Getty Kobe Bryant (L), Rick Fox (2nd L), Linsey Hunter (2nd R) and Shaquille O'Neal (R) stand with the championship and MVP trophies after game four of the NBA Finals against the New Jersey Nets at Continental Airlines Arena 12 June 2002,in East Rutherford, NJ. The Lakers, led by O'Neal, swept to their third straight National Basketball Association championship with a 113-107 victory over the Nets.
The Orlando Magic’s first pick in the 1992 NBA Draft out of LSU, Shaquille O’Neal averaged 23.7 points, and 10.9 rebounds per game.
Shaq played four seasons in Orlando before signing with the Los Angeles Lakers and winning three championships with Phil Jackson, Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers. He’d later win one with Dwyane Wade, Antoine Walker, Gary Payton and the Pat Riley-led Miami Heat in 2006.
Shaq played eleven seasons in the NBA where he rounded out his career playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers with LeBron James, the Phoenix Suns with Steve Nash and Grant Hill and the Boston Celtics with Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce.
Speaking of Ray Allen, Jesus Shuttlesworth told me last year that the center position in the NBA is making a comeback.
Is that the case? I discussed it with Shaq.
Check out our discussion below:
Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson: The big man in the NBA. It’s obsolete but allow me to explain myself. In Warriors basketball, and in just small ball, many people have forgotten the big man. I look at the big man and I feel that you are the last of the traditional big man but, even with that it was different. ‘Cause to me, you were a bully in comparison to Wilt, Bill Russell and more. In today’s game you got Joel Embiid, Karl Anthony-Towns. You have Anthony Davis. Ray Allen told me he thinks the big man is coming back. What say you?
Shaquille O’Neal: It depends on what type of big man you’re talking about. See the title ‘big man’ is anyone at the five position, right? So you know, I hear people say,Oh big guys can shoot. The game is evolving…us older big guys don’t look at it as evolving. We look at it as soft. Because guys don’t want to get down there and bang. Which is okay. You know, new era new generation, I can’t tell them how to play, I can’t tell them what to do. I can give them hints every now and then on how to make the game easier. Look, I was the first big guy to take it coast to coast and do all that, but the game was easier to take the high percentage shots. Imagine me trying to do that in the Finals. Bringing the ball up. We wouldn’t win. So you know, when you’re a big guy, you have to use your abilities to get highest percentage shot for you to win. The team that shoots the highest percentage from the free throw line, or field goal percentage from the 3, is that team that always wins. Analytics or not. That’s the facts.