Los Angeles Lakers: Did ESPN’s all-time NBA ranking get it right?

Shaquille O’Neal

ESPN rank: 10

Where you rank Shaquille O’Neal has everything to do with your personal criteria and style preferences.

Do you value versatility and the pure aesthetics of basketball? If so, you might not be so high on the straight-forward brute whose game was more pulverizing than pretty.

Do you value the refined skills of shooting, ball-handling and passing? If so, you might not appreciate the 7-foot, 300-pound center who was famously bad at the free throw line (52.7 percent) and did most of his work within a few feet of the basket.

Do you value longevity and loyalty to one franchise? If so, you might not give a GOAT-level ranking to someone whose decline began almost as soon as he hit his 30s and played for six teams before he was done.

If you can overlook all of that, Shaq could climb as high as a top-five spot for you. Even if you can’t, it’s tough to rank him outside of the top 10 because he was so undeniably dominant.

Shaq’s eight seasons with the Lakers represented the peak of his career. That’s when he won three championships, three Finals MVPs, one league MVP, led the league in scoring once, and was so good that Kobe Bryant had to play a sidekick role to him.

The Lakers version of Shaq is the one who nicknamed himself everything from “Superman” to “Most Dominant Ever” and left little room for argument against those claims.

Shaq was also great with the Orlando Magic before he came to L.A. — winning a scoring title and leading the team to the 1995 Finals — and he won a fourth championship and nearly took home league MVP with the Heat after he left the Los Angeles Lakers.

Shaq could go a bit higher on ESPN’s list, but 10th is fair.