Would Shaq be more or less dominant if he was in his prime in today's NBA?

[King Kamala]

Saw this question on Twitter and thought it'd make a good topic here.

I think popular answer/first instinct is that'd he dominate the NBA but I think game has changed so much (and the emphasis on having a huge strongman in the paint is nearing extinction) that I'm not sure if that would be the case. I don't know if you put 2000 Shaq in 2020 NBA he'd be putting up 1960 Wilt Chamberlain numbers.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

I said more dominant. His size was really, really tough to overcome and with a lot of 6'9", 6'10" guys going up against him, that would probably favor him a bit more. Fans forget how insanely dominant Shaq was from his rookie year through the 2003-04 season and he was playing in an era of some of the best Centers to play ever including Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, a young Tim Duncan, etc.

He was also pretty underrated in terms of his moves and ability to shoot off the paint. I think his defensive stats would suffer a bit with the 3 or Drive mentality of today's game but I think offensively he'd be proving himself more as a facilitator and a bruising inside force. He didn't need to be a stretch 5 but I could see him developing more of a hook shot if forced to shoot from the 8-12 foot range.

 

[Brooklyn Zoo]

Shaq was an athletic beast so it wouldn’t be a matter of not being able to keep up with the pace or handling the speed of the game. And he was too skilled in the post to be stopped now. All these centers wanna shoot 3s and shit would get killed in the post by Shaq

 

[Kageho]

The bigs in the league currently can't seem to know what to do to handle Zion and that guy isn't as tall as Shaq or have his NBA chops yet (this later one scares me about Zion). About the only thing that would slow down Shaq is probably the pace of the game and if you could keep him fit. The game may be about scoring 3s, but if you can toss it into Shaq for an easy 2 and 1, you get the same results.

Hell, if Shaq was in today's game, the dude might've developed a 3 point shot. And that would be the scariest thing of all.

 

[alfdogg]

A force as dominant as Shaq would make the game adapt to him, not the other way around. Equally dominant at the very least.

 

[Gert]

Equal or more dominant. Shaq from 1993-2000 probably wrecks havoc in PNR's and destroys a lot of the undersized centers today.

I think when people talk about Shaq and the new era they think too much of the last 5-7 years of his career.

 

[alfdogg]

When most people think of “prime Shaq” they probably think of Lakers Shaq, who relied on his brute force and didn’t really show off his athleticism a whole lot. But Orlando Shaq was still putting up those prime numbers and could run the floor and make athletic plays as well as anyone.

 

[Broward83]

I voted less, not because I don't think he'd wreck shop on the types of centers that are in the league right now, but because of how fouls are called now. I feel he'd find large amounts of time on the bench over ticky-tack calls and get iced out of certain situations.