After a very long, quite prolific, and often controversial career Shaquille O'Neal officially announced his retirement today.  At times considered the most dominant big man to ever play the game and at other times called fat, lazy, overweight, or all of the above.  One of the knocks that I have always had against Shaq comes down to this question, "How many of the 'greatest players to ever play the game' have played for six different teams?"  In case you don't remember, there was Orlando, Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix, Cleveland, and Boston.  We are just so used to the best players playing for pretty much one team for their career and eventually reaching or nearly reaching the summit of NBA greatness by winning the championship (LeBron James excluded).

Granted that if you are on this blog then you are a likely Lakers' fan, whatever your opinion is, if you think Shaq is a traitor for leaving the team on the terms that he did or whether he really is one of the true greats of the NBA ever, here is a quick breakdown of some of Shaq's greatness.

The guy is all over the career high lists in nearly every category.  Here it is in table form.

I did not actually know that Shaq ever made a 3 pointer in his career.  Probably because it happened while he was on the Magic.  But there it is, highest FG% in the history of the game.  And these are combined NBA and ABA stats.  They would look slightly different with just NBA stats.  7th in points, or 5th depending how you look at it, and that is only until Kobe passes him about 1/3 of the way through next season.  The rebounding numbers don't do the man justice because nobody will ever post numbers like during the Chamberlain and Russell era.  The only other comparable names on that list are Karl Malone, Hakeem Olajuwon, Kevin Garnett, Dikembe Mutombo, and Charles Barkley.  8th on the blocked shots list and we all know that he could have blocked way more shots.  Still, he twice had over 3 BPG and came close to that total in a number of other seasons.  I thought for a center that the 3,000+ assists was not bad.  I'm sure he is in elite company at 28,000 points, 13,000 rebounds, 2,500 blocks, and 3,000 assists.  We all remember how terrible the free throw shooting was.  4th in attempts and 20th in makes doesn't happen for no reason.  Shaq ended his career at 52.7%.  Just imagine the havoc he could have wreaked if he was even a 66% shooter.

Focusing on the part of Shaq's career that is most important to us as Lakers' fans, I perused the numbers rather quickly.  The following percentages relate to the percent of the totals that Shaq achieved as a Laker.

Shaq played 8 of his 19 seasons for the Lakers.

Shaq played 514 games as a Laker. ~42.6%

Shaq scored 13,895 of his career points with the Lakers.  ~48.6%

Averaged 27.03 PPG as a Laker.

In the playoffs, "I'll make them when they count." (In my deepest sounding Shaq voice)

Shaq played 122 playoff games as a Laker.  ~56.5%

Shaq scored 3,383 playoff points as a Laker.  ~64.4%

I think, at a glance, these number show that Shaq played his best seasons as a Laker, even if they were cut short by a couple of years.

Many of his single game records came as a younger player in Orlando but there is always his career high 61 point game versus the Clippers during the '99-'00 season.  But Shaq was more than just career highs when he was with the Lakers.  Despite the issues with desire during the regular season he was about as unstoppable as any player we have seen in ages.

Taking a look at the four seasons, including the 3-peat, Shaq averaged 29.7, 28.7, 27.2, and 27.5 PPG alongside 13.6, 12.7, 10.7, and 11.1 RPG.  Extend that to the playoffs and Shaq went for 30.7, 30.4, 28.5, and 27.0 PPG alongside 15.4, 15.4, 12.6, and 14.8 RPG.  These are for the '99-'00 season, when he won the regular season and NBA Finals MVP, through the '02-'03 season where the Lakers sadly lost to the Spurs.  During the second and third championships the Lakers needed only 16 games and 19 games, respectively, to stomp through the league's best teams.  We weren't often treated to a truly competitive Finals matchup during this stretch run but we did get to see some truly remarkable performances in the WCFs (often referred to as the real championship matchup since the victor of those matchups would easily mop up whichever chump team came out of the East).  We got to witness the comeback against Portland in Game 7 in 2000 and the memorable performances of Games 6 & 7 versus Sacramento in the 2002 WCFs.  Shaq obviously being instrumental in both of those.

I could go on and on about his tenure with the Lakers but I am sure that somebody else can do a better job at it than me.  Please have a look at the poll question below because I have been in many a discussion about this with other Laker fans.  I have faith that the beautiful and intelligent SS&R readers will know the only correct answer.

Thanks for reading.