Reconsidering Shaq's Legacy

Winning championships is a key measure of any athlete’s success. Shaquille O’Neal has won four championships. So he’s been successful.

No argument here.

But is he an All-Time Great? More specifically, does Shaq deserve a place at the table with the top-five big men ever to play the game?

During the Miserable Years when the Lakers won three consecutive titles, even raising this question would have been sufficient justification for a neurological work-up. No one in their right mind would have had the nerve to suggest otherwise.

Shaq was Beast of Beasts.

But I think the time has come to reconsider this question, especially in light of some observations made by Phil Jackson, in his book, The Last Season.

In that book, Jackson relates a conversation he had with the Big Fella during the 2003-2004 season. Before the season, you will recall, Jerry Buss added free agents Karl Malone and Gary Payton to a Lakers' roster that already included Kobe, Derek Fisher, Rick Fox, and Horace Grant. Starting out 16-3, the Lakers lost a couple games in a row, games where Shaq’s defense was non-existent.

Attempting to broach the subject and motivate his starting center, Jackson told Shaq that the greatest centers of all time—Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, and Hakeem Olajuwon—all got it going on defense first. Without defense, none of those players deserve consideration as an All-Time great, Jackson said.

“I’ve always considered offense to be my focus,” Shaq responded.

Phil tried a couple of different angles, but no luck.

Shaq wasn’t going to play defense. The conversation was over.

A page or two later Phil recalls the season before when Shaq missed a bunch of games because of a toe injury. In August Jackson asked Shaq how his rehab was going.

“It’s not,” Shaq said. “I injured it on company time, I’ll rehab it on company time, when the season starts.”

The Lakers failed to win a fourth consecutive title that year, and Jackson pointed to Shaq’s tardy rehabilitation efforts as a primary reason for that failure.

Add to this picture the number of games Shaq regularly misses between December and March of recent seasons due to injury and slow rehabs, and you start to get a different picture than the one we have for Russell, Chamberlain, Jabbar, Walton, and Olajuwon.

Four of those players were almost always in world-class shape. Walton, whose career was marred by a series of injuries and operations to his feet and ankles, underwent every type of medical procedure and digested every type of pain killer just to keep himself out on the floor.

By contrast, Shaq’s career paints a picture of a player who wants to do as little work as possible but still contend for titles, something his sheer size and athletic ability have enabled him to do.

I’m just not sure this gets him a seat at the table with the five best big men of all time. And even if his offensive skills and four titles get him a seat at the table, I’m not sure his place at the the table is secure.