70sFan wrote:Heej wrote:Not necessarily but he's still the best choice out of that tier to be on the Mt Rushmore of peaks imo. I was discussing this with Ohayo but I think the environment was just an outlier as far as properly rating Shaq's defensive ability.
He purposely put on weight because teams were signing big fat guys to hurt him lol. You can't waste minutes in a playoff rotation nowadays with guys like that and Shaq naturally would be forced to play at an Embiid level body type instead of a super sized Al Horford body type.
In most eras where Shaq isn't just forced to put on an unseemly amount of weight to handle physical abuse his defense would likely grade out much closer to the other guys.
As I said in previous post, I didn't mean that having Shaq the highest is unreasonable, only that I don't find much evidence to put him in different tier than the rest of bigs.
About defense - here is where I definitely disagree with you. It wasn't really a matter of him bulking up that reduced his mobility (though it certainly didn't help). Shaq didn't look like an elite defensive prospect even before he reached ridiculous 340+lbs weights. His reads were very inconsistent, he had poor fundamentals to when and how contest shots, he didn't have elite timing and his positioning left a lot to desire. I have never watched Shaq and thought at the time "wow, imagine him being more mobile - he would be top tier defender!". Shaq had way more issues than weight on defensive end that stopped him from being top tier defender.
About his body size - keep in mind that Shaq was bigger than Embiid in his rookie year. It would be very hard for him to go below 300 lbs.
As for why I have him higher I just think his IQ and motor along with his physical dominance puts him over the top. He didn't have weird disengaging moments like AD. And he had no qualms playing the way people said Dwight should his entire career, rolling into deep post position often. Motor matters and for his size I think Shaq was just constantly on it. Especially on the offensive glass.
I agree that his motor (on offensive end) was definitely a huge advantage he has over most bigs. His consistent work for position and physical pressure was never seen before or since.
Not to mention he was a very good functional pivot passer, which in my experience correlates highly with defensive IQ for bigs. His passing out of swarms is better than Hakeem and Wilt imo and he took better shots than them. I think people forget how much of a problem that was for Hakeem outside of those years he really put it together when surrounded by 4 shooters in an era where doubles were much easier to diagnose because of how much further away they had to rotate over from.
I definitely agree that Shaq was significantly better passer than Hakeem (not sure about Wilt, probably not), Olajuwon was clearly the weakest passer out of these top tier centers (unless you include Moses here). I don't see a huge advantage for him over Duncan or Kareem though.
People thought Jokic was bad on D up until this year but we saw how well his skills stood out (hands, anticipation, defensive rebounding) once he got in shape. Shaq could easily survive as a deep drop guy and had the footspeed to come out a bit higher than Jokic can. I'd imagine his defensive impact is naturally better than what we saw from that era simply because it was such a weird outlier era for how teams played him and forced him to adapt
Shaq doesn't have Jokic strengths though - he didn't have Jokic hands, his anticipation was significantly worse and so is his reaction time. He still has a lot of advantages over Jokic on defense (athleticism, speed, rim protection), so I don't think he'd be really worse than Jokic defensively in this era, but again - we're not comparing him to Jokic here, but to Russell/Wilt/Kareem/Hakeem/Duncan.
I do agree with all of this, but I think size really goes a long way in covering a lot of mistakes. We've had debates on this before but I personally think Shaq was the more nimble big between him and Wilt. So while he doesn't have Jokic's advantages I see him the same way in that he was more than good enough to play a drop scheme and bother people with his own advantages while still reigning in defensive rebounds.
I certainly think he's worse defensively than the guys you're comparing him to, but also significantly more of a problem offensively. The entire League had to sell out to stop him. Not even Curry created that much of a seismic roster shift due to his offense. Even from a schematic standpoint I just think Shaq is on another level of breaking defenses. He was ragdolling OTHER BIG MEN. Jokic kinda showed a little bit of that this postseason but it never got to the point where teams refused to concede switches even though he punished them for it.
You wouldn't be able to play that same zone Miami did against Shaq with guys like Caleb Martin and Gabe Vincent trying to fend him off at the pinch post. Jokic showed why when he just went to the rack vs them. Shaq would just vaporize those guys. If you can't switch you're automatically conceding some kind of domino effect advantage on a majority of screening actions. Shaq in his prime with modern schemes and playoff level role players who can punish over-helping is creating a gigantic domino effect every possession because you can't really even entertain switches the way teams think they can live with vs Jokic. So every screen is automatically putting your team in rotation.
Jokic showed how a near GOAT-caliber big man's relentless interior pressure can overwhelm teams over time. Shaq is stressing defenses more than (or at least close to) Curry because while Curry can hit 3s from outside, Shaq is going to obliterate the offensive glass or bury people under the rim which is just more valuable imo over the course of a game as far as what it does to defenses over time.
Humanity's cyclical and I often wondered how the game is ever going to evolve back from the 3 point chuck-fest run and gun style. But the highest level playoff games where schemes and intensity are maxed out are swinging back to favoring some of the classic things like inside scoring, rebounding, and mid-range shot creation.
For zone based defenses, offensive rebounding is often a bigger problem than giving up 3s. Especially because playing defense for another 14 seconds is becoming more harrowing than that one extra point imo. All that to say I just think Shaq's offense matters a lot more than those guys, and with the right scheme, personnel, and conditioning I'd be surprised if he didn't grade out to be a very good defender nowadays had he played at 310 instead of 350 lol
So if Jokic is the offensive GOAT I'm just of the opinion that Shaq's offense actually isn't far behind, and if you put him in the exact same defensive situation Jokic was in (and he wasn't packing on fat to protect himself) I'd think his defense would be a bit better than Jokic's.
But honestly man these are very compelling arguments and I can admit that you guys have swayed me from having Shaq being my confident pick for #4 to more of a "from what I think I know about basketball Shaq seems like the best choice for 4th highest peak just from how I look at the game". But now I do think Bron/Kareem/MJ are their own tier. With Shaq/Jokic/Russell in the tier under. Then Hakeem/Timmy/Wilt
But that 4th spot is completely up for grabs and I anticipate 4/5 to be the most hotly contested position outside of #1 for the peaks project.
LeBron's NBA Cup MVP is more valuable than either of KD's Finals MVPs. This is the word of the Lord
