Shaq/Kobe: The greatest duo ever

[G35]

Shaq's replacement was Mark Madsen. duh, great impact.

For someone who puts as much emphasis on numbers and analysis, the manner in which you subjectively apply them is absolutely baffling to me.

If those numbers were measuring Olajuwon or KG, you'd be having them cast in bronze. Otherwise, the impact of one of the most indisputably dominant and impactful players in history is reduced to the inadequacy of his backup.

Lame.

First thing I thought when I saw bastillion's response...."WTF???!?!?!?" Isn't that the whole Nash/KG argument that the team falls apart when they aren't on the court?.....

[Rapcity_11]

Shaq's replacement was Mark Madsen. duh, great impact.

For someone who puts as much emphasis on numbers and analysis, the manner in which you subjectively apply them is absolutely baffling to me.

If those numbers were measuring Olajuwon or KG, you'd be having them cast in bronze. Otherwise, the impact of one of the most indisputably dominant and impactful players in history is reduced to the inadequacy of his backup.

Lame.

First thing I thought when I saw bastillion's response...."WTF???!?!?!?" Isn't that the whole Nash/KG argument that the team falls apart when they aren't on the court?.....

Hence the need for ADJUSTED +/-............

[G35]

Hence the need for ADJUSTED +/-............

To prevent obvious agendas.....

[bastillon]

Shaq's replacement was Mark Madsen. duh, great impact.

For someone who puts as much emphasis on numbers and analysis, the manner in which you subjectively apply them is absolutely baffling to me.

If those numbers were measuring Olajuwon or KG, you'd be having them cast in bronze. Otherwise, the impact of one of the most indisputably dominant and impactful players in history is reduced to the inadequacy of his backup.

Lame.

to me it's understandable that a team with Samaki Walker and Mark Madsen will fall apart, do you dispute that ? I don't care who's on the perimeter but that sort of duo is not gonna make it work. Lakers just didn't have any rebounding bigs without Shaq. kind of a basic requirement for a performance of any sort.

there's a much larger sample of what Kobe was able to do with decent bigs and what type of impact Shaq was making when bigs who were backing him up were actually NBA caliber. Shaq missed tons of games in 96-98 so there's like 70-game sample in which team did NOT fall apart. it was also the case on the Heat 05-06 though obviously that was with past prime Shaq. but what stands out to me is this:

Shaq, no Kobe: +4.76

in the RS 01-04 Shaq played a lot of mins without Kobe and those Lakers were still a championship caliber team. they wouldn't win any titles without Kobe, but even keeping that team at that level is impressive.

so whenever you're anchoring a +5 team with Fisher/Fox/George on the perimeter and PF combo of Horry/Grant/Madsen, you must be pretty damn dominant. this is the first time I've seen Shaq played with a bunch of role players, without supremely talented supporting cast and under a great coach, so that's definitely interesting. I think this is Shaq at his best, making max potential impact.

but it begs a question, why wasn't he able to make a similar impact on the 97-98 Lakers ? they were playing very well without Shaq, and didn't really improve a lot with him. here's Elgee's numbers:

Shaq 2000-01 (11g) 7.7 to 6.5
Shaq 2003 (15g) 7.6 to 3.7
Shaq 2000-02 (25g) 5.7 to 7.0
Shaq 2002 (15g) 5.1 to 8.1
Shaq 1996 (28g) 4.4 to 7.1
Shaq 1998 (28g) 3.5 to 8.7
Shaq 1997 (31g) 2.9 to 5.4
Shaq 2004 (15g) 1.4 to 4.2

now if that was Scottie Pippen with those 97-98 numbers, it would be really impressive. for a top10 player of all-time ? not particularly. so that's why you wanna have versatility. so many times people say that Shaq wasn't versatile but still dominated... under certain circumstances. he wasn't making the same GOAT-type of impact otherwise.

either way those numbers prove that Shaq was an extremely dominant player in his prime, but that doesn't exactly make him GOAT level player.

[colts18]

Shaq's replacement was Mark Madsen. duh, great impact.

For someone who puts as much emphasis on numbers and analysis, the manner in which you subjectively apply them is absolutely baffling to me.

If those numbers were measuring Olajuwon or KG, you'd be having them cast in bronze. Otherwise, the impact of one of the most indisputably dominant and impactful players in history is reduced to the inadequacy of his backup.

Lame.

to me it's understandable that a team with Samaki Walker and Mark Madsen will fall apart, do you dispute that ? I don't care who's on the perimeter but that sort of duo is not gonna make it work. Lakers just didn't have any rebounding bigs without Shaq. kind of a basic requirement for a performance of any sort.

there's a much larger sample of what Kobe was able to do with decent bigs and what type of impact Shaq was making when bigs who were backing him up were actually NBA caliber. Shaq missed tons of games in 96-98 so there's like 70-game sample in which team did NOT fall apart. it was also the case on the Heat 05-06 though obviously that was with past prime Shaq. but what stands out to me is this:

Shaq, no Kobe: +4.76

in the RS 01-04 Shaq played a lot of mins without Kobe and those Lakers were still a championship caliber team. they wouldn't win any titles without Kobe, but even keeping that team at that level is impressive.

so whenever you're anchoring a +5 team with Fisher/Fox/George on the perimeter and PF combo of Horry/Grant/Madsen, you must be pretty damn dominant. this is the first time I've seen Shaq played with a bunch of role players, without supremely talented supporting cast and under a great coach, so that's definitely interesting. I think this is Shaq at his best, making max potential impact.

but it begs a question, why wasn't he able to make a similar impact on the 97-98 Lakers ? they were playing very well without Shaq, and didn't really improve a lot with him. here's Elgee's numbers:

Shaq 2000-01 (11g) 7.7 to 6.5
Shaq 2003 (15g) 7.6 to 3.7
Shaq 2000-02 (25g) 5.7 to 7.0
Shaq 2002 (15g) 5.1 to 8.1
Shaq 1996 (28g) 4.4 to 7.1
Shaq 1998 (28g) 3.5 to 8.7
Shaq 1997 (31g) 2.9 to 5.4
Shaq 2004 (15g) 1.4 to 4.2

now if that was Scottie Pippen with those 97-98 numbers, it would be really impressive. for a top10 player of all-time ? not particularly. so that's why you wanna have versatility. so many times people say that Shaq wasn't versatile but still dominated... under certain circumstances. he wasn't making the same GOAT-type of impact otherwise.

either way those numbers prove that Shaq was an extremely dominant player in his prime, but that doesn't exactly make him GOAT level player.

To be fair to Shaq, he did make a huge impact on the Heat when he was out. The 2006 Heat were 42-17 (.711) with him (58 win pace) and 10-13 (.435) without him (36 win pace). Over his career his teams were 172-146 (44 win pace) without him and about 56 win pace with him. So having Shaq takes you from being last year's Hawks/Rockets to being Last year's Thunder/Celtics. From 1st round fodder to legit title contender.

[bastillon]

I'm not disputing that Shaq's impact was immense. I'm just questioning whether it always translated to GOAT level impact. good response on Heat though.

btw, I just realized Lakers 98 were 8.7 team in terms pt differential with Shaq. why the hell did they get swept ?

[colts18]

I'm not disputing that Shaq's impact was immense. I'm just questioning whether it always translated to GOAT level impact. good response on Heat though.

btw, I just realized Lakers 98 were 8.7 team in terms pt differential with Shaq. why the hell did they get swept ?

The 97-99 Lakers had a lot of screwy results and underachieved badly for some reason.

It would be fair to mention that Shaq's +/- impact was good in the regular season for the 06 Heat, but in the playoffs, his numbers were terrible even taking out the finals. But Shaq's Heat tenure really should never be argued in Shaq's favor for his GOAT case.

[easiestplayfts]

^Hell no.

Kareem/Magic
Jordan/Pippen
Shaq/Kobe
Shaq/Wade
LeBron/Wade
Dr. J/Moses
Kobe/Gasol
Kareem/Oscar

And a crapload more that I'm not thinking of right now...all of them are easily better than Billups/Hamilton.

Out of your list ......how many of those duos have been to 6 straight conference finals? (excluding the first 3)
BTW, I made that video.

You replace Rip/Billups with any of those duos and your looking at multiple championships

How do you replace them with any of those duos?
They are a PG and SG, you would have to change the whole make-up of that Piston's team. I think that would have more of a negative impact than winning "multiple Championships"

[Sedale Threatt]

...

All this is well and good. That's not really the point, though. It's the haphazardness in which you seem more than willing to apply context in certain cases in regards to supporting cast and such, and not in others. Or in some instances where the on/off is the end-all, be-all, while in others it means nothing.

You put a lot of effort into understanding the game at a deeper level, which I respect. I certainly don't have that kind of patience. But at this point I take everything you write with a huge grain of salt because there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of consistency or objectivity in your approach.

[Sedale Threatt]

In regards to those Lakers teams, there were stretches when they had zero chemistry.

Nick Van Exel was a cancer. Eddie Jones and Elden Campbell were frustratingly passive. Kobe Bryant wasn't ready to consistently dominate. Shaq was missing lots of games and not much of a leader yet. And they had totally tuned out Delicate Harris, a career assistant with zero charisma. When things got going the wrong way, they snowballed.

How much blame Shaq deserves for that, I'm not sure. It certainly tended to happen to his teams quite often, and he wasn't a particularly good leader even in his prime, so the question must be asked. At the same time, like a lot of young players, he probably just needed time to mature and grow mentally. Plus, it didn't hurt that they cleaned house and brought in more veterans, not to mention one of the best coaches of all time.

So overall, I don't have any problem putting Shaq on that sub-GOAT level for his career. He was certainly there for a couple of seasons, however -- and that didn't have anything to do with his crappy backups.

[ronnymac2]

It's been explained over and over and over and **** over again why Shaq's on/off numbers aren't that impressive from 96-99. Ugghh...

BTW, I believe Shaq was hurt during both the 2005 playoffs and 2006 playoffs. He wasn't 100 percent.

[colts18]

I'm not disputing that Shaq's impact was immense. I'm just questioning whether it always translated to GOAT level impact. good response on Heat though.

btw, I just realized Lakers 98 were 8.7 team in terms pt differential with Shaq. why the hell did they get swept ?

It is curious that Shaq got swept a lot despite putting up good numbers in the 90's. I might have to investigate it more.

[bastillon]

It's been explained over and over and over and **** over again why Shaq's on/off numbers aren't that impressive from 96-99. Ugghh...

BTW, I believe Shaq was hurt during both the 2005 playoffs and 2006 playoffs. He wasn't 100 percent.

I don't think I have ever heard that explanation, ronny

[Vincent 666]

It is curious that Shaq got swept a lot despite putting up good numbers in the 90's. I might have to investigate it more.

His teams didnt have a go to player down the stretch of games.

As a franchise player it was huge flaw in Shaqs game to not be a player that his team could go to in close games which doesnt show up in his stats and advanced stats that people on this board seem to be so obsessed about.

[jaypo]

Yeah, Vincent, but you can say the same about wing players that need a great big to take the defensive attention off of them by drawing double teams. Or bigs that in the triangle, create shots for the wing players by dictating the flow of the offense. Or bigs that erase all of the defensive errors that those wings create when gambling for a steal or failing to cover their assignment on pick and rolls.

See how that works? On another thread, I was discussing Kobe vs. Lebron as 4th quarter players, and despite the media's fascination with Kobe as a clutch player, it's been shown that Kobe has been below league average in that statistic. We did this for hours on another thread- we broke down Shaq's numbers in the 4th vs. Kobe's while they were together, and the numbers disprove your theory as well. Would you also say that Kareem was ONLY good because Magic and Oscar were handing out double digit assists to him? Or that Malone was only good because Stockton was setting records passing the ball to him?

The truth of the matter is this- the system Phil ran pretty much was for the TRIPLE POST OFFENSE to run thru Shaq. By having the ball in his hands, the other players would move and cut according to the defensive attention he drew. And he was a great enough passer to hit the open man if his shot wasn't there. For 3 quarters or so, the triangle was run thru Shaq. Shaq usually sat out the end of the 3rd and beginning of the 4th while Kobe played. And the triangle opened up in the 4th because of that. Players like Ho Grant and Samake Walker really weren't a focus of the triangle while Shaq was sitting! So the triangle opened up and Kobe took a larger role in the 4th. But it in NO way means that it was because Shaq was a liabilty in the 4th. He was actually their leading scorer in the majority of situations. Now, with 3 seconds on the line and the Lakers down by 1, of course you go to someone else. Tsherkin did a great analysis on why you shouldn't give it to the biggest player on the court. But it's also funny how the most memorable clutch shots in Shaq/Kobe Laker history came from Fisher, Horry, Fox, and Harper. Not Kobe!

Remember game 7 of the 2000 WCF? Shaq was held by triple teams for most of the game and only put up 7 points in the first 3 quarter while Kobe put up 24 or so. In the 4th, they were down by 15, and Shaq proceeded to score 9 points to lead the comeback while Kobe scored barely anything. Kobe missed 2 crucial free throws while Shaq knocked down his. And at that time, that was the most pivotal game of their careers. So in this instance, Kobe ran the 1st 3 quarters and struggled in the 4th. Shaq dominated the 4th. Yet, I've seen you downplay Shaq's game 7 in the same argument that you point to Shaq being a 3 quarter threat with Kobe being the 4th quarter assassin. It's like the same exact argument is valid ONLY if it props up Kobe and detracts from Shaq.

The real problems is that while the Lakers had good personnel (sometimes), they had so many holes that Shaq, and to a certain extent, Kobe, were able to hide with their play. For example, defense from the 1 spot was a big problem. It resulted in a lot of fouls on Shaq. And a lot of points from people like Troy Hudson, Tony Parker, Mike Bibby, and Damon Stoudamire. Power forward defense- Ho Grant was injured a lot, and it seems that Wallace, KG, TD, and C Webb enjoyed a steady diet of Lakers PF's. Now, Shaq and Kobe are great. But they have their own defensive assignments to worry about. By having to make up for defensive deficiencies of other players, it makes it more difficult for them to do their job. And in years like 02 and 03, the FO pretty much decided that Shaq and Kobe alone could keep them competitive. Kind of like Riley did in 07. And they were wrong. Especially when you're running a tight system. Any part of the system malfunctions, and it throws the whole thing off. That's what happened. If you didn't have a force as intimidating in the paint as Shaq, there is no way that the Lakers would have been as competitive as they were. Yet, that won't show up in advanced stats either.