One of the great things about sports in general, is the comparison of players of from different eras and how people try to establish who is the greatest of all time (aka G.O.A.T). I was speaking to a great friend of mine named Brian a couple of weeks ago. He's been in my life ever since freshmen year of high school, so he means a great deal to me. Aside from our friendship, one thing Brian and I can relate on, is the love for the game of basketball. Anyways, we were having a little chat about who should be considered the best center to ever play the game. Ironically this conversation was going on as we were playing a game of NBA 2k13 (we choose random teams, because we are just that good). I always enjoy debating about basketball with Brian because no matter how much we both know, we never can agree on anything, but that's what debates are all about. One thing we were smart to agree on, is that it pretty much comes down to Big Diesel, SuperMan, Shaquille O'Neal and The Dream himself, Hakeem Olajuwon.
I was the biased Laker fan, and chose Shaq. Now my decision was not only based on being a Los Angeles Laker, but strictly on how much of a monstrosity he really was. When I compare players, I like to use the examples of them while they were in their prime, it's only fair. Now I'm sure anyone knows who Shaquille O'Neal is, the first thing that comes to mind is massive, and uncontrollably strong, Hulk-like. Shaquille was consider to be both the immovable object and the unstoppable force. When he came into the league in 92', he towered at 7'1" and weighed a "light" 285 pounds. Regardless, he was able to run the floor like a guard and finish at the rim like a wrecking ball. If that wasn't anything, once he got to the Lakers he gained pure muscle and weighed up 325 pounds. While Shaq was in Los Angeles, he was borderline unguardable, not a single person was able to stop him one-on-one, and even sometimes double teams meant nothing.
As a laker, Shaquille's stats were phenomenal. Throughout eight seasons in Los Angeles, he averaged 27.0 PPG, 11.9 RPG 2.5BPG and shot 57.5% from the field. He had two 50+ point games, 21 40+ point games and shot much over 50% in each of them. Amongst his list of achievements,he was the league's 2000 Most Valuable Player and 2000 Scoring Champion (his highest was 61 against The Clippers). He truly was, SuperMan
I'm a fair man, as amazing as SuperMan was, there were some flaws in his game. First things first, he was a terrible free throw shooter. During his time in L.A he shot for 53.3 from the line. One would say that isn't too bad, "you make one, you miss one", let's be smart. Another thing about Shaq, was that he was a one move monster. He pretty much had a two dribble, two step, jump hook, which did not fail him. Lastly, you could say that he was not the greatest of defenders, he didn't win a defensive title in a segment of NBATV's Open Court, he admitted he wasn't the best of defenders, but that wasn't his concern.
I could go on an on with pros and cons, but I'd like to know, who you think G.O.A.T is, center wise? Until next time, catch ya on the rebound!
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