Why our methods for determining an athlete’s greatness are wrong.
Three of the greatest centers of all time—Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson and Patrick Ewing—experienced the prime years of their careers in the 1990s. Shaquille O’Neal was better than all of them.
O’Neal announced his retirement two weeks ago after winning four championships, an MVP award, and two scoring titles. He had a 13-year peak as a dominant player before his game started to show noticeable signs of decline. Among his peers at the center position in his era, only Olajuwon can claim a similarly long prime.
And yet upon Shaq’s retirement after a 19-year career, many were left feeling like he should’ve accomplished more. Here’s what Jemele Hill of ESPN wrote after the announcement:
Why isn’t Shaq the greatest player ever?
His 19-year NBA career isn’t on par with Michael Jordan’s, who is universally regarded as the NBA’s greatest player of all time.
But it could have been. Correction: It should have been. Shaq spent roughly a decade as the most physically imposing force in professional basketball. He won four championships and an MVP award, appeared in six NBA Finals, and arguably was the most likable person in all of sports. Over his first 14 seasons, he averaged more than 20 points per game and unofficially led the league in humiliating defenders in the paint.
Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad freeBut as phenomenal as he was, as exciting as it was to witness his breathtaking combination of power and athleticism, he could have been better.
When great players retire, their few shortcomings are often dwelled upon, as if those trivial matters diminish some of the greatest careers of all-time. With O’Neal, it’s relatively easy to pick out his greatest fault: free throw shooting. He missed more than 5,300 freebies in his career. There’s no denying that despite trying numerous different ways to slingshot the ball at the basket, O’Neal never found anything resembling a competent stroke at the line. As O’Neal himself pointed out in his press conference, he missed out on a lot of available points as a result.
But it’s not as if his free throw deficiencies somehow made him inferior. How many free throws in his career came as a result of a team being unwilling and unable to guard him, instead just mauling him to send him to the line? Sometimes the tactic was used discreetly; at other times teams were, um, a bit more open about what they were doing. And sure, O’Neal missed a lot of those free throws, but even if he was missing those shots, he was still proving to be a disruptive presence, forcing teams to employ big oafs at the end of the bench whose sole purpose was to come into games and use fouls. Maybe the strategy effectively neutralized him on occasion, but it also forced other teams to play lineups that didn’t always contain their best players. Worse, it forced opponents to admit that they couldn’t compete with O’Neal’s teams if all things were equal.
There’s also the small matter of field goal percentage. O’Neal never shot worse than 55 percent in a season. In fact, he’s the NBA’s all-time leader in field-goal percentage at 58 percent for his career. Ewing only shot 55 percent or better for a single season three times. Robinson only did it twice. Olajuwon never did it. So O’Neal converting a much higher rate of his field goals certainly makes up some for never mastering the art of the free throw.
O’Neal is seventh all-time in points. He’s 13th all-time in rebounds. He’s eighth all-time in blocks, eighth all-time in win shares … the list could go on. Only a handful of players who have ever played the game were comparable or better than O’Neal. Maybe if he spent more time perfecting his free throws, he wouldn’t have had as much time to add the array of post moves he unveiled throughout his career. That certainly wouldn’t have made him a better player. Whose to say that shooting free throws well would’ve necessarily vaulted him from a top 10 player all-time into the top two? Is the difference between those spots really that tangible anyway?
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O’Neal is far from the lone great athlete to hear nitpicking about an otherwise amazing career. We do it all the time.
Coming off of a 1,500-yard rushing season and showing no signs of slowing down at age 30, Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders surprisingly retired just before training camp in 1998. Sanders also was just 1,458 yards from breaking Walter Payton’s all-time rushing record, a mark Sanders could’ve eclipsed in just one more season.
But “potential” doesn’t exist. Potential is us as fans, us as media, just arbitrarily telling strangers what they should be, then holding them accountable to our fictional standards if they fall short in some way.
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Sanders retired as the league’s second all-time leading rusher (he’s third now after Emmitt Smith passed him and Payton), he made the Hall of Fame, and he retired early enough that he didn’t suffer a debilitating injury that could affect his future quality of life, a fear most NFL players live with in such an unforgiving sport. Few football players have had a career as comparably brilliant as Sanders had, yet he’s still followed by the “… but he could’ve been the best ever if he didn’t quit too soon!” whispers, as if someone other than Sanders should’ve been able to determine the right time for him to retire.
Ken Griffey, Jr. spent 11 years in Seattle, was a 10-time All-Star, won an MVP award, and was arguably the biggest star in baseball. Then, he asked to be traded, ended up with his hometown Cincinnati Reds, and made the All-Star team in only three of the final 10 seasons of his career.
Griffey left a very good Mariners lineup that offered ample protection, including a young Alex Rodriguez, for the pressure of being a franchise savior in a clubhouse that he grew up in when his father played for the Reds. Griffey’s decision to leave Seattle is often second-guessed because his Reds career didn’t play out as anticipated, as if staying with the Mariners guaranteed he’d avoid injuries and continue hitting home runs at a pace that made him a threat to Hank Aaron’s record before Barry Bonds.
“Potential” is a funny part of sports. We think Shaq could’ve made more free throws, we think Sanders could’ve played longer, we think Griffey could’ve had more success staying in Seattle. The narrative is already in motion for the diminishing remarks that will be made about LeBron James. LeBron will retire someday, and someone will be ready with a column about LeBron “shrinking from the moment,” whatever that means, as the ridiculous basis for why he was great but not as great as he should’ve been.
Comparisons of players, comparing levels of “greatness,” those are always going to be fun hypothetical conversations that people have. But “potential” doesn’t exist. Potential is us as fans, us as media, just arbitrarily telling strangers what they should be, then holding them accountable to our fictional standards if they fall short in some way. Shaquille O’Neal just finished one of the greatest athletic careers in the history of sports, and that’s as far as the dissection of his greatness needs to go.
—Photo AP