Anyone else surprised that we haven't seen another Shaq like player

[dhsilv2]

How many real 7 footers with 280+lbs frame do we have in NBA history? I can only think of 3: Wilt, Gilmore and Shaq.

Eaton. Sabonis.

As I said, I forgot to add athletic part - Sabonis wasn't athletic in NBA anymore and Eaton certainly wasn't among the most nimble guys on the floor.

yeah i saw that after the post. Though doing more research, Embiid falls into this grouping.

[J___Av]

Think about how much Zions frame and athleticism is and anomaly then add half a foot and a freakish wingspan too. That’s just physically, then you add Shaqs skill and bbiq.

Shaq may be the most impressive athlete ever, but Zion is way faster and jumps way higher. If Shaq could move and jump like Zion he would have scored 60PPG.

[70sFan]

Eaton. Sabonis.

As I said, I forgot to add athletic part - Sabonis wasn't athletic in NBA anymore and Eaton certainly wasn't among the most nimble guys on the floor.

yeah i saw that after the post. Though doing more research, Embiid falls into this grouping.

Yeah, probably too. Not as big as Wilt or Shaq, bit probably comparable to A-Train.

[Pennebaker]

JaVale McGee is 7 foot, highly athletic, and 270. Does he count?

[Bornstellar]

Nope. There will probably never be another Shaq. A player as huge as he was being so athletic and having that kind of footwork? He's one of a kind imo, bigs never have that kind of powerful athleticism and if they do they don't have the strength and agility of Shaq.

Shaq at his peak was literally unstoppable. If he had a better work ethic he really could've been the GOAT.

[dhsilv2]

As I said, I forgot to add athletic part - Sabonis wasn't athletic in NBA anymore and Eaton certainly wasn't among the most nimble guys on the floor.

yeah i saw that after the post. Though doing more research, Embiid falls into this grouping.

Yeah, probably too. Not as big as Wilt or Shaq, bit probably comparable to A-Train.

based on what I read earlier, sounds like he was up near 300 and lost 25. Seems like he's a bit smaller but getting close to wilt in terms of weight. I'm of course always skeptical of all player weights. Shaq's just....shaq.

[Matt800]

Greg Oden might have been up there without the injuries. He had the size and athleticism, and had moments of looking dominant even with the injuries he was experiencing.

[70sFan]

yeah i saw that after the post. Though doing more research, Embiid falls into this grouping.

Yeah, probably too. Not as big as Wilt or Shaq, bit probably comparable to A-Train.

based on what I read earlier, sounds like he was up near 300 and lost 25. Seems like he's a bit smaller but getting close to wilt in terms of weight. I'm of course always skeptical of all player weights. Shaq's just....shaq.

Even if we include Embiid, my point still stands. We have at best 4 players that big and that athletic in over 70 years of NBA existance.

[dhsilv2]

Yeah, probably too. Not as big as Wilt or Shaq, bit probably comparable to A-Train.

based on what I read earlier, sounds like he was up near 300 and lost 25. Seems like he's a bit smaller but getting close to wilt in terms of weight. I'm of course always skeptical of all player weights. Shaq's just....shaq.

Even if we include Embiid, my point still stands. We have at best 4 players that big and that athletic in over 70 years of NBA existance.

Thought we were playing a game to think about players

Robinson while likely more like 250 was also at a body fat level so low most human's couldn't function at it. If he were more like even young shaq in body fat he'd be nearing the 270 mark for example.

[70sFan]

based on what I read earlier, sounds like he was up near 300 and lost 25. Seems like he's a bit smaller but getting close to wilt in terms of weight. I'm of course always skeptical of all player weights. Shaq's just....shaq.

Even if we include Embiid, my point still stands. We have at best 4 players that big and that athletic in over 70 years of NBA existance.

Thought we were playing a game to think about players

Robinson while likely more like 250 was also at a body fat level so low most human's couldn't function at it. If he were more like even young shaq in body fat he'd be nearing the 270 mark for example.

Robinson didn't have body type to carry such a big frame though, he had much slimmer body. I can't see him playing at 290+lbs in basketball shape.
If you want to include guys like him, then Kareem reached 270 lbs quite a few times in his career, but I wouldn't call him massive player either.

[MarcusBrody]

People are focused on weight, but what we're really talking about with Shaq is power. Javale McGee may be 270, but he's not insanely powerful. Part of that comes from getting lots of mass moving, some of it comes from knowing how to leverage it.

Honestly the person who I think is most similar in that respect RightNow is Jokic. He certainly doesn't have Shaq's speed to go with it, but he seems more likely than anyone else in the league to just use his combination of power, touch, and moves to get into players body and just drive them back before scoring on them in the post.

Earlier this year he moved Zion around as if Zion was a somewhat normal human.

Now, no one get this wrong and think I'm saying that Jokic is half the athlete Shaq was, but he's one of the few centers that effectively uses power, mass, and touch to work near the basket.

[J the Drafter]

Dwight is the player that comes to mind, though at 6’10 he might be too short for your criteria. Skill-wise, Dwight excelled at defense—not just shot-blocking and altering shots, but smothering pick and rolls and defensive rebounding. At his peak, he was the only contender for Defensive Player of the Year.

His offense, while pedestrian, was enough to reliably get shots for himself and others.

[SmashMouthRod]

A player like him probably wouldnt be as coveted in todays game considering the brute force he played with. His dominance isnt probably viewed the way it should because he didnt always maintain his conditioning; didnt improve his game (mainly his free throw shooting) which probably factored into why he didnt completely dominate an era. Anytime you have teams signing guys who are scrubs just to use their six fouls on a guy; it means they have very little hope of stopping him. He probably would have about 4 additional championships if he made free throws.

A lot of his aggressive post ups would probably be called as offensive fouls or even techs in todays game. In this era teams would game plan to flop at the slightest bump from him in the paint; or sag on him from 12 ft or deeper probably making it significantly harder for him to have the same impact. He had absolutely no range on his jumper which seems to be a must for 1-5 at this point. He did create a lot of spacing with how dominant he was in the paint. Dwight Howard in Orlando similarly was able to create spacing on the floor like Shaq; with defenses focused on loading up to deny easy dunks/layups off isos or alley oops. Obviously Dwight was more iso face up finesse with a hint of power; while Shaq was a bowling ball post player with a hint of finesse.

[Richard Miller]

Honestly the person who I think is most similar in that respect RightNow is Jokic. He certainly doesn't have Shaq's speed to go with it, but he seems more likely than anyone else in the league to just use his combination of power, touch, and moves to get into players body and just drive them back before scoring on them in the post.

Earlier this year he moved Zion around as if Zion was a somewhat normal human.

Now, no one get this wrong and think I'm saying that Jokic is half the athlete Shaq was, but he's one of the few centers that effectively uses power, mass, and touch to work near the basket.

Good one. Nurkic before the injury was a beast, yet Jokic still backed him down easily:

Watch on YouTube

[yesh]

come into the league in a quarter century plus since he has? I am a little actually even with the center position being more limited the last 5 or so years that's still a lot of time. I wouldn't have thought we would have seen another Shaq but at least someone that was 7 foot highly athletic and in the 280 range. It really doesn't even require a ton of shooting skill, just a catch and dunk guy that rebounds and blocks shots.

Who would even be the closest facsimile to Shaq the last 20 years? I can't even think of a 7 foot 280+ athletic player off the top of my head.

Zion might be the closest thing to weight and athletic ability and he's 6-6.

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2020/2/25/21151896/zion-williamson-shaquille-oneal-pelicans-lakers

Drummond is listed at 7' 275lbs. Obviously he's nowhere near as dominant as Shaq was, but probably the closest comparison in terms of size and athleticism.

Embid, Drummond, Dwight Howard I guess would be somewhat but they really are a lot smaller. Drummond is like 6-10

Whiteside? I think I would actually go with Whiteside as the player most like Shaq the last 25 years. He's still skinny though 265, maybe a rookie shaq.

[KonKrete]

Because boys of that size and athletic ability in America are usually pushed into being Offensive tackles and Defensive ends. Ending up being a army brat and moving around a lot probably helped shield Shaq from having that happen to him.

[kuclas]

We don’t know how dominant in today’s switch heavy wings With length pseudo double teaming to help out on Shaq. How would he do? Probably still a beast. But he would be at a more disadvantage having to handle the ball in low post with the defensive wings cheating in.

lakers would still have enough spacing with outside shooting for Shaq to be unstoppable. Kobe, Robert Horry and fisher/fox on the perimeter.

So Lakers championship teams were well balanced even for this modern era.

The modern centers can’t dominate like Shaq. Closest is Embiid and he hasn’t got a clue how to find the open man when doubled 70% of the time. Or maybe embiid doesn’t had the right fit around him. I do think Shaq would have a huge problem Ben Simmons were his point guard and Horace grant was at the 4 slot.

But Shaq just special. He was probably robbed of 3 nba mvps. For him to have just one is a crime.

[Golden Knight]

The thing that makes Shaq truly a once in a lifetime player is there were two versions of him - Orlando Shaq and Lakers Shaq - and both versions were mind boggling athletic freaks.

He was very dominant as a leaner player in Orlando. Took the Magic to the Finals as a 22 year old and finishing runner-up in the MVP race as well as leading the league in scoring.

He took dominance to another level as a much heavier player in LA (although his body started breaking down missing a ton of games which cost him 1 or 2 MVP trophies).

I can't think of another player that was physically and athletically imposing at two very different "weight divisions".

[MemphisX]

Shaq and Wilt were 36 years apart. I expect in the next 10-15 years we will see another giant with supreme athleticism and coordination. Most likely will be coming direct from Africa though.

[Winsome Gerbil]

Cousins perhaps was the closest thing to resembling Shaq's game.

He certainly had the size and athletic skills to be discussed as a comp.

I mean, yes and no.

Cousins, by any other standard than Shaq, is a massive man. But that said, he's closer to 6'10"-6'11" than to being a 7 footer, and when he was carrying around 280 it was generally considered too much. Maybe 265-270 would be a good strength weight. One of the most powerful players of his era, but I still remember him running into late career Shaq when he was a...rookie? young at least, and he just bounced off the immense wall that Shaq had become.

And athletically, Cousins was freakish with his quickness and ballhandling for a player his size, but his weakness was always that he could not jump. Shaq was never quick like that, but his leaping ability as a young man was ridiculous at that size and he annually led the league in dunks forever. They both had exceptional athletic traits for players their size, but they were kind of a study in opposites traitwise.