Hall of Fame center Shaquille O’Neal recently gave his thoughts on what a matchup between the 2000-01 Los Angeles Lakers and 2012-13 Miami Heat would look like.
O’Neal posted a comparison of the teams on his Instagram, questioning whether Miami would have been able to defend him. The hypothetical game would feature a ton of stars, including O’Neal, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.
O’Neal, who played for both the Lakers and Heat during his NBA career (as well as several other teams), has a pretty good point.
The Heat didn’t have a dominant center on their team in the 2012-13 season, but they could play small with Bosh holding down the center spot.
Outside of Bosh, Miami’s primary frontcourt players that season were Udonis Haslem, Joel Anthony, Chris Andersen and Rashard Lewis. None of those players have the resume that O’Neal does, and the Hall of Famer would have been a handful to deal with because of his size advantage on all of those players.
Without a doubt, O’Neal is one of the most dominant players in the history of the NBA. He won two scoring titles during his career, three NBA Finals MVP awards and was a huge part of the Lakers’ success in the early 2000s.
A 15-time All-Star, O’Neal averaged 23.7 points, 10.9 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game while shooting 58.2 percent from the field during his NBA career.
A matchup between these two squads would be an interesting one, as Miami was changing the game of basketball with smaller lineups, more shooting and the team’s iconic Big 3.
However, O’Neal and Bryant formed easily one of the greatest duos in the history of the NBA, and they won three titles together in Los Angeles.
Obviously, O’Neal is confident in his own abilities to dominate the game, but fans will truly never know how these teams would have matched up if they were in the same era.
O’Neal will always have a home in Miami, as he helped the team win the NBA Finals in the 2005-06 season while playing alongside Wade. That was O’Neal’s fourth and final championship of his storied NBA career.