2000 Shaquille O'Neal vs 1991 Michael Jordan

[QUOTE=ShaqAttack3234]Actually, I think Mourning played pretty well vs Olajuwon because Mourning use to struggle with the bigger elite centers, but Olajuwon was closer to his size despite being listed at 7 feet.
[/QUOTE]
Perfect example of statistics not telling the whole story since 'Zo stated Hakeem was the toughest center he played against.
[QUOTE]--[b]Mourning said Hakeem Olajuwon was the toughest player he ever played against.[/b] Mourning agrees with Dan that Hakeem is above Shaq and Ewing.
[/QUOTE]
[url]http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/danpatrick/blog/58862/index.html?eref=fromSI[/url]

As I've stated before, I don't think there is a large gap between prime Shaq and prime Jordan. What really separates the two is that Jordan's prime lasted much longer than Shaq's prime (that and it is Jordan's skill that made him so great while Shaq's physical presence is what made him so great).

This is a very close comparison, and it comes down to Jordan's versatility vs Shaq's Big-Man Physical Presence.

Shaq couldn't dribble the ball up court or shoot free throws well. But Shaq commanded triple teams that Michael Jordan didn't. I mean Jordan got tripled at times, but not at the rate Shaq did. Also by teams fouling Shaq intentionally it would thin-out the big men on the opposing team. Shaq was flat-out intimidating in the paint, Jordan doesn't have that type of menacing presence Shaq did.

A Big Man can generally effect a game in a lot of ways a guard cant. Which is the type of advantage that Shaq has over Jordan.

However, Jordan was a more complete well-rounded player. Making him more versatile as opposed to his peers at the sg position. As opposed to Shaq's versatility opposed to his peers at the C position.

Who you pick, I think matters on the type of personell you have. You'd probably win the championship with either players.

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-7hwDaBbaE[/url]

Game 1 2000 Playoffs Lakers vs Kings

Shaq

46 Points 17 Rebounds 1 Assist 5 Blocks 21/33 FGS(64%)

Since shaq came into the league in 1992, i think Jordan led teams have a overall winning record against shaq led teams.

Shaq by a mile. Shaq was unstoppable, constant double and triple teams on him through the whole season.

[QUOTE=necya]
for my part, 94/95 shaq is the second best season i've seen of him, behind the 99/00. i have 4 of the 5 nyk-orl meeting and he litteraly killed the old Pat on each game ![/QUOTE]

I think that 2000-2001 was easily Shaq's second best year. He was basically the same player as 1999-2000, though he started slower. I don't want to criticize Kobe too much, because he was unbelievable in the 2001 playoffs, the second best player in those playoffs behind O'Neal, IMO, but part of the Lakers slow start was Kobe's early season chucking when some teammates claimed that he stated he wanted an MVP and scoring title like Shaq the previous year.

But in the end, Shaq had a monster year. He averaged 29/13/4/3 on a league leading 57% from the field and had his second straight playoff run with over 30 ppg and 15 rpg.

He stepped up big in Kobe's absence during the season, leading the Lakers to an 11-3 record without Kobe while averaging 32/12/4/3 on 56% shooting in those games.

In the playoffs, he was unbelievable.

He opened up the Sacramento series with 44 points, 21 rebounds, 4 assists and 7 blocks. In game 2, he followed that up with 43 points, 20 rebounds and 3 blocks on 69% shooting. In game 3 vs the Spurs, he had 35 points, 17 rebounds and 3 assists on 70% shooting in just 35 minutes as the Lakers blew out the Spurs by 39 points. He opened up the finals vs the defensive player of the year Dikembe Mutombo with 44 points, 20 rebounds and 5 blocks and followed it up with a near quadruple double posting a line 28 points, 20 rebounds, 9 assists and 8 blocks. For the series, he averaged 33/16/5/3 on 57% shooting vs Mutombo who won his 4th DPOY award that year and made the 7 of his 8 career all-star teams.

Overall in those playoffs, he had five 20/20 games, three of which were 40/20 games.

So here are my rankings for Shaq's 3 best seasons.

1.1999-2000
2.2000-2001
3.2001-2002

After the first 2, it becomes trickier. He had a great year in 1994-1995, he had improved his skills from his first 2 seasons, become a better franchise player, improved his passing which was integral to Orlando's 3 point attack.

But in 2001-2002, his cast wasn't as good and with him they were 51-16, but without him, just 7-8. And his offensive game was more polished by that point, he also had a big 41/17 game facing elimination for Sacramento and in the game, he had 12 fourth quarter points. He followed it up with 35/13/4 to win game 7 on the road in OT. In the finals, he had another historic series averaging 36/12/4/3 on 60% shooting. Also, despite being injured in the WCSF, he did an excellent job defensively on Duncan, particularly late in games. Duncan was abusing Horry and Samaki Walker at times, but O'Neal's post defense was very impressive. In fact, Duncan was criticized for his play down the stretch in the series, but some of the credit has to go to Shaq. And he shot 65% from the line in the playoffs, much better than what he normally shot.

I also think the '98 version was one of the best, he was more skilled than the Orlando version, but injuries killed his MVP chances. However, he did average 30.5 ppg on 61% shooting in the playoffs and he was the best player on a 61 win team.

The 1993-1994 version was right up there statistically, he averaged 29/13/3, on a league best 60% shooting had a 53/18/4 game on 71% shooting in just 36 minutes and he also had 24/28/15 on 63% shooting in just 36 minutes. But ultimately, he was raw compared to the older versions and relied more on athleticism for more dunks and less post moves. He also lacked the maturity as evidenced by his subpar playoff performance, but I'll excuse that to some extent because it was his first series.

[QUOTE]i really don't like advanced stats, and all stats, in this case of the defensive rating, you don't know how many mid court attack, transition basket and fastbreak points there are...i find all stats too reducer and always incomplete.
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I hate advanced stats most of the time, particularly when used to evaluate individual players, but in the case of defensive rating for teams, I think it's excellent.

Here are some examples.

The 1986 Celtics allowed 104.7 ppg and were the best defensive team in the league with a defensive rating of 102.6.
The 1983 Nets allowed 103 ppg and were the best defensive team in the league with a defensive rating of 98.9.

The 2010 Bobcats allowed just 93.8 ppg and were the best defensive team in the league, however their defensive rating was 102.8.

As you can see, despite the 80's examples allowing much more points than the 2010 Bobcats, they played at a much faster pace and as a result, more possessions for the other team to score. Defensive rating factors this in and determines that the '83 Nets and '86 Celtics were better defensive teams.

But in general, more fastbreaks often do mean weaker defense because it's harder to score vs a set up half court defense than it is in transition.

By the way, what do you think Jordan's best season was? I can't decide between 1990 or 1991, I have to watch some more 1991 games.

Regarding the 2004 finals, I think the majority of the blame should be placed on Kobe considering the amount of shots he was taking. Shaq dropped 34/11 on 13/16 shooting while Kobe had 25/4/4, but on 10/27 shooting and this wasn't a game they couldn't have won, they led at halftime and still only trailed by six entering the 4th.

In game 4, they were actually tied heading into the 4th, and they could've tied the series. Shaq had 36/20 on 16/21 shooting while Kobe had 20/0/2 on 8/25 shooting.

Kobe doesn't deserve all of the blame, Payton embarrassed himself at both ends and nobody else aside from Shaq stepped up, but considering the ridiculous amount of shots he took, the type of shots he took and the lack of success on those shots, he deserves more blame for that series than anyone else. Shaq's lack of shots can be partially attributed to Kobe's selfish play.

But Shaq was also responsible for the Laker break up and chemistry problems, so Kobe can't be the only one blamed for that.

Shaq lost in '95, '96, '97, '98, '99, '03, and '04 on some very talented teams.

Lets not forget that when saying "unstoppable". Obviously teams found a way to beat him.

Jordan never lost a playoff series once he got a good supporting cast around him. Teams could beat him, but only when he had a garbage supporting cast or no All-Star player to compliment him.

I think Shaq was amazing, he and Jordan are the most dominant individual forces of the past 30 years in the NBA (in their prime), but if you're splitting hairs ... to me this is a rather important difference.

Teams could find a way to beat Shaq in his prime, but not Jordan.

[QUOTE=Soundwave]Shaq lost in '95, '96, '97, '98, '99, '03, and '04 on some very talented teams.

Lets not forget that when saying "unstoppable". Obviously teams found a way to beat him.

Jordan never lost a playoff series once he got a good supporting cast around him. Teams could beat him, but only when he had a garbage supporting cast or no All-Star player to compliment him.

I think Shaq was amazing, he and Jordan are the most dominant individual forces of the past 30 years in the NBA (in their prime), but if you're splitting hairs ... to me this is a rather important difference.

Teams could find a way to beat Shaq in his prime, but not Jordan.[/QUOTE]

Not entirely true, the 1990 Bulls were pretty talented, the 1991 team was better. But Scottie Pippen was an all-star for the 1990 season, and this team was coached by Phil Jackson.

Although, the Bulls could've still won the championship this year, had they advanced passed the Pistons in that 7 game series in the ECF.

Yes, Jordan never lost in the Finals and never lost with HCA, so that can be a good argument for him.

However we are comparing 1 year from each player mainly. That is 2000 Shaq vs 1991 Jordan. Other years, Jordan mainly had the advantage over Shaq. However, just looking at these seasons alone, makes a very close comparison.

What other players do you think had a comparable season to 2000 Shaq in terms of accomplishments, success, and stats in one season?

[QUOTE=ShaqAttack3234]As far as TS%, well, that can be deceptive for a power player.

Here's an example. If you convert a lot of and 1s then that makes it skewed because even if you missed the extra free throw on the and 1, you wouldn't be using up any more of a possession anyway.

I'll use game 1 of the finals as an example.

[URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjETgzSbg9k"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjETgzSbg9k[/URL]

His first basket was a dunk and a foul, he made that free throw, making it the same as if he had made a 3 as far as possessions used.

At about 1:00, he converts the basket and draws a foul on Smits, so despite missing the free throw, that was a bonus to begin with.

He converts another basket with the foul around 2:12, and again despite missing the free throw, no extra possession was used.

And around 4:20 he's fouled again and he gets the basket.

So at most, his six FTA were the equivalent of one missed field goals because atleast 4 of them came on and 1s.

If you were to calculate his FT using the standard TS% formula then his TS% for game 1 would have 63.9%., but knowing what we know his TS% was really equal to 67.2% in terms of using up possessions to score.

An example of how stats can be deceptive. And to me, a missed free throw has never been as bad as a missed field goal, particularly if you miss a long jumper which can give the other team a transition opportunity. And when you're fouled, you can set up your defense as well as pile up fouls on the other team and when you have a physical force like Shaq, those fouls also wear down the other team.

I believe some sites track and 1s now, Lebron has a ton of them so I'll have to see how efficient he truly is using this same method.[/QUOTE]

I agree with that, but Jordan was one of the best players for getting And 1's that I can remember in the 18 years I've been watching basketball intently. So if anything his TS% is skewed too since his FTAs would be counting against his efficiancy even though he made them. :D

You only get the small window of .12 taken off 2 FTAs against the TS% equation. That doesn't account for players like Jordan whom had far more than 10% of their FTAs being off And 1s. So in reality, TS% inaccurately displays the real efficiancy of players like MJ, as opposed to more current ones who just throw the ball over their head after being touched for a foul call to get FTAs that really weren't in the act of an actual shot.

I have the same qualms about TS% as you. I wish they'd keep a "shot attempts" stat, and not "FGAs", since that alone is a flawed stat. It'd be much easier to tell just how efficiant a player really is/was. Like in baseball how there are seperate stats for "At bats" and "plate appearances". When you get walked, it's a plate appearance, not an At Bat, and hence, does not count against your average, but gets tallied towards your on base percentage. :P

In any case, I picked Shaq's year over Jordan's, if you missed that. :P I just think Jordan was a bit more efficiant a scorer back then. They have different roles, so it's more difficult to discern who was a better defender for overall game impact since that's very objective, but as far as putting the ball in the hole per possession consumed to do so, simple math lets you know who's more efficiant. It's not objective at all. Shaq being slightly less efficiant than (imo) the best scorer of all time, shouldn't be seen as a slap in the face :P

Jordan, Shaq, and (possible homer pick here) prime DRob, were the most unstoppable scorers I can remember in my lifetime (he got a lot of easy buckets with off the ball movement).

[QUOTE=laronprofit9]Not entirely true, the 1990 Bulls were pretty talented, the 1991 team was better. But Scottie Pippen was an all-star for the 1990 season, and this team was coached by Phil Jackson.

Although, the Bulls could've still won the championship this year, had they advanced passed the Pistons in that 7 game series in the ECF.

Yes, Jordan never lost in the Finals and never lost with HCA, so that can be a good argument for him.

However we are comparing 1 year from each player mainly. That is 2000 Shaq vs 1991 Jordan. Other years, Jordan mainly had the advantage over Shaq. However, just looking at these seasons alone, makes a very close comparison.[/QUOTE]

That's true about 1990, but they went to game 7 against the Pistons in 1990 and Pippen let the team down with his migraine headaches in game 7 ... so Pippen wasn't yet *the* Pippen yet, his game still needed another year of polish.

The next year the Bulls trounced the Pistons in 4 straight.

[QUOTE=Soundwave]Shaq lost in '95, '96, '97, '98, '99, '03, and '04 on some very talented teams.[/QUOTE]

Well, lets be honest, not all of those teams played like talented teams in the series they were eliminated. I'm not excusing Shaq for all of the losses, just pointing out that rarely in those losses did his cast play like a talented cast.

I'll focus on '96, '98 and '04.

[B]1996-[/B] Horace Grant was injured in game 1 and he'd never return in the series. So for the series they got 0 points and 1 rebound in 28 minutes out of their 3rd best player and starting power forward.

In game 1, it was shocking how inept the supporting cast of a 60 win team was offensively. While Penny had a huge game 38 points on 15/21(72%) shooting and Shaq had 27 points and 6 assists on 13/21(62%) shooting, [B]the rest of the starting lineup combined for 2 points on 0 for 11 shooting with just 2 assists and 3 turnovers[/B] In fact outside of Shaq and Penny, the rest of the team scored just 18 points on 7/31 shooting.

Now, Shaq didn't have a perfect game either, his 6 rebounds and 1/7 free throw shooting were poor, but the biggest issue here was nobody other than Shaq or Penny being able to do anything positive and the rest of the team was bricking free throws as well. The Magic excluding Shaq, still shot just 7/17 from the line.

In game 2, Shaq had 36 points, 16 rebounds and 4 assists on 16/22(73%) shooting. In this game, even Penny struggled finishing with just 18/2/3 on 6/15(40%) shooting. Outside of Shaq, the team shot just 18/49 and despite Shaq easily leading the game in rebounds, the Magic were still outrebounded by 7 in a 5 point loss showing how much Grant's absence hurt the team.

In game 3, Shaq did have a horrible offensive game with 17 points on 8/19 from the field and 1/9 from the line, but again his cast didn't play like a talented team. For the 3rd straight game, Penny managed only 3 assists and he ended up with 18 points on 8/24 shooting. Shaq's cast shot 18/53 and despite Shaq posting a solid 12 rebounds, his team was outrebounded by 11 which again emphasizes the impact of Grant's injury.

In game 4, Shaq had 28 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 blocks on 11/13(85%) from the field and a decent 6/9 from the line. Penny struggled with his shooting again going 9/21(43%) from the field. This was the only game where the role players actually produced a respectable amount of points. The Magic were again outrebounded by 7, and in this case, some of the blame for that goes to Shaq who I'd expect more than 9 rebounds from.

Shaq certainly could've played better, but, I don't see it making much of a difference because other than game 2(when it was hard to blame Shaq), none of the other games were close besides game 4 when the series was basically over anyway, and in that game, O'Neal still had a great offensive game, blocked shots and had a respectable amount of rebounds, though again, I blame him to some extent for not dominating the boards in that situation.

With Orlando playing without Grant, O'Neal totaling just 1 less assist than Penny that series and the cast shooting unbelievably poor vs the team with the most wins in NBA history as well as arguably the best player and coach of all time, I don't see much O'Neal could have done.

In 1998, Shaq was the only player who could put the ball in the basket with regularity on the Lakers. Shaq averaged 31.8 ppg on 56% shooting, but after him? Jones was the number 2 guy and produced just 15 ppg on 41% shooting, and after that? It gets, much, much worse. Kobe was the only other player to average double figures on the Lakers in that series with an even 10 ppg on 37% shooting, Fox averaged 9.8 ppg on 41% shooting, Van Exel averaged 9 ppg on 24% shooting, Fisher averaged 5.5 ppg on 35% shooting and Horry averaged 4.5 ppg on 36% shooting.

Just a pathetic display by the cast offensively.

In 2004? That team that was in the finals was not the talented team that they looked like on paper, not even close. Karl Malone was injured, missed 1 game altogether and he might as well have not even been on the court. We all know about Kobe in that series and Payton had the most disgusting performance, he averaged 4 ppg on 32% shooting while getting torched at the other end by Billups who had 20+ on good efficiency.

So in several of those seasons, despite how they looked on paper, Shaq didn't end up with a productive cast, certainly not championship-caliber production in those years I've specified, more so when you consider that they faced a 72-10 team one of those years.

[QUOTE]Teams could find a way to beat Shaq in his prime, but not Jordan.[/QUOTE]

Well for the duration of their primes, that's what seperated Jordan from Shaq. He played at closer to his peak level for longer, but as laronprofit mentioned, this is just '91 Jordan vs '00 Shaq when both of them won.

[QUOTE=laronprofit9]What other players do you think had a comparable season to 2000 Shaq in terms of accomplishments, success, and stats in one season?[/QUOTE]

I take it you mean championships, individual awards, great playoff production ect.?

Well, Wilt in '67 and Olajuwon in '94 come to mind.

[quote]I take it you mean championships, individual awards, great playoff production ect.?

Well, Wilt in '67 and Olajuwon in '94 come to mind..[/quote]
You should have listed KAJ in '80 before Dream. Finals MVP award should have been his & the DPOY award did not exist yet.

[QUOTE=N0Skillz]Shaq by a mile. Shaq was unstoppable, constant double and triple teams on him through the whole season.[/QUOTE]
with referee's help and faced against weak competitors, they both were unstoppable...