This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but Shaquille O’Neal announced that he’s going to retire after 19 seasons in the NBA. Looking back at dude’s career, he is definitely one of the best centers in the history of basketball, but then I got to thinking. Where does he rank among the all-time greats? Is Shaq one of the biggest underachievers of all time?
As great he was, dude wasn’t the hardest working guy on the team…ever. I think that’s one of the things that led to the demise of the Shaq/Kobe dynasty. Kobe got tired of dude not taking the games as serious as he did. Shaq is one of the main reasons why today’s players chill during the regular season. They saw that Shaq would coast through the season and then turn it on in the playoffs and win a ring. If Shaq had a great work ethic and cared about the regular season, how many MVP’s and rings do you think he’d have now?
As for the all-time centers list, he will always be behind Kareem, Wilt Chamberlain, and Bill Russell to me. The debate is do you put him ahead of Olajuwon or not. Hakeem won his rings during the MJ hiatus, but one of those rings came in a dominant performance against a young Shaq.
However you feel about him, the Diesel aka The Big Aristotle aka Wilt Chamberneezy aka the Real Superman (stop biting D-Howard) will be missed.
Curious to get opinions on this, should Miami, Orlando, and/or Los Angeles retire Shaq’s number?
I feel a players number should only be retired by the team or teams in which the player spent a significant portion of his career and contributed mostly to. His legacy in that city’s franchise is what mostly built his career. He was only in Orlando for 4 seasons & Miami for 3. Therefore, Shaq’s jersey should only be retired in LA where he played for 8 seasons & the bulk of his career & championships took place.
But Miami was a championship contender onc he got here. No love for the ring? Don’t see Wade did it alone because Avery Johnson doubling Shaq every game opened up the floor for Wade to shine.