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Shaquille O’Neal Continues To Rip On Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan

By Paul Steeno

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Former NBA player and current analyst for TNT’s Inside the NBA Shaquille O’Neal recently said that former Philadelphia 76ers legend Julius Erving was his pick for greatest basketball player of all-time. This was the latest disrespectful comment made by O’Neal about the Chicago Bulls.

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According to the Associated Foreign Press, at a promotional event in Hong Kong, O’Neal said that Erving was the best player to ever play the game of basketball.

The topic came up when somebody asked him whether Michael Jordan or LeBron James would win in a one-on-one game of basketball. O’Neal took MJ over James in the hypothetical showdown, but continued on about how Dr. J is still his pick for the “GOAT” (greatest of all-time) label.

"“I’ve seen young Mike and young LeBron, and I must say Dr. J is still my favorite player. A lot of people today don’t even mention his name, but to me, I still think he was the best. But these are questions that we’ll never know the answer to. It’s a bit like if I met Bruce Lee in an alleyway. Who would win? You’ll never know. Some people say, ‘Well, Bruce would kick Shaq’s ass.’ Some people say, ‘Well, Shaq is two times bigger than Bruce Lee.’ It’s a good question, a good conversation, but we’ll never know.”(ESPN.com, Matt Walks)"

Earlier in the summer, O’Neal created controversy in an entertaining instagram-based feud with former Chicago Bulls star Scottie Pippen. O’Neal posted a picture of his all-time Los Angeles Lakers starting five and said that this team could beat an all-time Chicago Bulls team by 50 points.

O’Neal played eight seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers, winning three straight championships with the franchise from 2000-2002. He was a 15-time All-Star selection and won the MVP award in 2000. It seems natural that in this debate he would vouch for the team the he used to play for.

However, his prediction that the Lakers all-time greats would beat the Bulls all-time greats by fifty points was blatantly disrespectful to the Chicago Bulls franchise. At a question and answer session at his Flight School camp in Santa Barbara, CA, one camper asked Michael Jordan to weigh in on this debate. Unsurprisingly, Jordan said that the Chicago Bulls all-time greats would beat the Los Angeles all-time greats.

"“I just felt like he was just talking. It’s a debate. The thing is that we would never know. I think we would have killed them. He thinks they would have killed us. You guys decide. It’s just a debate.”(ESPN.com, Patrick Dorsey)"

O’Neal has been particularly adamant about his criticisms of the Chicago Bulls over the last couple of months. Why has he recently targeted the Bulls? Does he have a point with any of his arguments?

According to Basketball-Reference’s game logs throughout his career, O’Neal faced the Chicago Bulls 25 times in the playoffs, accumulating a 12-13 record against them in five playoff series. In games against Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen in the playoffs, O’Neal had a losing record of 4-6 although he did manage to beat the Bulls in a playoff series in 1995 with the Orlando Magic. It is possible that his recent comments were a product of his old rivalry with both players because he has little factual based evidence to back up his claims.

O’Neal is about the only person in the country that believes that Julius Erving was a better player than Michael Jordan. In terms of size, Michael Jordan and Julius Erving were pretty similar. Jordan was listed as 6’6” and 216 pounds while Erving came in at 6’7” and 210 pounds. Surprisingly, their career numbers were similar as well.

Jordan separated himself from Erving through his career accolades. Erving won two ABA Championships and one NBA title, while Jordan won six NBA titles in the 1990s with the Bulls. In terms of individual awards, Jordan has Erving beat there as well. Jordan won five NBA MVP awards, a 14-time NBA All-Star and was a nine-time NBA All-Defensive First Team selection. In contrast, Erving won one NBA MVP award, was an 11-time NBA All-Star and was never selected to the NBA All-Defensive First Team during his career.

Although Julius Erving was a great player, O’Neal was stretching when he said that Erving’s career was better than the career of Jordan. Although the stats of the two players are comparable, Jordan’s career accolades, especially the number of championships he won in Chicago, give him an advantage over Erving.

In terms of the debate about whether the all-time best Lakers or the all-time best Chicago Bulls would emerge victorious in a hypothetical showdown, the answer to this question is largely subjective.

First, there are questions of who would make up the starting five for each team because both teams boast an incredible talent pool of players.

Second, it is hard to evaluate this game based on numbers and match-ups because many of these players never played against each other in their careers. Whether you think that the Lakers or the Bulls would win this game, any reason that you could give for supporting this prediction would simply be an opinion.

As with many hypothetical debates, it is a “he said, she said” type of scenario. Of course O’Neal thinks that his Lakers would beat the Bulls, while Jordan thinks the opposite result would occur. O’Neal’s thoughts on the situation became misguided when he said the Lakers would beat the Bulls by 50 points. As Pippen Ain’t Easy editor Dave Daniels pointed out in a recent column, no team with Michael Jordan on it would lose by 50 points. Jordan simply wouldn’t let that happen.

If this game really did happen, it would be a dogfight to the end. Unfortunately, it will never happen and we will never know who would win that dogfight. Hypothetical situations keep the long NBA offseason entertaining. However, when the NBA season officially begins, let’s hope that fans, the media and former and current players can focus on the real games.

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