Shaquille O'Neal, who played at LSU, told The Times-Picayune on Friday that he was interested in signing with the Hornets, and even had discussions with former general manager, Jeff Bower.
"It didn't work out," O'Neal said.
O'Neal eventually signed with Boston because they are unselfish.
"I like that they play together and nobody really worries about shots," O'Neal said. "When I was with Cleveland, guys who couldn't even play were worried about shots. Why was Mo Williams taking 15 shots, and I'm only taking four? If LeBron James takes 20 shots, that's cool. ... So I said, let me get with a good team for the last two years. I don't mind people calling me a journeyman. I've been programmed to move around every three years."
Why would anyone want to play on the same team as Shaq? Sure, he still contributes something on the court (although not nearly as much as he thinks, but we'll get to that in a second), but is it worth how much of an asshole he can be to teammates and former teammates, as we've seen numerous times over the years? Granted, Kobe deserved whatever he had to deal with from Shaq, since he's a sociopath and would make you want to kill yourself if you were friends with him, except for the fact that he has oodles of money, so you'd probably still want to hang out with him just so he could pick up the tab. But, Steve Nash didn't deserve to have his television show idea stolen! And now he's making fun of poor Mo Williams?
But, the real travesty is how wrong Shaq is. Besides his fuzzy math about taking four shots per game (he actually took 8.7 last year, which was slightly more than Mo Williams on a per minute basis), he's also wrong about his implication that he should be getting more shots and Mo Williams should be getting less.
Mo's true shooting percentage last year was 58%, while Shaq's was 56.6%. Now, that's not a huge difference, but you should also take into account that a post player like Shaq has his shooting percentages boosted artificially by getting offensive rebounds / putbacks, which are definitely good things, but Shaq's argument seems to be that he should have had more plays called for him, so we would ideally want a representation of his scoring in those situations. (Mo Williams also has a boost to his TS%, since he would shoot some technical free throws for the team).
The other thing to consider when thinking about overall offensive efficiency is turnover rate. Shaq turned the ball over on 15.7% of the possessions he used. Mo Williams only turned it over 15.5% of the time. And this doesn't take into account that Mo Williams averaged 5.6 assists per 36 minutes to Shaq's 2.3 (you can obviously turn the ball over while trying to score, but you can also turn it over while trying to set up the team's offense or feed the ball to a teammate who's in position to score, which Mo Williams did far more frequently than Shaq).
So, overall, Shaq is a bad teammate, but he's an even worse basketball analyst.
But, the real travesty is how wrong Shaq is. Besides his fuzzy math about taking four shots per game (he actually took 8.7 last year, which was slightly more than Mo Williams on a per minute basis), he's also wrong about his implication that he should be getting more shots and Mo Williams should be getting less.
Mo's true shooting percentage last year was 58%, while Shaq's was 56.6%. Now, that's not a huge difference, but you should also take into account that a post player like Shaq has his shooting percentages boosted artificially by getting offensive rebounds / putbacks, which are definitely good things, but Shaq's argument seems to be that he should have had more plays called for him, so we would ideally want a representation of his scoring in those situations. (Mo Williams also has a boost to his TS%, since he would shoot some technical free throws for the team).
The other thing to consider when thinking about overall offensive efficiency is turnover rate. Shaq turned the ball over on 15.7% of the possessions he used. Mo Williams only turned it over 15.5% of the time. And this doesn't take into account that Mo Williams averaged 5.6 assists per 36 minutes to Shaq's 2.3 (you can obviously turn the ball over while trying to score, but you can also turn it over while trying to set up the team's offense or feed the ball to a teammate who's in position to score, which Mo Williams did far more frequently than Shaq).
So, overall, Shaq is a bad teammate, but he's an even worse basketball analyst.
what is Shaq's favorite type of cat?
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