Peaks project update: #2

[No-more-rings]

Shaq also went on to lose against Wilt. It being close because Lebron had his votes split eight ways does not mean Shaq was more deserving. Frankly, his postseason was pretty clearly below Duncan’s, Kareem’s and Hakeem’s peak postseasons for me, so coming in at #4 is already generous.

Wait what? You think Shaq’s postseason was clearly worse than those guys?

[liamliam1234]

Yeah, although I acknowledge that is an uncommon take.

His defence was easily the worst of the four (even if this was one of his better years); his postseason passing was the worst of the four; his free throw ineptitude hurt his overall scoring efficiency by comparison to the others; he had the clear best supporting cast; he carried a lot of responsibility for that Trail Blazers series being much, much closer to an upset than it had any right to be; and his volume scoring advantage is overstated because Tim Duncan (who historically outplayed him in their series against each other) was absent in that year’s Spurs series while Hakeem and Kareem respectively faced defensive titans via the 1994 Knicks and 1977 Trail Blazers.

EDIT: I am not sure how you can look at their postseason numbers, adjusted for respective pace, and think Shaq comes across as anything other than the weakest of the bunch. http://bkref.com/tiny/SzviN

[colts18]

Shaq's supporting cast was the worst. Check out Kobe's numbers in the finals. Awful. Shaq had old ass Ron Harper, Glen Rice, AC Green starting on the team.

[liamliam1234]

2000 Kobe was better than the second option on any of the second options on the 1977 Lakers, 1994 Rockets (Big Shot Bob would be, what, the fourth best guy on the 2000 Lakers at best?), and 2003 Spurs. The regular season gap between Shaq and the rest of these guys was nowhere near equivalent to them achieving 67 wins in the western conference. It is absurd to act as if this was some 2009 Lebron -level carry-job (oh, look, another reason Shaq would never belong in the second spot) where suddenly Shaq just started performing worse in the playoffs because of how “dragged down” he was.