Shaquille O'Neal vs Tim Duncan: A Statistical Comparison
The last two all-time great big men to play in the NBA, Shaq and Tim Duncan are often hotly debated about with respect to each other. Much of their respective physical primes overlapped, and they faced each other in a total of 4 playoff series, 3 of which were won by Shaq's Lakers.
While Tim Duncan was leading the Spurs to successive 50-win seasons alongside the likes of Greg Popovich, Manu and Tony Parker while winning MVP trophies on the way, the postseason was mostly Shaq's domain, as he won all 3 Finals MVP trophies during the Lakers' 3-peat to start this millennium.
What you'll read ahead is an attempt to compare and contrast their accolades, achievements and statistics and help basketball-crazy fans decide for themselves who the best big man of the league was in the 2000s:
#1 Biographical Details
Both Shaq and Duncan played in the league for 19 seasons. Both of them were No.1 overall picks, and both have a legitimate case to be regarded as the greatest No.1 overall picks of all time.
While Shaq left LSU after three seasons of playing college ball at the age of 20, Duncan finished his program as he'd promised to his family before declaring for the 1997 NBA Draft, when three teams tanked in order to win the sweepstakes to draft him.
Both of them were able to virtually power their teams to the playoffs all by themselves, right off the bat.
Shaq and Penny made a Finals series after beating Michael Jordan's Bulls, and a move to the Western Conference with the Lakers saw them threepeat at the start of the 2000s.
