Miami Heat champion and NBA legend, Shaquille O’Neal, found himself in the middle of a Twitter war recently. The question, who’s better, him or Tim Duncan?
Former Miami Heat champion and all-time great, NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal, is no stranger to publicity and the public eye.
A larger than life character in any arena, the giant NBA megastar was also pretty active in the film industry, music industry, has since ventured into becoming a spokesperson for many reputable brands like IcyHot or The General car insurance, and into the lane of media to become an NBA talking head.
With all that going on, it’s no surprise to ever see his name trending online or on social media. This time, however, the situation was a little bit different.
Years removed from his actual playing days, one popular NBA Twitter page brought up an interesting conversation recently that thrust the former Miami Heat and Los Angeles Lakers champion back to the top of the conversation. Here is the tweet.
Who do you think is better? pic.twitter.com/YoEOeO2YVa
— Hoop Central (@TheHoopCentral) June 13, 2020
Well, it may seem like a tough question at first and because it can be, but the answer is a clear one. Let’s dig into it a bit to see what we can come up with.
Who was better player, Miami Heat and Los Angels Lakers legend, Shaq, or San Antonio Spurs legend, Tim Duncan?
The Data
When you look at the first set of data, the numbers, they are about even.
Although, if you were scoring each category here, Shaq would win the numbers war. All of his career averages are higher, except for his assist numbers, which only show a small difference. This could be due to the fact that Tim Duncan had more talent around him in more positions, which limited his need to put up gaudy numbers.
This speaks to the fact that although none of Tim Duncan’s key teammates were individually better than some of Shaq’s greatest teammates like Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, or LeBron James, the Spurs simply had a group of elite guys to fill out a few different positions as opposed to the two main guys usually on Shaq’s teams.
That also could serve to explain things when it comes to the next category, titles. Shaq trails Tim Duncan by one title, but that could probably be explained by the depth of the talent he played with along with the consistency present in Duncan’s career. He played for one coach, one organization, and mostly won with the same groups of guys.
With the score at one apiece, titles for Timmy and stats for Shaq, the next category is honors. Both were 15-time All-Stars, three-time Finals MVPs, Rookies of the year for their respective classes, and thus on the All-Rookie teams, while Duncan led All-NBA teams by one at 15-14, and really blew Shaq out in All-Defensive teams at 15-3. Shaq led in All-Star MVP’s at 3-1, while trailing Duncan 1-2 in league MVPs for a season.
The honors there point to Tim Duncan as well. So why is Shaq the better player? It all goes like this.
All-Time NBA great, legend, and former Miami Heat champion, Shaquille O’Neal, is better than Tim Duncan. Here’s why so, even if the numbers don’t look like it.
The Assessment
When you scrutinize the titles, the honors, and the numbers, they come out to be a wash, because in the grand scheme of things, they were that close. You do look at the All-Defensive team honors disparity, but even the best defenders are only worth about three overall points off the other team’s score, so Shaq’s four more points per game across his career accounts for that.
You also have to consider what your eyes tell you and if yours don’t say that Shaq’s big body was worth its weight in gold as a defender in the paint, you need to get them checked. Lastly on this note, any NBA decision-maker would rather have the best offensive player in the game, 10 out of 10 times, over the best defender in the game. Offense is king in such a fast-paced game, it’s just a basketball thing.
A wash from most other perspectives, you then rely solely on what your eyes tell you to make an overall judgment. I saw Tim Duncan fit a role and a position, while then proceeding to do that so well and at an unseen magnitude.
What we all saw Shaq do was obliterate the mold, change the game, and recreate the way that dominant big men were defended, deployed, and officiated. That is what makes him better.
Tim Duncan could be nullified if you studied him and were willing to outwork him in any given game, on any given night. Not that it happened all that much, but as his nickname in the Big Fundamental implies, he did the basics more superbly than anyone else ever had before him, which could be stopped if properly defended.
What Shaq did could not be nullified or defended. No matter what scheme you deployed, besides fouling the dickens out of him (see hack-Shaq) and hoping he missed the free throws (which he often did, facepalm.gif), you were simply at his mercy and his wrath. There was no stopping him for much of his career, there was withstanding him and hoping to be able to make up for it everywhere else.
That is why Shaq was better than Tim Duncan.