NBA Playoffs Thread

I honestly think he beats Russell.

Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt are a different story but I could make a good case for Shaq over both, though Wilt's statistics are just so absurd it is hard to have anyone other than him at the top.

 

Thanks to those not identifying The Captain as "Jabbar."

If I had a team playing the final quarter of a Game Seven for the title, I'd take Olajuwon in his prime over Shaq in his prime.

 

I'm a Shaq guy, but I think I put him behind the other three. I look at how the four influenced the game. After Wilt, Russell and Kareem came generations of centers who tried to emulate their example. After Shaq came a generation that has forgotten the position even exists for the most part. The true center has gone the way of the football fullback. It may come back but right now true centers, like fullbacks, are marginalized figures who don't even really exist on some rosters.

Not Shaq's fault so much as it's a credit to Wilt, Russell and Kareem that they (the first two in particular) revolutionized the way the game was played in many ways.

 

Did anybody else see that commercial with Karl Malone in it? Cripes, he looks like he weighs about 360 right now.

 

I love Shaq. Love him. But, he cannot be ranked as the No. 1or No. 2 all-time center for one simple reason. The fact is, unfortunately, that Shaq was a liability late in key games because he could not be counted on to make a free throw when it mattered. He was "unstoppable" on the block, yet at the end of games you could clobber the guy and know that more likely than not he was going to miss his free throws.

 

Skilled 7-foot-tall men don't exactly come along every day.

 

Oh, please. Not in the same league as Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. MAYBE in the conversation with Akeem Olajuwon and Bill Walton.

 

I blame Kobe for Shaq's demise.

 

He shot a higher free throw percentage for his career than Wilt did and his teams won twice as many titles and a shitload more playoff games.

This is one of the biggest myths about Shaq as many-a-team tried the "hack-a-Shaq" routine and almost all of them found out it doesnt work

 

Shaq played in the Heat series? I thought that was Phillip Banks out there running the floor at the speed of pudding.