Shaquille O'Neal creation ability (with clips)
Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2024 7:05 pm
I see that people mention Shaq's creation ability, so I want to share a few clips from my collection touching on that subject.
So, the easiest types of assists for Shaq came from hard doubles to the shooter, like this one:
He was capable of more subtle manipulation though, like here where he waits for Pippen to react and when Scottie didn't commit to either coverage, he makes a jump-pass faking a cutter find to create open shot outside.
Of course the main thing regarding Shaq's creation value is his immense inside gravity
The one above is an obvious example, but even the more subtle ones like here shows how much value his inside gravity is, as he often forced his opponents to double him on simple paint flash:
I mean, for 2000 I even found a few examples of Kobe defender (!) doubling Shaq on a catch, that's just insane:
Here we can see a good example of patient post offense from Shaq:
Shaq also had possessions like this one where the opening for a cutter wasn't obvious (which separates him from less talented post passers like Hakeem or Moses):
Shaq also had quite a bit creativity with his passing, though he wasn't top tier at improvising. Watch him making a nice lob here:
A few bad passes from Shaq, just to show that he could be inconsistent with these kind of passes:
Here, he missed an open cutter:
Here, he missed quite obvious inside pass:
That happened to both Shaq and Hakeem, as they were taught to look for shooters in the first place
And this is the type of pass Shaq usually missed, as it requires top tier awareness:
So overall, Shaq was very good at dealing with doubles and he could manipulate the defense at times, though he usually looked for the easiest openings. His immense inside gravity made him extremely good off-ball creator (very few players could compete with him). I haven't done any in-depth volume creation tracking, but I base my notes on watching closely over 50 peak Shaq games (from 2000 and 2001). If you have any questions, please let me know.
So, the easiest types of assists for Shaq came from hard doubles to the shooter, like this one:
He was capable of more subtle manipulation though, like here where he waits for Pippen to react and when Scottie didn't commit to either coverage, he makes a jump-pass faking a cutter find to create open shot outside.
Of course the main thing regarding Shaq's creation value is his immense inside gravity
The one above is an obvious example, but even the more subtle ones like here shows how much value his inside gravity is, as he often forced his opponents to double him on simple paint flash:
I mean, for 2000 I even found a few examples of Kobe defender (!) doubling Shaq on a catch, that's just insane:
Here we can see a good example of patient post offense from Shaq:
Shaq also had possessions like this one where the opening for a cutter wasn't obvious (which separates him from less talented post passers like Hakeem or Moses):
Shaq also had quite a bit creativity with his passing, though he wasn't top tier at improvising. Watch him making a nice lob here:
A few bad passes from Shaq, just to show that he could be inconsistent with these kind of passes:
Here, he missed an open cutter:
Here, he missed quite obvious inside pass:
That happened to both Shaq and Hakeem, as they were taught to look for shooters in the first place
And this is the type of pass Shaq usually missed, as it requires top tier awareness:
So overall, Shaq was very good at dealing with doubles and he could manipulate the defense at times, though he usually looked for the easiest openings. His immense inside gravity made him extremely good off-ball creator (very few players could compete with him). I haven't done any in-depth volume creation tracking, but I base my notes on watching closely over 50 peak Shaq games (from 2000 and 2001). If you have any questions, please let me know.