2010-2011 NBA Thread Episode III

[GirlsAloudFan]

Peace out, Shaq-Fu.

Definitely one of the best and most entertaining athletes of my lifetime. Probably the second most dominant basketball player I've personally ever seen. Those three titles with the Lakers in the early 2000s? Motherfucker put that team on his back (to use a cliche) and refused to let them lose. Such great performances in those playoffs.

Now he needs to get back into making movies.

Go Mavs.

 

[bono_212]

All good things must come to an end, I suppose.

 

[bono_man2002]

Damn. I think that's everyone gone now from my childhood basketball era.

 

[lazarus]

Shaq can suck it for desperately trying to even his ring total with Kobe's by playing for the archenemies of the team that made him a superstar.

Good riddance.

Kobe 5 (and counting), Shaq 4

 

[LMP]

The Celts/Lakers rivalry wasn't relevant again until the '08 Finals, the first time anyone cared about that matchup since '88. Please.

Shaq's not wired to be a killer like Kobe, but I doubt many players had more fun or at least looked like they were having as much fun than he did in his prime. Hell, I'd take Shaq in his prime over Kobe any day of the week.

Apple, say hello to Orange.

 

[bollox]

There's no doubt Shaq was one of the greatest, but he was always second fiddle on the championship teams he was with. The Lakers were Kobe's team and the Heat were Wade's team. And he was definitely ring grasping by the end.

 

[LMP]

The Lakers were definitely "Shaq's team" the year he won the All-Star MVP, regular season MVP and Finals MVP in '00. You can make an argument for an alpha dog clash from '02 to '04, but not those first two title years.

 

[PhilsFan]

I remember the 2001 Finals like it was yesterday. That was Shaq's team.

 

[lazarus]

The Celts/Lakers rivalry wasn't relevant again until the '08 Finals, the first time anyone cared about that matchup since '88. Please.

So what? I'm not talking about his archenemies while he was with the Lakers, I'm talking about the franchise itself. It's a lame move, and he deserves any contempt he gets from Lakers fans.

Though I will agree I don't know what bollox is talking about; Shaq was definitely the focus of that three-peat. And in my opinion, it's what prevented Kobe from being great sooner. That should have been his team from the beginning, even if it may have taken them an extra season or two to win that first title.

Shaq was a monster who scored a lot but he had a pretty limited skill set. I don't know why he's viewed as some kind of important basketball figure.

 

[LMP]

Shaq in his prime was one of the most physically dominant athletes in professional basketball. You can argue that he squandered his potential by screwing around with Hollywood, recording rap albums, etc... but name me a player at his position who got the best of him on a consistent basis?

Last time that I can recall is when Olajuwon schooled him in the '95 Finals. You know, after 3 seasons in the league.

Kobe didn't find his sealegs until the '00 playoffs. Had he and Shaq not had the worst possible personality clash that the two best players on a team could have, then sure, they would've won more rings.

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

Shaq was a monster who scored a lot but he had a pretty limited skill set.

I think many would argue with that.

In his prime, the man was a good post passer, had some deceptively smooth and quick post moves, had nice touch with those little turn around hook shots and bank shots. I remember a couple of plays where the guy grabbed a rebound on the defensive end and took it down by himself on the break for the score. Shaquille had skillz.

And, yeah, sorry bollox, gotta jump in with everybody else. As I said in my post at the top of this page, in no way was Shaq "second fiddle" on those early 2000s Lakers teams. And this is coming from a huge Kobe fan.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

the retirement of shaq is the final nail in the coffin of the era of dominant centers.

shaq was an incredibly skilled big man. pretty limited skill set? that's an outrageous statement. if shaq had a limited skill set, what does that make dwight howard's skill set? absolute dog shit?

did he have the grace and fluidity of hakeem olajuwon? no... but who did? yes, he was a monster. a monster with great footwork around the basket, who demanded a triple team every time down the court. there was a hell of a lot more to his game than just brute force. these things were often overlooked because of just how forceful he could be, but don't be silly and think that he wasn't skilled. he was a dominant back to the basket player.

and make no question about it... those 4 championship rings? those were HIS teams. not kobe's, not wade's. if anything, shaq would have a 5th ring if not for kobe's hoggish performance against the pistons. if you give me an option of shaq in his prime or kobe in his prime, i'm not even giving kobe a thought. give me shaq, and my team will win.

you could make a better argument that he was a side kick for wade in 2006. i would argue that wade was so good in that series because everybody's focus was on stopping shaq. but wade's stats are so good in that series that i wouldn't debate you if you really held that opinion. i wouldn't agree, but i can see your point. my only counter point would be this... diane wade was dropping near 40 a game in those finals. but shaq was still the one drawing the automatic doubles.

why is shaq considered an important basketball figure? are you serious? he's one of the greatest players of all time, had larger than life charisma and personality, was the dominant force behind the return to glory of one of the nba's iconic franchises, and was the last link to the era of the dominant center. is that not enough?

did he hang on at the end a little too long to chase another championship? sure. so what? the list of great players who hung around longer than they probably should have is a hell of a lot longer than the list of great players who stepped away at just the right time. at least shaq did go out playing for championship contenders... it's not as if he went out missing the playoffs for, oh i dunno, the washington wizards or toronto raptors like jordan and olajuwon.

 

[Hewson]

the retirement of shaq is the final nail in the coffin of the era of dominant centers.

shaq was an incredibly skilled big man. pretty limited skill set? that's an outrageous statement. if shaq had a limited skill set, what does that make dwight howard's skill set? absolute dog shit?

did he have the grace and fluidity of hakeem olajuwon? no... but who did? yes, he was a monster. a monster with great footwork around the basket, who demanded a triple team every time down the court. there was a hell of a lot more to his game than just brute force. these things were often overlooked because of just how forceful he could be, but don't be silly and think that he wasn't skilled. he was a dominant back to the basket player.

and make no question about it... those 4 championship rings? those were HIS teams. not kobe's, not wade's. if anything, shaq would have a 5th ring if not for kobe's hoggish performance against the pistons. if you give me an option of shaq in his prime or kobe in his prime, i'm not even giving kobe a thought. give me shaq, and my team will win.

you could make a better argument that he was a side kick for wade in 2006. i would argue that wade was so good in that series because everybody's focus was on stopping shaq. but wade's stats are so good in that series that i wouldn't debate you if you really held that opinion. i wouldn't agree, but i can see your point. my only counter point would be this... diane wade was dropping near 40 a game in those finals. but shaq was still the one drawing the automatic doubles.

why is shaq considered an important basketball figure? are you serious? he's one of the greatest players of all time, had larger than life charisma and personality, was the dominant force behind the return to glory of one of the nba's iconic franchises, and was the last link to the era of the dominant center. is that not enough?

did he hang on at the end a little too long to chase another championship? sure. so what? the list of great players who hung around longer than they probably should have is a hell of a lot longer than the list of great players who stepped away at just the right time. at least shaq did go out playing for championship contenders... it's not as if he went out missing the playoffs for, oh i dunno, the washington wizards or toronto raptors like jordan and olajuwon.

Pretty much nothing to add to that except I enjoyed his one year stay here in Boston for the pure entertainment value he provided while residing here for 9 months. Also some nice flashes on court in the early part of the season, sadly he just broke down.

 

[bollox]

Alright, I might have been trolling a bit there (not so much about Miami tho, D. Wade was just awesome during that Finals). Still, I think Shaq needed to be on a team with another superstar to win, whereas I don't think Kobe did for the last couple of Lakers' championships. Sure those were solid teams but I wouldn't put Gasol on the level of Kobe (or Shaq in his prime).

 

[gvox]

the retirement of shaq is the final nail in the coffin of the era of dominant centers.

shaq was an incredibly skilled big man. pretty limited skill set? that's an outrageous statement. if shaq had a limited skill set, what does that make dwight howard's skill set? absolute dog shit?

did he have the grace and fluidity of hakeem olajuwon? no... but who did? yes, he was a monster. a monster with great footwork around the basket, who demanded a triple team every time down the court. there was a hell of a lot more to his game than just brute force. these things were often overlooked because of just how forceful he could be, but don't be silly and think that he wasn't skilled. he was a dominant back to the basket player.

and make no question about it... those 4 championship rings? those were HIS teams. not kobe's, not wade's. if anything, shaq would have a 5th ring if not for kobe's hoggish performance against the pistons. if you give me an option of shaq in his prime or kobe in his prime, i'm not even giving kobe a thought. give me shaq, and my team will win.

you could make a better argument that he was a side kick for wade in 2006. i would argue that wade was so good in that series because everybody's focus was on stopping shaq. but wade's stats are so good in that series that i wouldn't debate you if you really held that opinion. i wouldn't agree, but i can see your point. my only counter point would be this... diane wade was dropping near 40 a game in those finals. but shaq was still the one drawing the automatic doubles.

why is shaq considered an important basketball figure? are you serious? he's one of the greatest players of all time, had larger than life charisma and personality, was the dominant force behind the return to glory of one of the nba's iconic franchises, and was the last link to the era of the dominant center. is that not enough?

did he hang on at the end a little too long to chase another championship? sure. so what? the list of great players who hung around longer than they probably should have is a hell of a lot longer than the list of great players who stepped away at just the right time. at least shaq did go out playing for championship contenders... it's not as if he went out missing the playoffs for, oh i dunno, the washington wizards or toronto raptors like jordan and olajuwon.

Agree with pretty much everything you said here with exception being your contempt for Wade...don't get why you hate the guy so much yes of course the presence of Shaq opened things up for him to score 40+ but it's not like he hasn't done major work without Shaq around..and to be honest, he's been really unselfish in finding Bosh and LeBron during these playoffs...the last game especially! Making the extra pass repeatedly to Chalmers - CHALMERS??! lol

He's in my opinion one of the greatest combos to ever play the game, or will be when he's done, and he could easily be one of the best PGs if he chose to go that route. He's won gold for his country, killed it at Marquette, he's all-star MVP, broken every record imaginable, humbly refers to Haslem as the true leader of the team, elevated teammates' games who arguably would never have even seen much playing time on other teams if at all, been loyal to Miami, refused to let injury stop him, does great charity work tithes 10% of his salary to his church, knows how to dress, etc etc..apart from a bit of a messy divorce (and we all know there's two sides to those stories!)..the guy's unimpeachable and exactly the player an aspiring combo guard could look up to!!!

What gives, why you hate him so much? To be honest I thought he'd be your kind of guy!

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Agree with pretty much everything you said here with exception being your contempt for Wade...don't get why you hate the guy so much yes of course the presence of Shaq opened things up for him to score 40+ but it's not like he hasn't done major work without Shaq around..and to be honest, he's been really unselfish in finding Bosh and LeBron during these playoffs...the last game especially! Making the extra pass repeatedly to Chalmers - CHALMERS??! lol

He's in my opinion one of the greatest combos to ever play the game, or will be when he's done, and he could easily be one of the best PGs if he chose to go that route. He's won gold for his country, killed it at Marquette, he's all-star MVP, broken every record imaginable, humbly refers to Haslem as the true leader of the team, elevated teammates' games who arguably would never have even seen much playing time on other teams if at all, been loyal to Miami, refused to let injury stop him, does great charity work tithes 10% of his salary to his church, knows how to dress, etc etc..apart from a bit of a messy divorce (and we all know there's two sides to those stories!)..the guy's unimpeachable and exactly the player an aspiring combo guard could look up to!!!

What gives, why you hate him so much? To be honest I thought he'd be your kind of guy!

of all the oversized 2 and 1/2, wade is the one i dislike the least. i have no issues with him off the court, don't think he's the unbelievable narcissistic douche that lebron is (although the dominate another day commercials nauseate me a bit), and might like him if he was on another team.

that said... the heat with wade have never been in the upper echelon of the eastern conference, which has been mediocre at best during wade's time in the league, with the exception of this current team and the teams with shaq. wade has not been able to put a bad team on his back and carry them to a high level the way lebron did in cleveland.

frankly i think wade shoots too much for a guy who, well, can't shoot. i'd like him a lot more if he did go the PG root. take the 2006 finals... dude took a TON of shots to get to those gaudy PPG numbers. he averaged 23 shots a game in that series, and that's not including the shots that didn't count where he was fouled (dubiously)... he averaged a ridiculous 16 free throws a game that series... all while shooting under 50% from the field, which is rather poor for a guy who really doesn't shoot a ton of threes.

i consider wade to be in the "volume shooter" category. he's not an overly efficient scorer. when jordan dropped 35 a game in the finals on the trailblazers, he did it shooting half as many free throws per game and shot 54% from the field.

i honestly don't care if a guy takes a ton of shots. but if you're going to take a ton of shots, you best be a) taking good shots, and b) making them at a high rate. i've just never seen that from wade. he tends to be on the lebron "clear everyone out and i'm gonna dribble the shit out of the ball until i jack up a crazy shot" camp. simply not my cup of tea.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Still, I think Shaq needed to be on a team with another superstar to win, whereas I don't think Kobe did for the last couple of Lakers' championships. Sure those were solid teams but I wouldn't put Gasol on the level of Kobe (or Shaq in his prime).

there's been a lot of revisionist history lately regarding kobe. this is a guy who drove phil jackson into retirement the first time around, and was such a prick that the zen master even wrote a book that was pretty much about how much of a dick kobe was.

and let us not forget that the lakers were mediocre at best in the three years following the trade of Shaq... finishing below .500 and missing the playoffs in the first season without him. it wasn't until the Gasol fleecing that they became a title contender again. and yes, gasol is a superstar. and shockingly enough, the current laker run seems to have come to an abrupt end, once again with rumors of a disagreement between kobe and a fellow star. seems to be a common denominator involved here...

the only team shaq has ever been on that had a losing record was his final season in miami, when he was traded midway through the season and barely played in the first half of the season due to injuries... long after his prime.

shaq took the orlando magic to the nba finals in his third season. nick anderson was a starter.

come on. i don't want to make a kobe vs. shaq back and forth debate here. kobe has matured greatly over the past few years and has clearly become one of the best players of all time. but yea, shaq? he already was one of the best players of all time, and one of the most dominating forces the league has ever seen.

 

[gvox]

Okay, points well taken (RE DWAYNE WADE), but to be fair during the period w/o Shaq onward, he was struggling with injuries. He took a ton of shots in 2006 yes but I think he's matured: this season roughly 20 shots attempted per game incl 3s and in the playoffs about the same if not a bit less. I think that's respectable for a star NBA 2. His other numbers are solid except he does tend to turn over the ball sometimes, as you say overdribbling, but he's a fairly pesky defender too so makes up for it I guess.

I agree he'd be a better PG, but man those are some nice numbers from game 1: 22 pts 10 rebounds (7 of them DEFENSIVE) and 6 assists. Not so hot from FG but decent from 3 range. That's a great all round game for the spot he's playing, no?

I just think he's a pretty likeable guy. Love how he succeeded against pretty shitty odds ie background and academics, and he's about as far to the other end of the douche spectrum from Lebron as you can get. Frankly I don't even know how he even finds anything in common with Lebron but that's just me lol

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Okay, points well taken (RE DWAYNE WADE), but to be fair during the period w/o Shaq onward, he was struggling with injuries. He took a ton of shots in 2006 yes but I think he's matured: this season roughly 20 shots attempted per game incl 3s and in the playoffs about the same if not a bit less. I think that's respectable for a 2. His other numbers are solid except he does tend to turn over the ball sometimes, as you say overdribbling, but he's a fairly pesky defender too so makes up for it I guess.

I agree he'd be a better PG, but man those are some nice numbers from game 1: 22 pts 10 rebounds (7 of them DEFENSIVE) and 6 assists. Not so hot from FG but decent from 3 range. That's a great all round game for the spot he's playing, no?

I just think he's a pretty likeable guy. Love how he succeeded against pretty shitty odds ie background and academics, and he's about as far to the other end of the douche spectrum from Lebron as you can get. Frankly I don't even know how he even finds anything in common with Lebron but that's just me lol

frankly i think wade was just as shocked as the rest of us when lebron agreed to come to miami.

 

[gvox]

btw I like quality/efficency in shot taking also, shot selection is key!! If the right shot isn't there, make an extra pass, reset the offence/direct the traffic shuffle guys then take it..preach this all the time and I ain't even a coach

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

absolutely...

not taking a shot that is your shot is just as selfish as taking a shot that you shouldn't take. and if someone is hot and someone else decides to jack up some silly shot instead of feeding it to the hot player, i get quite agitated (especially when i'm the one who's hot )

all part of understanding the game and growing as a player.

 

[gvox]

someone else decides to jack up some silly shot instead of feeding it to the hot player

thought process: "he's scored enough this game, my time to get some shine, yo!"

 

[phanan]

Pretty much nothing to add to that except I enjoyed his one year stay here in Boston for the pure entertainment value he provided while residing here for 9 months. Also some nice flashes on court in the early part of the season, sadly he just broke down.

This.

 

[PhilsFan]

This whole discussion got started purely because recognizing Shaq's greatness interferes with Laz's "Kobe Gang or Die" outlook on basketball. Do not disrupt the Kobe narrative.

 

[PhilsFan]

frankly i think wade shoots too much for a guy who, well, can't shoot. i'd like him a lot more if he did go the PG root. take the 2006 finals... dude took a TON of shots to get to those gaudy PPG numbers. he averaged 23 shots a game in that series, and that's not including the shots that didn't count where he was fouled (dubiously)... he averaged a ridiculous 16 free throws a game that series... all while shooting under 50% from the field, which is rather poor for a guy who really doesn't shoot a ton of threes.

i consider wade to be in the "volume shooter" category. he's not an overly efficient scorer. when jordan dropped 35 a game in the finals on the trailblazers, he did it shooting half as many free throws per game and shot 54% from the field.

i honestly don't care if a guy takes a ton of shots. but if you're going to take a ton of shots, you best be a) taking good shots, and b) making them at a high rate. i've just never seen that from wade. he tends to be on the lebron "clear everyone out and i'm gonna dribble the shit out of the ball until i jack up a crazy shot" camp. simply not my cup of tea.

God damn does this sound like Allen Iverson.

 

[Bluer White]

come on. i don't want to make a kobe vs. shaq back and forth debate here. kobe has matured greatly over the past few years and has clearly become one of the best players of all time. but yea, shaq? he already was one of the best players of all time, and one of the most dominating forces the league has ever seen.

This sums it up

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

Mavericks finna tie up the series tonight.

 

[LMP]

This whole discussion got started purely because recognizing Shaq's greatness interferes with Laz's "Kobe Gang or Die" outlook on basketball. Do not disrupt the Kobe narrative.

He had to remind us that Kobe has no idea how Shaq's ass tastes.

 

[zooropop40]

wow Wade is playing amazing tonight!!

Go Miami!

(not a huge basketball fan but given that I live in Miami, obviously I am rooting for them! Plus, these games are so exciting )

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

Holy shit, did Dallas really just tie this game?

Here we go.