And yet, here we are discussing whether Shaq is an all-time great, just as we will inevitably discuss, 20 years from now, whether Curry was an all-time great.

Shaq and Harden v GS is a fun one. I would put my.money on the former.

If you could trade Capela for a similar level wing player then just insert Shaq Im sure the Rockets are enough to beat the Warriors. Just Capela for Shaq does it already, they would miss the defense but Shaq would dominate massively on offense and reshape the offense into an inside outside unstoppable machine, where there’s a massively efficient shot every time being taken.

+1

Stats do a good job of capturing how productive a player was given his skillset, role, the system he played in, his teammates, matchups etc….

Obviously, they are telling us a HUGE part of how good a player is (was). But they do not capture how productive a player would be in a different role (expanded or contracted), with different teammates, in a different system, and against different defenders. Stats tend not to change much from year to year, but that’s because roles and defenses don’t change much.

I love Capela as much as the next guy, but he’s not a dominant enough offensive player to screw up Golden State’s lineups. In fact, Golden State probably makes Houston think twice because some of the lineups they can throw at Capela are a problem.

Capela is guarding inside but GS is often killing them from the outside. If they put someone smaller on Capela, he can’t make them pay for going small by killing them back inside. He can score effectively and efficiently, but not kill them the way Shaq would. That’s the tradeoff math I am talking about. I’m not smart enough to calculate who is going to win these kinds of strategic match ups, but that’s what’s going on. The teams are trying to “out chess” each other and adjust if they are losing with a certain lineup.

Shaq is obvious though. He’d score 40 a night now if given the ball and teams didn’t adjust.

The league TS% was .520 in 2002 and is .565 now. That’s a huge gap, and if Shaq came back with the same stats, he’d be significantly less valuable than he was. Still would be a great player, but he wouldn’t outpace his peers nearly as well.

If Shaq came back now imo he’d have a much easier time of it on offense. Back then teams were primarily built to defend big strong Cs. Now they are built to defend quicker more nimble Cs. They want their C to defend the P&R and even go out on the perimeter if the opposing C has range (which a growing number do). If they have a big strong C that can defend other big strong Cs, he’s probably riding the bench for the occasional match up when they need him.

Shaq dominated other big strong Cs even when double teamed. Against some of the small ball Cs out there now it would be comical. Sure, he’d struggle a little more on defense, but the math would change. His edge inside would be so monstrous, the fact that he was getting burned outside a little would hardly matter.