The Official Rudy Gobert Thread

[Note30]

I post the same question on the General Board and I just put my latest opinion there. Basically, Shaq would be 95%-92% if he plays in today's NBA and I don't think he is much better on defense than Gobert.

And outside of 3 people, the majority agree Shaq would absolutely dominate.

Yes, maybe outside of 4 people . Some have good argument why he would be great in this era but a lot of them are of the variety of "Shaq could easily avg 35 pts / 15 rebounds / 5 blocks per game" which of course is impossible. Mostly people remember the highlights and myths, not the entire game or career averages. I am sure Shaq will have games of 50 pts or 25 rebounds in today's NBA.

I counted it's 21 who agree with the fact that Shaq would absolutely dominate to 5 (including you) who do not think so. So take your **** eating grin emoji off.

And no not all of them said he'd average 35/15/5.
But you're getting absolutely diffed in the other thread so you're choosing to pick and choose stuff with me as if I couldn't read that thread either.

Face it dude, you can't look at a bunch of stats and make generalizations about players or teams. You need to actually know the game. And you don't.

[Note30]

Would Shaq play 60 games, in today’s higher pace games?

I will say this about Shaq. In all the basketball I’ve watched, he’s one of three players I’ve ever seen that I thought, “there is no way to stop this guy!” Hack—Shaq came later. I’ve seen a few guys later that had the chance to be unstoppable, but they never get there, so I give Shaq his kudos as a player.

As an analyst though? Turrible.

Hack a Shaq only really stopped him after he was slow and injured, basically after he got traded to Miami.

But yeah definitely not a great analyst. He's kind of stuck in the past, and refuses to learn new things. The game basically revolved around him in his prime and he never really adjusted after his career ended. I still remember Candace Parker just absolutely cooking him on how today's offenses work.

[younggunsmn]

You would foul him often he'd get the and 1 90% of the time. He'd have 60 every game.

My guy, he's just as if not much more athletic than Gobert.

He'd run the league like he did back in the day.

I post the same question on the General Board and I just put my latest opinion there. Basically, Shaq would be 95%-92% if he plays in today's NBA and I don't think he is much better on defense than Gobert.

It's pretty clear you weren't old enough/born yet to watch Shaq in his prime.

The guy was an unstoppable machine in an era when every team had a properly sized and defensively capable center, and foul calls were hard to come by.
Imagine if Zion Williamson were the size of Joel Embiid, plus 50 pounds. That was prime Shaquille O'Neal.

He changed the game. If your coach didn't have a gameplan to double and triple team, you were toast.
And you had to double team with another big. You absolutely could not play the small one big lineups they play now.

I think Shaq probably delayed the pace and space schemes we see today by 10 years, because you couldn't run them and hope to be competetive against him.

With today's rules and the abundance of soft bigs and wings playing the 4, 35/15 is probably a little low for prime Shaq.
His team would probably play a lot of zone on defense though against stretch lineups.

As an analyst, sometimes he has good insights, and for the most part he doesn't get as out of control stupid/controversial like Barkley/Perkins and the like. He bothers me the least of the modern analysts to be honest.

[Note30]

You would foul him often he'd get the and 1 90% of the time. He'd have 60 every game.

My guy, he's just as if not much more athletic than Gobert.

He'd run the league like he did back in the day.

I post the same question on the General Board and I just put my latest opinion there. Basically, Shaq would be 95%-92% if he plays in today's NBA and I don't think he is much better on defense than Gobert.

It's pretty clear you weren't old enough/born yet to watch Shaq in his prime.

The guy was an unstoppable machine in an era when every team had a properly sized and defensively capable center, and foul calls were hard to come by.
Imagine if Zion Williamson were the size of Joel Embiid, plus 50 pounds. That was prime Shaquille O'Neal.

He changed the game. If your coach didn't have a gameplan to double and triple team, you were toast.
And you had to double team with another big. You absolutely could not play the small one big lineups they play now.

I think Shaq probably delayed the pace and space schemes we see today by 10 years, because you couldn't run them and hope to be competetive against him.

With today's rules and the abundance of soft bigs and wings playing the 4, 35/15 is probably a little low for prime Shaq.
His team would probably play a lot of zone on defense though against stretch lineups.

As an analyst, sometimes he has good insights, and for the most part he doesn't get as out of control stupid/controversial like Barkley/Perkins and the like. He bothers me the least of the modern analysts to be honest.

The other thing you're not accounting for is his speed. He wasn't just Zion in Embiids body plus 50 lbs. He was also atleast Magic Shaq and early Lakers Shaq, just a bit slower than Giannis.

[younggunsmn]

As far as the rib injury, yeah I think there is something to the radio silence.
If he were day to day, they'd just come out and say so.

They don't want it out there he's not going to play so the other team can't gameplan very far ahead.

I'm guessing he's out at least a couple weeks.

We need to stay in the top 6, I think 50 wins gets us there with the current 6-8 seed teams only at +10 wins, they will have to go +8 the rest of the way to get to 50 with only 14-16 games to go for each. That's a tall task.

NO at 5 is a +15 so we are going to have to do a little better to hold them and the Clippers off.
I think they eventually pass the Clippers.

8-7 the rest of the way gets us to 54, good enough to hold the 3 seed, which is probably a good result with the injuries to KAT and Rudy.

[TimberKat]

And outside of 3 people, the majority agree Shaq would absolutely dominate.

Yes, maybe outside of 4 people . Some have good argument why he would be great in this era but a lot of them are of the variety of "Shaq could easily avg 35 pts / 15 rebounds / 5 blocks per game" which of course is impossible. Mostly people remember the highlights and myths, not the entire game or career averages. I am sure Shaq will have games of 50 pts or 25 rebounds in today's NBA.

I counted it's 21 who agree with the fact that Shaq would absolutely dominate to 5 (including you) who do not think so. So take your **** eating grin emoji off.

And no not all of them said he'd average 35/15/5.
But you're getting absolutely diffed in the other thread so you're choosing to pick and choose stuff with me as if I couldn't read that thread either.

Face it dude, you can't look at a bunch of stats and make generalizations about players or teams. You need to actually know the game. And you don't.

I think you are reading my post incorrectly. I am saying only 4 people agree with me and I am perfectly fine with that. I am saying there were a lot of people who made the argument that he would be great in this era. I read it but don't agree with it. Let's move on.

[thinktank]

You would foul him often he'd get the and 1 90% of the time. He'd have 60 every game.

My guy, he's just as if not much more athletic than Gobert.

He'd run the league like he did back in the day.

I post the same question on the General Board and I just put my latest opinion there. Basically, Shaq would be 95%-92% if he plays in today's NBA and I don't think he is much better on defense than Gobert.

It's pretty clear you weren't old enough/born yet to watch Shaq in his prime.

The guy was an unstoppable machine in an era when every team had a properly sized and defensively capable center, and foul calls were hard to come by.
Imagine if Zion Williamson were the size of Joel Embiid, plus 50 pounds. That was prime Shaquille O'Neal.

He changed the game. If your coach didn't have a gameplan to double and triple team, you were toast.
And you had to double team with another big. You absolutely could not play the small one big lineups they play now.

I think Shaq probably delayed the pace and space schemes we see today by 10 years, because you couldn't run them and hope to be competetive against him.

With today's rules and the abundance of soft bigs and wings playing the 4, 35/15 is probably a little low for prime Shaq.
His team would probably play a lot of zone on defense though against stretch lineups.

As an analyst, sometimes he has good insights, and for the most part he doesn't get as out of control stupid/controversial like Barkley/Perkins and the like. He bothers me the least of the modern analysts to be honest.

3 > 2 in today's league.

Shaq wouldn't stop teams draining threes all day. He would probably exacerbate that issue.

So no, Shaq wouldn't run today's league.

[Note30]

I post the same question on the General Board and I just put my latest opinion there. Basically, Shaq would be 95%-92% if he plays in today's NBA and I don't think he is much better on defense than Gobert.

It's pretty clear you weren't old enough/born yet to watch Shaq in his prime.

The guy was an unstoppable machine in an era when every team had a properly sized and defensively capable center, and foul calls were hard to come by.
Imagine if Zion Williamson were the size of Joel Embiid, plus 50 pounds. That was prime Shaquille O'Neal.

He changed the game. If your coach didn't have a gameplan to double and triple team, you were toast.
And you had to double team with another big. You absolutely could not play the small one big lineups they play now.

I think Shaq probably delayed the pace and space schemes we see today by 10 years, because you couldn't run them and hope to be competetive against him.

With today's rules and the abundance of soft bigs and wings playing the 4, 35/15 is probably a little low for prime Shaq.
His team would probably play a lot of zone on defense though against stretch lineups.

As an analyst, sometimes he has good insights, and for the most part he doesn't get as out of control stupid/controversial like Barkley/Perkins and the like. He bothers me the least of the modern analysts to be honest.

3 > 2 in today's league.

Shaq wouldn't stop teams draining threes all day. He would probably exacerbate that issue.

So no, Shaq wouldn't run today's league.

Shaq is a guaranteed double team, even him planting his ass on the block and sealing his man would be draw the nearest other defender halfway between him and his man. Meaning if he's on the weak side of the ball he's removing another defender, and in today's offense which relies on switching defenses will cause a shooter to be free off of just one screen.

So yes, Shaq on any team would mean more teams can easily shoot 3's and more freely.

Also I don't know where you got this idea that Shaq couldn't go out to the perimeter, he had more footspeed than you're giving him credit for, he could definitely keep up with the 7 footers today. Especially Magic and Early Lakers Shaq.

For a guy named thinktank you really don't have any critical thinking going on.

A P&R with Shaq and any guard worth his salt today would be the most free bucket in the game.

[TimberKat]

I have ask the same Shaq question on the general board. Maybe move the conversation there or it's own thread off the Gobert thread. I didn't think it was going to be such a passionate subject.

[shrink]

It’s nice for MIN that we were scheduled two consecutive games at Utah. Not only does that remove one long road trip (1000 mile flight, each way), but consecutive games helps our players acclimatize to the elevation (4265 ft, vs 830 for Minneapolis). In addition, Rudy gets to recover with his family in the home he loves in Salt Lake City.

UTA is no slouch at home (20-14), but we definitely need to win tonight, with difficult KAT-less games ahead.

[TimberKat]

It’s nice for MIN that we were scheduled two consecutive games at Utah. Not only does that remove one long road trip (1000 mile flight, each way), but consecutive games helps our players acclimatize to the elevation (4265 ft, vs 830 for Minneapolis). In addition, Rudy gets to recover with his family in the home he loves in Salt Lake City.

UTA is no slouch at home (20-14), but we definitely need to win tonight, with difficult KAT-less games ahead.

Any news on Gobert's real status? Questionable doesn't really tell us how bad is his injury.

[winforlose]

It’s nice for MIN that we were scheduled two consecutive games at Utah. Not only does that remove one long road trip (1000 mile flight, each way), but consecutive games helps our players acclimatize to the elevation (4265 ft, vs 830 for Minneapolis). In addition, Rudy gets to recover with his family in the home he loves in Salt Lake City.

UTA is no slouch at home (20-14), but we definitely need to win tonight, with difficult KAT-less games ahead.

Any news on Gobert's real status? Questionable doesn't really tell us how bad is his injury.

Chris Hines did the Dane Moore pod this morning. He talked to Rudy on Saturday and it sounds like he is having trouble with range of motion. They speculated that he won’t be back before Friday.

[thinktank]

It's pretty clear you weren't old enough/born yet to watch Shaq in his prime.

The guy was an unstoppable machine in an era when every team had a properly sized and defensively capable center, and foul calls were hard to come by.
Imagine if Zion Williamson were the size of Joel Embiid, plus 50 pounds. That was prime Shaquille O'Neal.

He changed the game. If your coach didn't have a gameplan to double and triple team, you were toast.
And you had to double team with another big. You absolutely could not play the small one big lineups they play now.

I think Shaq probably delayed the pace and space schemes we see today by 10 years, because you couldn't run them and hope to be competetive against him.

With today's rules and the abundance of soft bigs and wings playing the 4, 35/15 is probably a little low for prime Shaq.
His team would probably play a lot of zone on defense though against stretch lineups.

As an analyst, sometimes he has good insights, and for the most part he doesn't get as out of control stupid/controversial like Barkley/Perkins and the like. He bothers me the least of the modern analysts to be honest.

3 > 2 in today's league.

Shaq wouldn't stop teams draining threes all day. He would probably exacerbate that issue.

So no, Shaq wouldn't run today's league.

Shaq is a guaranteed double team, even him planting his ass on the block and sealing his man would be draw the nearest other defender halfway between him and his man. Meaning if he's on the weak side of the ball he's removing another defender, and in today's offense which relies on switching defenses will cause a shooter to be free off of just one screen.

So yes, Shaq on any team would mean more teams can easily shoot 3's and more freely.

Also I don't know where you got this idea that Shaq couldn't go out to the perimeter, he had more footspeed than you're giving him credit for, he could definitely keep up with the 7 footers today. Especially Magic and Early Lakers Shaq.

For a guy named thinktank you really don't have any critical thinking going on.

A P&R with Shaq and any guard worth his salt today would be the most free bucket in the game.

“For a guy named thinktank you really don't have any critical thinking going on.”

I see you’ve gotten desperate, as you’re resorting to personal barbs.

First you talk about Shaq getting double-teamed in the post. Then you talk about him in PnR—Shaq wasn’t a PnR player. Make up your mind.

The modern game has moved away from the post for real reasons—player movement, ball movement, and the prevalence of three point shooting win more games than post-based play.

Was Shaq a good passer? No. Great cutter? No. Three point shooter? No.

All he could do was post up.

One dimensional players like Shaq wouldn’t have the same impact today.

Name call all you want. It looks bad on you, and I enjoy that.

[Klomp]

It’s nice for MIN that we were scheduled two consecutive games at Utah. Not only does that remove one long road trip (1000 mile flight, each way), but consecutive games helps our players acclimatize to the elevation (4265 ft, vs 830 for Minneapolis). In addition, Rudy gets to recover with his family in the home he loves in Salt Lake City.

UTA is no slouch at home (20-14), but we definitely need to win tonight, with difficult KAT-less games ahead.

Any news on Gobert's real status? Questionable doesn't really tell us how bad is his injury.

He seems to be progressing, at least.

Read on Twitter

[BlacJacMac]

Shaq was a terrific passer out of the post - especially in the triangle, and late in his career Mike D’Antoni used to use him as a passer out of the high post frequently.

Shaquille O’Neal was a better passer than you remember

https://thecomeback.com/nba/shaquille-oneal-was-a-better-passer-than-you-remember.html

[Note30]

3 > 2 in today's league.

Shaq wouldn't stop teams draining threes all day. He would probably exacerbate that issue.

So no, Shaq wouldn't run today's league.

Shaq is a guaranteed double team, even him planting his ass on the block and sealing his man would be draw the nearest other defender halfway between him and his man. Meaning if he's on the weak side of the ball he's removing another defender, and in today's offense which relies on switching defenses will cause a shooter to be free off of just one screen.

So yes, Shaq on any team would mean more teams can easily shoot 3's and more freely.

Also I don't know where you got this idea that Shaq couldn't go out to the perimeter, he had more footspeed than you're giving him credit for, he could definitely keep up with the 7 footers today. Especially Magic and Early Lakers Shaq.

For a guy named thinktank you really don't have any critical thinking going on.

A P&R with Shaq and any guard worth his salt today would be the most free bucket in the game.

“For a guy named thinktank you really don't have any critical thinking going on.”

I see you’ve gotten desperate, as you’re resorting to personal barbs.

First you talk about Shaq getting double-teamed in the post. Then you talk about him in PnR—Shaq wasn’t a PnR player. Make up your mind.

The modern game has moved away from the post for real reasons—player movement, ball movement, and the prevalence of three point shooting win more games than post-based play.

Was Shaq a good passer? No. Great cutter? No. Three point shooter? No.

All he could do was post up.

One dimensional players like Shaq wouldn’t have the same impact today.

Name call all you want. It looks bad on you, and I enjoy that.

a.) Shaq was an amazing passer out of the low post, he averaged around 3-4 assists a game in his prime.
b.) Shaq ran the pick and roll pretty well. Was he Karl Malone? No. But he played the roll man pretty well with Kobe and Nash. Couldn't defend it, but he could have just learned to play drop in this era.
c.) There has never been, nor will there every be a player who is Shaqs physical equivalent. You can't discredit his post play because he played in an era with a super clogged paint and still dominated the post game. Post based play isn't effective for multiple reasons, spacing being the largest one. However, NONE of that applies to Shaq. If you pass him the ball with someone less than 260lbs on him, that's a guaranteed 2pts. I'd argue his effectiveness would be around 70%. Especially without another 6'10 250lb power forward to help on the side.
d.) Saying Shaq is one dimensional because all he did is post up is also not reflective of his full skill set. When he came into the league he drove a lot more. He has taken shots that are jump stops from 8ft. He probably would have added to his game in this era. That being said, he was most effective posting up because there wasn't a counter to it.

I'm name calling because you're acting like a moron. If you don't agree with me fine, but if you don't think Shaq would absolutely get his in this era, be so bold and head over to the General Board to post your nonsense opinion and get diffed there just like TimberKat.

[thinktank]

Shaq was a terrific passer out of the post - especially in the triangle, and late in his career Mike D’Antoni used to use him as a passer out of the high post frequently.

Shaquille O’Neal was a better passer than you remember

https://thecomeback.com/nba/shaquille-oneal-was-a-better-passer-than-you-remember.html

If he was a terrific passer he would’ve averaged more than 2.5 assists per game.

Ftr, I’ve been watching basketball religiously since 1982.

[thinktank]

Shaq is a guaranteed double team, even him planting his ass on the block and sealing his man would be draw the nearest other defender halfway between him and his man. Meaning if he's on the weak side of the ball he's removing another defender, and in today's offense which relies on switching defenses will cause a shooter to be free off of just one screen.

So yes, Shaq on any team would mean more teams can easily shoot 3's and more freely.

Also I don't know where you got this idea that Shaq couldn't go out to the perimeter, he had more footspeed than you're giving him credit for, he could definitely keep up with the 7 footers today. Especially Magic and Early Lakers Shaq.

For a guy named thinktank you really don't have any critical thinking going on.

A P&R with Shaq and any guard worth his salt today would be the most free bucket in the game.

“For a guy named thinktank you really don't have any critical thinking going on.”

I see you’ve gotten desperate, as you’re resorting to personal barbs.

First you talk about Shaq getting double-teamed in the post. Then you talk about him in PnR—Shaq wasn’t a PnR player. Make up your mind.

The modern game has moved away from the post for real reasons—player movement, ball movement, and the prevalence of three point shooting win more games than post-based play.

Was Shaq a good passer? No. Great cutter? No. Three point shooter? No.

All he could do was post up.

One dimensional players like Shaq wouldn’t have the same impact today.

Name call all you want. It looks bad on you, and I enjoy that.

a.) Shaq was an amazing passer out of the low post, he averaged around 3-4 assists a game in his prime.
b.) Shaq ran the pick and roll pretty well. Was he Karl Malone? No. But he played the roll man pretty well with Kobe and Nash. Couldn't defend it, but he could have just learned to play drop in this era.
c.) There has never been, nor will there every be a player who is Shaqs physical equivalent. You can't discredit his post play because he played in an era with a super clogged paint and still dominated the post game. Post based play isn't effective for multiple reasons, spacing being the largest one. However, NONE of that applies to Shaq. If you pass him the ball with someone less than 260lbs on him, that's a guaranteed 2pts. I'd argue his effectiveness would be around 70%. Especially without another 6'10 250lb power forward to help on the side.
d.) Saying Shaq is one dimensional because all he did is post up is also not reflective of his full skill set. When he came into the league he drove a lot more. He has taken shots that are jump stops from 8ft. He probably would have added to his game in this era. That being said, he was most effective posting up because there wasn't a counter to it.

I'm name calling because you're acting like a moron. If you don't agree with me fine, but if you don't think Shaq would absolutely get his in this era, be so bold and head over to the General Board to post your nonsense opinion and get diffed there just like TimberKat.

Shaq would be good in this era. But he wouldn’t “run the game” as was claimed. That’s because he’d be a bigger liability on defense now than he was then.

Reported you for name calling. Get a grip on yourself. It’s only a message board.

[frankenwolf]

c.) There has never been, nor will there every be a player who is Shaqs physical equivalent.

You might want to reference Wilt Chamberlain before saying "never been"

That would be a great one on one take: Prime Shaq & Prime Stilt.

Other than that, Note, I agree about Shaq.

[thinktank]

Who said Shaq averaged 4.5 assists during his prime?

He had two seasons of 3.8 and 3.7. Everything else was 3 assists or below.

That is not a “terrific” passer.

(Charges called a lot more frequently now too, I believe. I just don’t see the same level of effectiveness for him.)