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Shaq and Hakeem really have to be ahead of Oscar and West...

Shaq and Hakeem both were the 1st option on multiple title teams, while West had Chamberlain and Oscar had Jabbar when they won their titles.

In addition, Shaq and Hakeem both won MVP awards, while Oscar/West never did.

When you consider that out of the MJ-Barkley-Malone-Olajuwon-Stockton-Ewing-Wilkins generation of players, Hakeem was the only one besides Jordan to win a title, that's pretty remarkable.

netsforever wrote:Shaq and Hakeem really have to be ahead of Oscar and West...

Shaq and Hakeem both were the 1st option on multiple title teams, while West had Chamberlain and Oscar had Jabbar when they won their titles.

In addition, Shaq and Hakeem both won MVP awards, while Oscar/West never did.

Oscar never won an MVP award?

Hunh.

That's news to me.

ThaRegul8r wrote:-= original quote snipped =-



Oscar never won an MVP award?

Hunh.

That's news to me.

Ah. Turns out he won one in 63-64. My bad.

Still... it's 2-1 in favor of Hakeem/O'Neal.

Wellll...West never won an MVP award, but he was second four times. That's more top 2 finishes than Shaq or Hakeem (or Oscar). And in the case of both West and Oscar, I'm not totally buying into the "leading your team" thing--especially not with West. West was up against the greatest dynasty in the history of the sport, was a terrific leader, and an absolute playoff stud. I'm just not seeing any sort of real difference there. It's largely subjective; depends on what you want.

For me, Shaq's career will always be a bit of a disappointment. If he'd had the discipline and commitment, he could have been a top 5-6 player; maybe higher. It hurt his teams, it hurts his legacy for me. I don't put Shaq above West. Shaq missed a lot of games; so did West. But West missed games because he sacrificed his body; he took more abuse than any guard of the 60s (maybe of all time, given the violence of the era). Shaq missed games because he was fat and wanted to take Toe Vacations; he got fat because he didn't want to work and wanted to make rap CDs or movies. I don't put him above Duncan or Hakeem either; those guys were more committed to their game and winning than Shaq was, at least for most of Shaq's career. Shaq is in my top 10, but barely. But, like I said, it's largely subjective.

TrueLAfan wrote:Wellll...West never won an MVP award, but he was second four times. That's more top 2 finishes than Shaq or Hakeem (or Oscar). And in the case of both West and Oscar, I'm not totally buying into the "leading your team" thing--especially not with West. West was up against the greatest dynasty in the history of the sport, was a terrific leader, and an absolute playoff stud. I'm just not seeing any sort of real difference there. It's largely subjective; depends on what you want.

For me, Shaq's career will always be a bit of a disappointment. If he'd had the discipline and commitment, he could have been a top 5-6 player; maybe higher. It hurt his teams, it hurts his legacy for me. I don't put Shaq above West. Shaq missed a lot of games; so did West. But West missed games because he sacrificed his body; he took more abuse than any guard of the 60s (maybe of all time, given the violence of the era). Shaq missed games because he was fat and wanted to take Toe Vacations; he got fat because he didn't want to work and wanted to make rap CDs or movies. I don't put him above Duncan or Hakeem either; those guys were more committed to their game and winning than Shaq was, at least for most of Shaq's career. Shaq is in my top 10, but barely. But, like I said, it's largely subjective.

Oh, no. I completely agree with you that Shaq played far below his potential.

But he was the lead player on 3 title teams despite spending a large portion of his career in the Jordan era ... and was a player who should have won MVPs in at least two years (first year in Miami, second title year in LA) where he didn't.

Also, where are you getting your statistics on how many times West finished 2nd? Not doubting you, I was just unaware of that, and would love to be able to reference that in the future.

I also wonder how well West's numbers would have translated to a slower game such as Shaq's era.

He was a 27 - 6 rpg - 7 apg - 47% FG guy for his career... but would he have put up those types of numbers at a slower pace? I mean, I'm supposed to believe that Jerry West was as good on the boards as Micheal Jordan?

Anyway... it's true that you can only judge players based on the competition in their era, and Jerry West was an All-NBA 1st team player in 10 of his 14 seasons... when you take out his rookie year (when he was an All-Star - wow!) and his final year when he played 31 games, that means he was considered either top 1 or top 2 among guards for 10/12 of his seasons.

There's no disrespect meant to West at all, and I can certainly understand the dislike to Shaq - which I agree with to a large degree - but Shaq's 4 titles while playing in an era where he had to go through 4 playoff rounds as opposed to 3, and the fact that he shot almost a 60% clip for his career, and the fact that having Shaq on your team almost always meant that you were a top-5 team in the NBA puts him over West for me.

For an overall view through 2003:

http://www.sportsstats.com/bball/NBA/top5mvps.txt

APBR list through 2001

http://members.aol.com/bradleyrd/nbamvps.html

Individual years are available at basketball-reference.com. West was second in 1966, 1970, 1971, and 1972.

West is one of the players I