The 50 greatest players in NBA history, ranked by win shares
By Cal Durrett
Greatest NBA Player #12: Shaquille O’Neal-181.71
To many, Shaq is one of the most dominant players ever, and his place on the list confirms that. At his peak, Shaq was a virtually impossible-to-stop offensive big man who put up big numbers by bullying his opponents and scoring at will. That certainly helps his case since pace, usage rate, offensive efficiency, and total points all go into the calculations for win shares.
Teams with Shaq often played slowly, and he was often good enough to drop 30 points while seldom missing shots. Free throws are a different story, with him missing more than 5000 attempts, holding him back from being a top-five player. His weight and health issues didn’t help either.
To his credit, he still played more than 1200 games but didn’t seem to put enough work into prolonging his career and expanding his game. It is hard to argue with the results, but the stats don’t lie, and while he was absolutely more talented than most of the players on this list, his ranking of 12th feels about right.