“This is a great team. The best team I’ve been on. They’ve got a lot of weapons on this team, so on any given night anybody can be the leading scorer. The team’s very unselfish, so the shots are going to drop off and they easily could have shot them and did that but…great game. Great team effort. And now we’ve just got to keep it going.” -Shaquille O’Neal on the 2010 Celtics
On the day before Thanksgiving, the old time Shaq showed up and laid a spanking on the New Jersey Nets.
Further back
Shaquille O’Neal, C
MIN 32
FGM 9
FGA 10
FTM 7
FTA 13
OREB 3
DREB 8
REB 11
AST 0
STL 1
BLK 0
TO 0
PF 5
PTS 25
Was there a Doctor in the House?
Now rather than wonder how this happened and marvel at Shaqzilla’s early season resurgence while asking if anyone got a liscence number on that Tardis, we are going to focus on the quote above where Shaq states that this Celtics team is the best he’s ever player with. As you can tell this intrigued me. The first gut reaction is that he’s got to be way off base, right? Shaq played for multiple championship teams. He’s has to be off his rocker.
You know by now that it’s not going to be quite that simple and when we go to the math we shall see he’s not really that far off.
For the math in this post, as always, consult the Basics . Let’s start then with the WP48 for every one of Shaq’s teams:
This current edition of the Celtics shows up behind three of the Laker teams (2 champs and one not) as the fourth best of Shaq’s teams (so far). However this looks at the team from the outside perspective and not Shaq’s. Let’s take a look at the WP48 of Shaq’s teammates:
By this analysis, the 2011 Celtics (so far, remember injuries) are the second best set of teammates Shaq has had in his time in the league, trailing just last year’s Cavs. But again, it’s not quite that simple. I’ve talked before about the changing quality of basketball in the NBA . To summarize:
Focus on the redline
The quality of basketball now is better than for the bulk of Shaq’s tenure in the NBA as Big man in League. So if we take it to raw productivity adjusted to 180 possessions per game:
This Celtics team is only 1oth in total productivity but 2nd in teammate productivity. So from the perspective of Shaq this is one of the best team’s he’s played with (just not as good as last year’s Cavs). I wonder where it all went wrong for that team?
some dude
11/29/2010
It’s silly to compare Shaq’s teammates now to Shaq’s teammates back then and then make an argument as far as teams go.
Shaq makes the minimum and is a role player. Of course any contending team he’s on is going to have better teammates than when he was making $25 million in his prime. How else could it be? It would be financially impossible for prime $25 million Shaq to play on this Boston team nor would he be salary dumped onto the Cavs.
You’re not comparing the same Shaq so the whole premise is disingenuous. And he never said these are the best teammates he’s ever played with, he said best TEAM which includes him, so your first approach was proper and the second was of no value.
Now, going back to the first premise of TEAM, can we only rely on WP48? What about the playoff WP48? I contend that you’d probably find the 2001 Lakers atop the list and the playoffs are what matter most. Either way, 2000 and 2001 Lakers would wipe the floor with any current NBA team. After all, the 2001 team was missing Kobe, Shaq, and Fisher for long stretches that season before all got healthy for the playoff run where they obliterated some really good Spurs and Kings teams.
That’s been the best team shaq or any player has been in the post-Jordan era (and I would argue including, but whatever). They had the most dominant playoff run of all time, even weighted for quality of opposition.
So Shaq can run his mouth all he wants as he always does. He’ll never be on a better team than the 2001 team.
bduran
11/29/2010
I think looking at teammate WP48 hits on the reason Shaq feels the way he does. It seems obvious that his teammates would be good for the reason you pointed out ($25 mil Shaq eats a lot of cap space), but it doesn’t change the fact that he is currently surrounded by great players and so he feels like this is the best team he’s been on.
Jimbo (Oz)
11/29/2010
some dude – if you are so negative about Arturo’s writing, why are you reading every one, and then commenting ? It’s ok not to like something, and there is a thing called “constructive” criticism, but the way you are commenting isn’t in any way reasonable. Take it somewhere else.