Recently, the famous basketball sports commentator Yang Yi mentioned in the personal podcast column: At the peak, O'Neal can still play the other side when facing Duncan and Robinson. Duncan and Admiral Robinson are arguably the strongest interior defensive combination the NBA has ever had, or even one of them. The defense of these two people can be described as dark, and almost no one can take advantage of these two people. But there was another person, and that person was none other than O'Neill.
At his peak, O'Neal was not afraid of any of the interior players. Even if it was Duncan and Robinson. The Lakers and Spurs are fierce rivals in the West, and the two teams have a lot of meetings in the West. In the late last century and early 2000s, the Lakers and Spurs often met in the Narrow Lane in the Western Conference playoffs. O'Neal's stats were still very stable against Duncan and Robinson, and getting 20+10 was commonplace.
Let's take a look at some of O'Neill's peak stats. In the 2000 regular season, O'Neal averaged close to 30+14 per game, shooting a terrible 57.4 percent from the field. In today's NBA, there are not many players who can shoot more than 57% of the way. Moreover, the intensity of the NBA's confrontation at the beginning of this century was very large, with a large number of vicious fouls. O'Neal is also an interior attacking player who will face a very large defensive intensity. But he can maintain a shooting rate of nearly 60% throughout the season, and his strength can be imagined.
O'Neal's playoff stats, far from falling, will rise. This is his best interpretation of the strength of superstars. O'Neal will be stronger in the playoffs. From 1998 to 2003, O'Neal averaged less than 26 points per game in any of the playoffs. In 2000, O'Neal averaged nearly 31 points in the playoffs, and he single-handedly supported the entire team. At the time, the Spurs couldn't prevent it even with Duncan, and the two sides exploded at best. Duncan is indeed sharp on the offensive end, and O'Neal can't limit Duncan completely. The Spurs had considered using Robinson to consume O'Neal, when Robinson was no longer at his peak age, his state had declined so much that he couldn't hold O'Neal.
O'Neal played in the playoff series during the Lakers, and only one round of the series averaged less than 20 points per game. It is worth mentioning that the series O'Neal faced The Chinese basketball star Yao Ming. Let's take another example, O'Neal served many NBA stars at his peak. Mutombo, for example, is an African mountain and is the face of the best defensive players. As a result, when facing O'Neill, he was still beaten to pieces, and he couldn't even carry it. O'Neal was at his peak in 2000, and people could only pray that O'Neal wouldn't feel good in a particular game, or that he would frantically limit O'Neal to count on lakers teammates not to feel good.
The reason why the Lakers can win three consecutive championships is that O'Neal is the cornerstone, and O'Neill has changed the opponent's defensive strategy, forcing people to use the bag clip or slash tactics to limit O'Neal. In terms of peak dominance, I am afraid that only Jordan or James in the history of the NBA can compare with O'Neal.
If O'Neal existed in this era, would the NBA still have a small ball? In the past 10 years, the strength of the NBA's center players has basically been in a state of withering, although the overall strength is not bad, Jokic Enbeid Davis has proved his strength. But they didn't have as much dominance as O'Neill. If O'Neal had been in this day and age, the small-ball play would have been suspended. Because no one can limit O'Neal, no matter how much people like to pour three-pointers, but the efficiency of scoring two points and the degree of killing are definitely faster than three points. At this stage, the team with excellent interior stars is not bad for the record.
In the future, it will be difficult for the NBA to have a dominant center player like O'Neal. The era of the center forward is basically over, and now it belongs to the era of defenders and forwards. Dear officials, how do you evaluate O'Neill's career performance? Feel free to leave a comment in the comments section below the article.