Shaq: LeBron James Not a ‘Scientific Dawg’ Like Kobe Bryant

Yeah what Shaq said lebron is a kitty!!

Shaq makes an interesting point at the very end when he compares LeBron to himself. Are players who are blessed with bodies so incredible as to be enough to allow a player to dominate also kind of cursed, since it takes a way the need to develop their fundamentals to the max?

This is why Shaq has the best quotes of all time.

good point, Eboy. people forget that about shaq.

Shaq makes a good point there, I keep telling Kats LBJ is really physically gifted like that and the time he should take to get the next level he’s using it to become the next Arnold Governator…

interesting comments on dwade..does not like drama..as per bron..yeah he has a lot going on! i get it but mj always had a ton going on off the court.he still seemed to find time to work out for 12 hours a day…is it just me? not hating on bron. as per the finals what is ..it is…bron choked. one game i get but not three. sorry! whenever the nba gets back we will see if bron has a killer instinct. i hope for his detractors he does! kobe is kobe..read somewhere he would be out with foxy back in the day…left at 1am and was up to workout at 5 or something like that..few athletes put time into it like that!

In two more weeks we prob would of read the book from front to back just by these excerpts.

THAT’S the AllenP I remember! Not this new guy I agree with. Hey P: how did rookie Shaq do against in-his-prime Ewing? DRob? Hey? Pre-zactly.

“Exactly what did Shaq improve at during his entire career?” His quotatiousness.

This guy puts plato and shakespeare to shame.

also: what do you really need to improve on when you come into the league as a BETTER THAN 20/10 ROOKIE? (23.4/13.9) AllenP, take a second to look at the career stats of a legend before you break out the bombastic foolishness.

i didn’t mention Hakeem because you would have rightly killed me on that. The Dream was unbelievable then. Remember what he did in the Conference Finals? A young Shaq – or anyone else- didn’t stand much of a chance. And that Magic Finals squad had what? a second year point (albeit a ridiculously talented one) and very minimal depth. You know this.

….and Nick Anderson as a starter. This cannot be overstated.

Totally off topic but after refreshing my memory watching hardwood classics anyone else feel Clyde was more athletic then MJ, dude was seriously flying and sprinting all over the place

Shaq dominated, but by the time he won the MVP and won the championship, all the good centers were past their primes and the KG/Duncan/AI/Kobe era was underway. The only close competitor to Shaq was ‘Zo and even he wasn’t close to Shaq’s level. This is apparent when you realize that the centers he went up against were Rik Smiths (past his prime), Todd Mcullough (sp; also, a scrub), and Dikembe Mutombo. I was most impressed with what he did against Mutombo because he had won DPOY that year, but lets not forget that Shaq had at least a 100 lbs on him at the time and was throwing him around like a doll. There were instances in the 2001 Finals when Shaq would back Mutombo down and Dikembe’s feet would fly off the ground while trying to maintain his stance. Oh, and the elbows.

Shaq could have been the best center ever, but being a top 10 of all-time isn’t exactly what I would call a bad career. If he worked out more consistently and didn’t rely on being a freak of nature as his primary skill-set, then he easily could have been the best. We can’t go back in history and put him up against a prime Hakeem, Ewing, Robinson, or Wilt, Russ, Kareem etc. It’s not Shaqs fault that he didn’t regularly battle other top centers throughout his career – I liked Vlade but would never call him elite, unless flopping is an elite skill. Shaq likely would have put in more work and would have been a ‘scientific dawg’ if he had someone out there to push him on the court. But when he came into the league and was being compared to Wilt, and doing rap albums (which actually not as bad as he got credit for), movies (terrible) etc, he made a brand of himself that earned him a lot more money and fame than if he was ‘just’ a basketball player. Kobe on the other hand didn’t come into the league with the comparisons to legendary hall of famers, nor did he have the personality/charisma to do the movies, tv shows, albums etc. Essentially Kobe was a nerd who studied basketball all the time, just like other nerds may do nothing more than do chemestry or physics. Not hanging out with teammates and not having many friends was a sacrafice that kobe was willing to make in order to be the player he has become and to earn comparisons to MJ. Shaq, had a very differnt path. Shaq could have been better while Kobe reached his peak. To late now to worry about ‘what if’ scenarios for Shaq now.

“Kobe, on the other hand, loves basketball first, his wife second, his daughters, and then everything else is optional or not a necessity. He wasn’t blessed with the freakish genes or body types of Lebron and Shaq and worked harder as a result.” – LMAO, you & a lot of the people you know are 6’6″ with world class athletic ability……? Didn’t think so. Kobe is blessed with freakish athletic genes & body type, and a freakish work ethic. But you do sound like his biggest fan. So that’s fun

shaqs always bashing guys with style – best quote-maker ever!

Ohhh so you think Shaq didn’t produce in the playoffs? I respect you enough to not paste his career playoff stats here, due to the embarrassment the obvious nature of those ridiculous numbers may cause. Shaq showed up in the playoffs–enough so to warrant Finals MVP THREE FREAKING TIMES. You can’t fade a first ballot HOF’er like that-especially by calling him out as a selfish, petty person. Seeing as he is/was a pro athlete. Unless you want to call out Jordan, Bird and about 90% of all pro athletes. Also: If Shaq was such a cancer-why were so many stars always trying to recruit him? Even when he was clearly looooooonng past his prime? You know as well as I do, Mr P. Look, normally I am tremendously entertained by your writing persona/character/facade/thing but the mask is on crooked this time. You are flat-out, 100% wrong when you say that Shaq “just waited for all the good centers to get old, then dominated”. You cannot fairly tarnish him with that. Ever.

Just as an aside…..Shaq did win 4 rings and his teams made 6 Finals and he won 3 Finals MVP’s. I mean, if ultimate winning is a major part of the greatness gauge, the Diesel was full.

“scientific dawg”

He was obviously lazy. I read a story a few years ago that said Shaq admitted to working on MMA more in the off-season then Free Throw Shooting.

Of course hes lazy,Ira wrote an article about what really lead to Shaq departure from the heat. It wasnt his little fight with pat, it was already in the works LONG before that. Numerous players and staff told him how Shaq use to horse play in the locker room hours before the game and then right before tip off he would tell the trainers “nah, cant go, toe hurts to much.” That pissed off a lot of players and execs and once the season was going bad he pretty much checked out.

@nbk – Kobe had great athletic ability, but he was never head and shoulders above the pack when it comes to athleticism like say, JR Smith or Lebron James. Lebron is a once in a generation body type. 6’6 guys are more common than 6’8 beasts with the speed of a point guard.

Kobe in his prime years was one of the best athletes in the L. His athleticism had allot to do with his development. His work ethic is why he is still able to do the things he does and is arguably a top 3 player in the L even at his ripe age today. LbJ puts work in, that much is certain. Ten fold that of Shaq’s lazy a$$. But Kobe is only rivaled by a few in the history of the L in overall work ethic.