- Shaquille O’Neal is one of the most dominant players in NBA history
- Some have questioned just how good he’d be in today’s NBA
- O’Neal shared a video of him in practice to show he could have played in any era
At his peak, Shaquille O’Neal dominated the NBA in a manner that few have. O’Neal just completely overwhelmed the opposition with his physicality, but some have wondered just how good he’d be in today’s game. Shaq, of course, believes he’d do just fine and shared some footage of himself at practice with Team USA in 1996.
“No way Shaq played in the era. yea right MDE coulda played in any era”
The thing about truly great players, like O’Neal, is that they would have found ways to dominate in any era. Shaq never really focused on improving his shooting or ball-handling skills because that just wasn’t something that most big men of his era put emphasis on.
It was all about the post-game and dominating at the rim, as opposed to heading to the perimeter. O’Neal did those spectacularly well and finished his career with averages of 23.7 points, 10.9 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 0.6 steals, and 2.3 blocks per game.
Jamal Crawford Explained Why Shaquille O’Neal Would Dominate In The Modern NBA
The 51-year-old Shaq isn’t the only one who thinks he’d do just fine in today’s NBA. Jamal Crawford played 20 seasons in the league from 2000 to 2020, and Crawford broke down why O’Neal would dominate the modern NBA.
“First off you’re probably putting like a power forward on him because there’s no more true centers,” Crawford said on the Dan Patrick Show. “So yeah, Shaq would do whatever he wanted to do. I mean Kevon Looney is not going to shut down Shaq.
“No disrespect to Kevon, but… he was already the most dominant in that physical era, like in this era… Shaq might even try to dust off some of his point guard skills from high school and bring it up, drop it off, and build a little bit of everything.”
Crawford makes some pretty good points. There are hardly any true centers left in the game, and if the bigs from the 1990s and the 2000s couldn’t deal with Shaq, what hope does the current lot have? One might think that Joel Embiid could be the one with the best shot against the four-time NBA champion, but O’Neal thinks he could destroy Embiid.
Also, Crawford mentioned how Shaq had some point guard skills back during his high school days. He’d have spent time working on getting better at shooting and dribbling if that’s what he was required to do. I’m not saying he’d have been amazing at them, but just being competent at those while being so physically imposing would have helped him dominate in the modern NBA.
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