This series proves why Duncan is better than Shaq

[Don Jacob]

all i got to say about this thread is :

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/-jDTxtxPfOY" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/-jDTxtxPfOY</a>

all over the twin towers

[Now_Im_Not_Banned]

Not true...You simply haven't read enough material to make conclusions. I'm only saying this because a lot of stuff you've claimed regarding the topic so far has been invalid and baseless...PeACe

Oh really? What was so damn invalid and baseless? You wanna tell me Kobe never said something along the lines of Shaq paying women to keep shit quiet? Why exactly is that invalid and baseless? Has Kobe denied it on his myspace I forgot to check out?

Kobe never said anything to the media, he had a one-on-one discussion with a cop, and he used Shaq as an example, asking if he could do the same thing Shaq does. The cops then leaked the info to the media...Don't twist shit up, Shaq was the one always bitching about Kobe to the media...PeACe

What did Phil Jackson's book say about the beef between Kobe and Shaq? 

There are CHAPTERS written about it...Read it.

[WC Iz Active]

Its obvious the Lakers broke up cause of SHAQ.  dude got lazy and irrated that Kobe was the man, Shaq could of been the best big man ever but his dumb ass ego got in the way

[wcsoldier]

On the coach thing, Phil Jackson is great to add the little things which will turn a very good team into a great team i.e winning championships and that's why he has done the entire carreer.. the current problem is Phil has never had to re-build a team from scratch and working on a long term perspective... plus he likes to coach experienced players, vets who got a huge B-Ball IQ ... I agree with most of Antonio said, Phil hasn't made a great job this year... I was very satisfied with his 05-06 work but this year, Hell naw... his "zen thing " doesn't work with young players, they have to get kicked in the butt (no homo) to understand they don't make the right efforts to improve

[jeromechickenbone]

In Shaq's prime, he was the most dominating.  He's nowhere close to that now, but dial back to '01 and fuck w/ him.  It's not happening.

[Antonio_]

Oh, talking about books....

at Phil's book.

Just add this simple thing to my previous post.

Yay, when you have one of the greatest centers ever and one of the greatest guards ever you are supposed to not fuck this up. Fine, they don't get along. It's part of those things a coach is supposed to take care of. Not writing a book and adding fuel to the fire. Ya dig?

That's what i'm saying..

[Antonio_]

Ok, he didn't want Kobe to be the man. But he wanted Wade to be the man. It was something personal, obviously.

You have to understand they think this is only Shaq's fault LOL. Nobody else's. Hell, according to Baby G Shaq basically only deferred to Wade to hurt Kobe, make him jealous and shit. Lol... he really must hate Kobe a lot. And only Shaq is to blame for that. Also, when Kobe told the media that Shaq is paying bitches he fucked/raped to keep it quiet, that was also just Shaq's fault cause he was just too mean to Kobe. Kobe is the nicest guy ever and Shaq is just an obnoxious excuse for a human being. 

Man it's obvious both the guys made a mistake. And Phil Jackson is imho the one to blame. Cause he was the coach, and he wasn't good enought to explain them they was wasting a great chance at making the best dynasty ever. I blame Phil. More than Shaq and Kobe themselves. Phil is the guy who has coached them 24/7 for years, he's the one who had to work on team chemestry, he's the one who let the two destroy his own team because of their egos. Then we can argue who started it. We can argue about Shaq's bad work attitude (i mean we CAN'T discuss about this thing: it's a fact). We can say whatever we want, but both the guys did a mistake, and Phil is the one who didn't force them to take personal issues away from business.

That said, Shaq was been very unprofessional in his last years in purple&gold. You know. And when the Lakers chosed Kobe over him, he felt like they disrespected him (big ego, you know) and took it personal, starting to act professional all of a sudden and giving Wade props. But everything was already damaged, at that point. Imho they should have handled things better, in the looker room. And the coach is the one to blame. Nothing to say about Phil as a coach, he has won 9 fucking rings, it speaks for himself. But he didn't do "the miracle" with Kobe & Shaq.

Phil is the last person to blame, dude...You wonder why I tell ya'll to read books, it's obvious you're not informed on what went down.  It's easy to see that you don't understand how Shaq was as a person. He did the same thing with the Magic...HIS MIND WAS SET ABOUT HOW THINGS SHOULD BE. Shaq's immature, selfish attitude ruined what could've been a 6+ peat...It's a shame you don't see it.

Man i have no doubts Shaq was a moron, selfish, lazy, unprofessional muthafucka.
But his role having the best C and the best SG of the league should have been to keep the things quiet between the two.
He obviously failed. Maybe Shaq is the one to blame more than everybody, but if the looker room is on fire, you gotta act like a firefighter.
And, honeslty, Phil Jackson never acted like a firefighter. At one point both Kobe and Shaq didn't want to be coached by Phil.
Kobe only forgave him because Lakers didn't reach the P.O. without him, but what he did writing that infamous book was low.
Great coach, yeah. But not a great motivator and he did nothing to try to make things cool between Shaq and Kobe.

[Now_Im_Not_Banned]

^Phil managed to have them winning championships together while they wanted to stab eachother in the back! Are you nuts? Who else woulda' worked that? Phil is the Zen master, his whole approach is to reach people and have them unite as one...Shaq already had his agenda set, and he was having it HIS WAY, or the highway...Nothing Phil can do with an ego like that. To blame him is even worse than blaming Kobe IMO. Shaq woulda' done what he did no matter what. He did it to Orlando, and when Kobe was getting big, he did it to the Lakers as well...PeACe

[Antonio_]

^Phil managed to have them winning championships together while they wanted to stab eachother in the back! Are you nuts? Who else woulda' worked that? Phil is the Zen master, his whole approach is to reach people and have them unite as one...Shaq already had his agenda set, and he was having it HIS WAY, or the highway...Nothing Phil can do with an ego like that. To blame him is even worse than blaming Kobe IMO. Shaq woulda' done what he did no matter what. He did it to Orlando, and when Kobe was getting big, he did it to the Lakers as well...PeACe

Man i refuse to think Shaq is the only one to blame. Simple as that.
If you refuse it, there are three men who should be blamed for what happened: Shaq, Kobe, and the writer. Simple as that.
If you say Phil is not the only one i do agree.
If you say he's not the main one to blame we can argue about it, and the 3 rings won are a good point.
But please don't tell me Phil and Kobe were best friends and both saints, while Shaq was the Devil.
It just doesn't make sense.

[Now_Im_Not_Banned]

^^Then you simply don't get the fucking situation. Had we had a Kareem or a Hakeem instead of a Shaq on our team, it NEVER woulda' happened. Can you honestly disagree with that? HAVE YOU NOT LEARNED WHO SHAQ IS YET?

[Antonio_]

^^Then you simply don't get the fucking situation. Had we had a Kareem or a Hakeem instead of a Shaq on our team, it NEVER woulda' happened. Can you honestly disagree with that?

No. But hey, you like things that are easy. I mean both Kareem and Hakeem are 10x the man/professionist/sportman Shaq is.
Shaq was a moron. Ok. That's where the best coach ever should try to work. He did a good job til they lost with Detroit. Then everything collapsed (including his own brain).

[Now_Im_Not_Banned]

^^Then you simply don't get the fucking situation. Had we had a Kareem or a Hakeem instead of a Shaq on our team, it NEVER woulda' happened. Can you honestly disagree with that?

No. But hey, you like things that are easy. I mean both Kareem and Hakeem are 10x the man/professionist/sportman Shaq is.
Shaq was a moron. Ok. That's where the best coach ever should try to work. He did a good job til they lost with Detroit. Then everything collapsed (including his own brain).

I honestly don't think Phil had the power to change Shaq's way of thinking...Phil WANTED the offense to run through Kobe. He just couldn't convince Shaq. Shaq was larger than the organization in his head...I definitely thought you knew the whole situation by now. Enough to not blame Phil at least...PeACe

[Antonio_]

^^Then you simply don't get the fucking situation. Had we had a Kareem or a Hakeem instead of a Shaq on our team, it NEVER woulda' happened. Can you honestly disagree with that?

No. But hey, you like things that are easy. I mean both Kareem and Hakeem are 10x the man/professionist/sportman Shaq is.
Shaq was a moron. Ok. That's where the best coach ever should try to work. He did a good job til they lost with Detroit. Then everything collapsed (including his own brain).

I honestly don't think Phil had the power to change Shaq's way of thinking...Phil WANTED the offense to run through Kobe. He just couldn't convince Shaq. Shaq was larger than the organization in his head...I definitely thought you knew the whole situation by now. Enough to not blame Phil at least...PeACe

Man i know what happened, we already talked about it thousands of times. But since Phil was not been able to do the shit he wanted to do, all i'm saying is that he didn't do a great job changing Shaq's bad attitude. So he did half of the job i was expecting from him. I was expecting Phil to coach the team well (and he obviously did) and to be a leader enought to change Shaq's mind and attitude. He failed in this last thing.

[mrceo]

lmao, did you watch the 2006 finals? hahahaha

and in 2004, shaq's last year with the lakers, he was just much better than kobe in the finals, no point in stepping behind him lol

LOL@Shaq being much better than Kobe' in '04, when Shaq had trouble getting off the ground and grabbing boards in double digits or scoring 20 or more points. And LMAO@2006, where Shaq put up games of 6 points and 5 rebounds and couldn't score over 20 points ONCE in the finals...You're funny, 7even. If Shaq was smarter, we'd be talking 6peat+. You know this.

I'm not talking about the 90+ games the Lakers had in 2003-04, but in the Finals he was the much better player. Kobe had that clutch 3 in Game 2, that was as good as he got in the series. Shaq was still an animal. Not as much as back in his prime, but he was still pretty damn good if you don't ignore the fact that he was like 32 playing against the best defensive team and the best big man defender in the game. Anyways, that's not so important, what's important is that it is retarded to argue that Shaq didn't defer to Kobe in the '04 Finals when he should have.

Of course Shaq couldn't contribute like back in the day in the '06 Finals, but he deferred to Wade and sometimes even to Zo when he had to. It's not like Duncan was absolutely dominating offensively this post-season, either.

I also refuse to believe that it was all Shaq's fault how the situation with Kobe didn't work out.


Shaq >> Duncan, bottom line.


What do you mean if Shaq was smarter? Was he supposed to stay with the Lakers after 04? Kobe wouldn't have re-signed, you know this. And I'm sure you're the last one who would argue that the Lakers with Shaq instead of Kobe and Odom would win 3 more titles.

You can read all the Lakerbooks you want, Kobe and Shaq had problems for many years. The only difference is as long as you are winning, you can look past that. As soon as you're not even successful, it can become a huge problem.

DUDE... Did you watch the series? We lost because Ben Wallace was holding Shaq down, and Shaq INSISTED that the offence keeps running through him...Yes, Kobe had a bad series shooting-wise, but he was still holding it down on defense and doing his...LMAO@pretending like Shaq was on Kobe's level in '04 because of one series, where Shaq was considered "shut down" by his standards...If the offence runs through Kobe in '04, and Shaq lets loose, just doing his, it's a whole nother story. If Shaq wasn't a primadonna who was afraid of sharing spotlight, then the whole situation with Kobe never woulda' happened to begin with...Kobe was gunna opt out either way, every star does this, you can get more money that way...But the point is, Kobe said he wouldn't mind playing alongside Shaq for his whole career. It was Shaq who didn't want his legacy tarnished when Kobe began taking over...WHY DO YOU THINK WE STARTED LOSING WHEN SHAQ WAS EXITING HIS PRIME? He coulda' done what Kareem did for Magic...But no, he decided to do what he did for Penny...ONCE AGAIN.

Nik what are you talking about?  Shaq averaged about 28 points/game in the 2004 finals, how did he get shut down by Big Ben, that's not a very good point your trying to make.  The Lakers lost that year because Payton didn't step up and Malone was injured, I say if Malone was healthy and Kareem Rush hit shots like he did in the Western Conference Finals we woulda won that year too

[teecee]

^^Then you simply don't get the fucking situation. Had we had a Kareem or a Hakeem instead of a Shaq on our team, it NEVER woulda' happened. Can you honestly disagree with that? HAVE YOU NOT LEARNED WHO SHAQ IS YET?

I agree with you, Shaq is an asshole with one of the largest ego's of any athlete ever.  Having said that, how about this question: 

If Kobe was like Parker, Lebron or Wade (ie. someone who can defer, play team ball, set others up, etc) would the situation have happened? 

The fact that you can't even admit Kobe was a little bit to blame is rather humorous man!