[Project:Primes of the top 10 ever] List the top 12 seasons between Shaquille O'Neal vs. Larry Bird

[Odinn21]

Top 7 seasons for Larry Bird;
1986
1984
1985
1987
1988
1983/1982
1982/1981

Top 7 seasons for Shaquille O'Neal;
2000
2001
2002
1998
1999
2003
1995

My list of top 12 seasons between the two;
1. 2000 Shaquille O'Neal
2. 1986 Larry Bird
3. 1984 Larry Bird
4. 2001 Shaquille O'Neal
5. 1985 Larry Bird
6. 2002 Shaquille O'Neal
7. 1987 Larry Bird
8. 1988 Larry Bird
9. 1998 Shaquille O'Neal
10. 2003 Shaquille O'Neal
11. 1999 Shaquille O'Neal
12. 1995 Shaquille O'Neal

The top 4 is in a tier of their own. I've always been higher on Shaq's single season peak. But he had too much of a drop on defense in 2001 compared to 2000 and Bird's 1984 run, especially his ps run, is too good to be given that kind of advantage.

O'Neal's trajectory was on decline after 2001 because he didn't take care of his body, he gained so much wait and lost some mobility due to that. Missed 15 games in 2002.
Bird himself wasn't at his best in 1985 playoffs due to that bar fight incident. But I still very much doubt that 2002 O'Neal was straight up better than 1985 Bird and there's a trade-off between quality and missed games. The gap in rs performances is just flat out bigger to me. Also there might be a winning bias towards 2002 O'Neal since it could've been a WCF exit with 26/13/3 instead of a 29/13/3 title winning run and I doubt people would put him over 1985 Bird. (I'm not saying this to discredit O'Neal or the Lakers, I said this as convincing performances and results.)

1987 was a complete season from Bird, probably more complete than his own 1985 but he wasn't a better player his defensive game was waning.

1988 was more of the same but worse ps performance.
Actually I'd might prefer 1998 and 2003 O'Neal as better players but I'm not particularly big on his defensive effort (especially not on 2003) and he missed 22 games in 1998 and 15 games in 2003.

I'm still not comfortable putting 1999 O'Neal that down low because it's O'Neal's one of very few complete prime seasons without a durability issues. But at the moment, it's where he stands right now.

1995 O'Neal vs. 1981/1982/1983 Bird was challenging. But Bird hard too many postseason resiliency issues to earn a spot over 1995 O'Neal. So...

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I watched a couple of games for each these 2 players before posting my rankings. This was my mock-up rankings and seemed to be holding up after refreshing my memory. It's kind of sad that these 2 legends didn't get where they could be. At least, even though for a season, we got to see their absolute potentials though.

[Odinn21]

8 hours left on the clock.

[70sFan]

Top Bird seasons:

1986
1984
1987
1985
1988
1981
1982

Spoiler:

I have 1986 first for obvious reasons - probably his best postseason run along with top tier RS. The best combination of shooting, passing and defense.

The second choice is harder, but I decided to go with 1984. Highly underrated postseason run, while facing 4 of 9 best defenses (including two best defenses in the league). On top of that, it was one of his best defensive seasons when he still played a big part of the time at PF. From what I've seen, his shooting also improved notably that season, even though he didn't take a lot of threes yet.

1987 is an obvious next choice, probably his offensive peak overall. Unfortunately, his defense started to take a big hit. It was mostly visible in Pistons and Lakers series when he couldn't deal with Dantley's mastery and Lakers speed.

1985 and 1988 are similar - very strong regular seasons, but underperformances in playoffs. The difference on defense is massive though.

1981 and 1982 are close, I went with 1981 because of Sixers series comparison.

Top Shaq seasons:

2000
2001
2002
1998
1999
2003
1995
1994

Spoiler:

Shaq has a clear outlier season in 2000. It's by far his best RS and best or second best playoffs run. I decided to go with 2001 next, even with not so great RS. 2002 has missed games, but he was simply better basketball player than Magic Shaq on both ends of the floor. 1998 is one of the Shaq seasons in terms of per-minute impact, but he missed a lot of games.

I'm extremely low on Shaq's defensive performance in 1999 to be honest. It might be his weakest defensive season of his prime. Lakers were absolutely horrible on that end and Shaq actually had negative defensive on/off.

On top of that, I was extremely disappointed when I watched Shaq's playoffs performance during that season. It's not about his scoring - he did better job against Twin Tower than almost anyone could - it's about his defense. He put up no effort on that end even when Lakers were losing close games.

Maybe I haven't seen enough games from that season or Lakers defensive numbers influence my mind a bit too much, but I can't see 1999 higher than 1998/2002/2003.

Let's go to the voting

1. 2000 Shaquille O'Neal - I think that Shaq peaked on a level above Bird. Although I'm not high on Shaq's defense overall, he put up solid effort throughout the season. He was decent rim protector and outstanding post defender. On top of that, his offense is extremely resiliant, you can't do much to stop Shaq impacting the game. This resiliancy made me decide to go with Shaq over Bird.

2. 1986 Larry Bird - ATG regular season backed up with just as good playoffs. Clearly Bird's best season overall.

3. 2001 Shaquille O'Neal - it's basically between 2001 and 1984. Why did I go with 2001 Shaq? Because as amazing as Bird was in playoffs (and this run is highly underappreciated, he murdered the best defensive teams in the league), I think that Shaq reached even higher highs. I know that his RS is a bit underwhelming, but he still has massive impact on his team and it seems that his problems on defensive end weren't as large as in other seasons.

4. 1984 Larry Bird - clearly the best option left here, absolutely amazing carryjob.

5. 2002 Shaquille O'Neal - close choice between 2002 and 1987, both players started to slow down considerably on defensive end. Bird had lower lows in this season, but Shaq had higher highs and I decided to give him the edge because of that.

6. 1987 Larry Bird - easy choice, amazing offensive season and ATG performance against very strong Pistons team.

7. 1985 Larry Bird - could have been higher without postseason injury, but it is how it is.

8. 1988 Larry Bird - arguably his best offensive RS, but his performance vs Pistons hurts his case. That said, he didn't miss games and was consistently good for majority of the season. That's enough to put him over versions of Shaq that missed 15+games.

9. 1998 Shaquille O'Neal - monster imapct and production... when he played. Can't have him higher with so many games missed. It's arguably Shaq's 3rd best season on per-possession basis.

10. 1999 Shaquille O'Neal - I don't like his defense, but his offense was simply more dominant than any pre-84 version of Bird.

11. 2003 Shaquille O'Neal - another solid Shaq seasons with missed games and defense concerns.

12. 1995 Shaquille O'Neal - outstanding playoffs run puts him ahead of 1981-93 Bird.

Top 10 is reasonably close and top 8 is actually on Bird's favor. That said, Shaq has clear longevity advantage. It's basically longevity vs durability here and I do think that Shaq was better player in his prime on per-possession basis.

[Odinn21]

Shaquille O'Neal vs. Larry Bird results;

Code: Select all

1.   71 points / 0.986 share / '00 Shaquille O'Neal
2.   65 points / 0.903 share / '86 Larry Bird
3.   60 points / 0.833 share / '01 Shaquille O'Neal
4.   52 points / 0.722 share / '84 Larry Bird
5.   45 points / 0.625 share / '02 Shaquille O'Neal
6.   42 points / 0.583 share / '85 Larry Bird
7.   38 points / 0.528 share / '87 Larry Bird
8.   24 points / 0.333 share / '03 Shaquille O'Neal
9.   22 points / 0.306 share / '88 Larry Bird
10.  20 points / 0.278 share / '98 Shaquille O'Neal
11.  16 points / 0.222 share / '99 Shaquille O'Neal
12.   9 points / 0.125 share / '95 Shaquille O'Neal
                               
13.   2 points / 0.028 share / '04 Shaquille O'Neal
14.   1 points / 0.014 share / '83 Larry Bird
15.   1 points / 0.014 share / '94 Shaquille O'Neal

Points within top 12 seasons voted;
Shaquille O'Neal 41 - 37 Larry Bird

Points totals in top 12 seasons voted;
Shaquille O'Neal 245 - 219 Larry Bird

Winner: Shaquille O'Neal

Results on Google Sheets