Skip Bayless Explains Why Shaquille O'Neal Would've Dominated Kareem, Wilt and Russell
Shaquille O'Neal recently made headlines when he ranked himself as the 4th greatest center of all time. The Big Diesel is always named on debates about the best center ever, but he doesn't consider himself at the top of the top.
Shaq took to Instagram to share an interesting list of the 10 greatest centers of all time. He ranked 4th there. Instead of making a case for himself, he agreed with the order. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, and Bill Russell ranked before him.
FS1's analyst Skip Bayless reacted to this list and Shaq's reaction. Bayless believes O'Neal should have given himself more flowers and went to explain why he would dominate the three legends.
“Shaq is underestimating himself here, putting him 4th. The problem with this is are we talking about a small sample size or the whole career. Because if Shaq had taken care of himself the way Kareem did or Hakeem did or Mr. Russell did or Wilt did, they all got fit and Shaq didn’t get fit.
In all my years of watching and studying the National Basketball Association, I’ve never seen anything like Shaquille O’Neal for 2000, 2001, 2002 and maybe even 2003. It was the most overpowering force imaginable. He was unguardable, unstoppable, un-refereeable.”
Skip added that not even Kareem would have been able to stop Shaq. The former No. 1 overall pick was too much for his defenders, and KAJ wasn't going to have a different fate.
“If I’m eye-testing this. If I try to imagine Shaq vs Kareem at their greatest, I don’t think Kareem could’ve dealt with Shaq. You could agree backwards to me that “Shaq couldn’t have dealt with Kareem”. But Shaq did make 3 All-Defensive teams in that stretch. So he was doing it on both ends too. And he was 7 feet 1 inches tall and probably outweighed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar by 40 or 50 pounds. Kareem just could not have dealt with him because Shaquille O’Neal was a dancing bear. You are talking about agile, touch and feel.
In his MVP year in 2000, he led the league in scoring with 30, led the league in rebounding with 14. He also chipped in with 4 assists a game which was his career-high. That’s just like too good. Nobody could deal with that and that’s the only MVP he won, but he also led the league by making 57% of his shots. Unguardable. If I take that Shaq, that was the greatest center I ever saw.”
Shaq was a force of nature. He was unstoppable during his prime, and proof of that was the fact that he was the last big man to win the NBA MVP award until Nikola Jokic did it this year.
The former player-turned-analyst left a huge mark on the game, and plenty of people believe he's the most dominant player ever. Even for his era, Shaquille O'Neal was too much. Imagine how he would've performed against guys like Wilt, Kareem, and Russell.
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