq was an absolute beast who could not be stopped, averaging 27 points, 11.8 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks per game in eight seasons with the Lakers.
He retired in 2011 as 15 x All-Star, 4x Champion, and a legacy that will live on in the NBA history books forever.
But in a recent interview with Sports Illustrated, Houston Rockets icon Hakeem Olajuwon dared to imagine how much better O’Neal would be in today’s NBA and how he would match up against a dynasty like the Golden State Warriors.
Olajuwon loves watching Golden State (“that ball is moving!”), and Curry in particular. But he also wonders what would happen if they had to face any real big men. “Golden State’s system works well and why? Because nobody is punishing them,” he says. “They have Draymond Green guarding the real big guys. He is really a small forward. It’s too much of a mismatch. They score three, you score two right back. And if they miss? We still get two!”
Olajuwon imagines Shaq today and lights up. “He’d be a monster! Who’s going to stop him?” (I received a similar reaction from Van Gundy, who calls Shaq “the greatest distorter of defenses who ever played,” as well as his brother Stan, who coached Shaq in Orlando.)
Thanks to the evolution of the three-pointer, teams have gone smaller now as they put more emphasis on stretching the floor and sharing the ball. A few years ago, the Warriors perfected this strategy, and it transformed the entire NBA.
But had a guy like O’Neal been around (a truly dominant under-the-rim big man), the Warriors might not have enjoyed as much success. Even now, their biggest weakness is in the front court, and their lack of size down low has become a point of emphasis for their competition to exploit.
Shaquille O’Neal’s True Thoughts On The Modern NBA
O’Neal’s dominance would be a virtual guarantee against the Warriors dynasty, but that doesn’t mean he’d fit in with the current NBA culture. In fact, as a proud and hard-working player, O’Neal would be the odd man out as a superstar in today’s league.
“Off the court, together is better. But on the court, I’m continuing to urge these guys to compete,” O’Neal said on players today. “This thing of ours, this thing that you were a part of [talking to Mourning], it’s very plentiful right now. Taking into account the moms and the dads that pay all that money to watch you perform. Give them a great show… I need to explain this to the youngsters. Just cause we criticize you don’t mean we not together. If you listen to the information, I’m giving you the answers to the test. Like when I say ‘he’s not that good he should be averaging 28 and 10’ they go out and average 28 and 10. I’m going to continue to do my job. I go out and criticize these young guys but I’m also giving them valuable information. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar did that for me.”
Sadly, there’s no way for us to witness the awesomeness that would arise from Shaq in the modern NBA. We can only imagine what he’d do against this ultra-small basketball era.
But if Hakeem’s words are anything to go by, they’d have more trouble guarding Shaq than they did when he was actually playing — and that’s a truly scary thought.
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