eminence wrote:My bad, you said: "barely anybody thought they were on the same level"
A cover article in SI proclaiming his dominance over Shaq is not a "barely anybody thought they were on the same level" situation. Not even close. Better MVP placements over even Shaq's most dominant period ('00-'02) is not a not the same level situation. Hell, Duncan outplayed Shaq in '02, but keep bringing up that one as a sign of Shaq's dominance.
Absolutely it is. We had prominent dudes in the media/ex players saying Kobe>MJ in 06. This did not make this remotely a majority opinion. You will always find people saying varying things, even on big platforms. Hell now, we have people saying KD>LBJ, but this is a minority opinion in the public domain. We shouldn't put much stock into these fringe opinions.
The Net's presidents casual reference to Shaq being the best player every year was not a fringe opinion... Shaq was LBJ in the early 00s. RS didn't mean jack to his standing. Again, only somebody who was not paying attention at the time, and had little knowledge on how Shaq's stature in the NBA dwarfed Duncan's, leading to his natural 'best player' popularity would say such a thing.
We are covering a period of time that goes beyond 1 playoff series when Shaq was still considered a loser (99) and used to be critiqued for the dysfunctionality of the pre- PJ Lakers. We are trying to gauge the general sentiment over the general period of time that extends from 99-05. And the dominant sentiment was...Shaq>Duncan. He was by default, the best player in the NBA.
As for 02... you conflate actual play v perception of play. My point was... barely anybody thought Duncan was better. What does that have to do with how people perceived the two? This is an entirely different matter (as for 02.. Duncan fell apart every 4th quarter as his team offense choked, but i'll just let that slide).
And your constant MVP referencing... at this stage I feel like you're trolling about its credibility in assessing who was perceived as the best player in the L.
http://a.espncdn.com/nba/s/2002/0416/1369520.html
Last link. this is 02 when Shaq is being spoken about modern day LBJ and how dominance is being taken for granted in favour of TD and other dudes. TD's ascent is read as a RS thing, which needs to be settled in the playoffs. Shaq is still seen as the dominant guy who is injured but will be back. I guess Jason Kidd and Allen Iverson were at some point seen as Shaq's superior.
http://web.archive.org/web/20030207071146/http://www.nba.com/preview2002/General_Manager_Survey.html
Annual GM Survey. You will notice that Shaq got 64% of the vote for 'who would you start a franchise with today', blowing out TD and Kobe, despite the fact that Shaq was 30 year by this stage. Shaq also got 30% for expected MVP, higher than TD, despite Kobe also getting 30% himself. There is so much out there to support the opinion that Shaq was considered the best. The accuracy of this is another matter altogether.