It’s funny how perception becomes truth, and how a couple coaching incidents can give VanGundy the horrible coach label. The guy has the 4th best active win percentage. And don’t say it’s because he has great players (he was missing one of his all stars….again) , because ALL the top 4 have great players. Phil has the lakers, Popovich has the Spurs, and Mike Brown (who I personally think sucks) has Lebron. Then it’s VanGundy. If he’s the 4th best coach stat wise, playing with a host of injuries, and overachieving every year how is he soooooo bad. Are you really gonna beleive the media hype from Shaq and Howard, or believe the stats. The coach is a stud, and it’s a shame Riley took his ring while using Stans system.

each team/coach gets 4 chances each game to swap any player on the court (not from the bench) to shoot free throws after a foul (similar to the coach challenges in the NFL with replay). It would help to lessen the hard fouls on the bigs that slow the game down so much and add a new level of strategy (do you use them when trying to rally, save all four for the endgame, spread them out to protect you’re big). the only problem I see is the stats (guys like Nash would get 8 “free points” a game while guys like Howard would lose 4 “free points” 50% clip). maybe those 8 points go into their own category (team FT) and not credited to a specific player.

what’s your point NOLE?
are you trying to get me back for a stupid little comeback that has NOTHING to do with the topic of this article in question?
or are you just trying to butt into something?

Do you know what rhetorical means?

Oh, and as for his never winning a rebounding title, don’t forget that for his first six years he had to contend with a dude named Dennis Rodman, who was a rebounding freak pulling down 15-18 boards per game during that stretch. Not even Dwight Howard beats that. Shaq also was JUST behind the league leader during his best two years in 99-00 and 00-01. It’s not like he was never amongst the best in the league in rebounding…

where should I start? I will start with ur “rhetorical theory”-he is not 6’10” 250, why would you even bring that up? wow
the REALITY is Shaq is 7’1”, 300lbs, and there hasn’t been a player with that size, agility, and strength (big up to hokwei)that has had an influence on the game as much as Shaq.

JEP, you help me out on this since YOU say Shaq isn’t a basketball player-
AT AGE 24-
ppg- SHAQ-26.2
Howard-18.2
rpg- Shaq-12.5
Howard-12.7
apg- Shaq-3.1
Howard-1.6

so at the same age, are you tellin me Howard is a better basketball player than Shaq? YOU are tellin me Howard would fare well against David Robinson, Hakeem, and Ewing, or even better than Shaq?
WHY isn’t Howard dominating in this era of no centers?
Howard has shooters in Carter, Lewis, Anderson, Nelson, Petrius-as a group they are nowhere NEAR Penny, Anderson, Scott, much less Fox, Horry, Fisher, and Shaw (notice I am leaving Kobe out of this).
I haven’t even gone into the stats yet, more assists than Howard, and more points. Rebounds are the same, a whoppin less than 1 rebound differential at the same age.
Shaq at 24 can score with a jumphook, bankshot, 5ft fadeaway, 8ft-ish one hand jumper in the lane, can pass the ball-no looks, over the head.
and Howard?-one right handed hook, one spin move, no jumper, no fadeaway, doesn’t see the floor as well, or move with the fluidity and rhythm of Shaq yet.
Howard will get there one day, but don’t try and take down Shaq cuz Howard isn’t there yet. 4 rings and MVPs to Howard’s what?-and NBA Finals loss?

whatchu got JEP?

How many teams that intentionally hacked Shaq won against him? Shaq is an ugly freethrow shooter, but he has a history of making them when it counts.

Also, don’t we always say players shouldn’t let anybody get in the lane and dunk on them? That they should foul hard to send a message? The problem with Dwight is he needs to get to the front of the rim to do his thing. Shaq’s half-hook is good out to about 12 feet. He doesn’t need to get as close in as DH to be effective.

Take what the defense gives you, Dwight. If you can’t exploit that, it’s because yopu have no moves, and that’s on you now, not the refs nor the opponents.

Remember the end of the Suns game? Dwight went to the perimeter to challenge Dudley’s shot, and you knew when he did that, there was no way Amar’e wasn’t getting that offensive rebound. Even though there were 3-4 Magic players around Amar’e. Again, I’m not saying start Gortat or even start Bass, but give Dwight a chance to not get his ass beat all night, every night.

Apparently you didn’t see Fisher put the wood to Louis Scola.

“That was a joke, right? No offense chief, but Shaq was good for one reason only: size + strength. There was not much skill there (seriously, how many times did Shaq lead the leage in rebounding?). If Shaq were a “basketball player” then I assume we could knock him back to 6′10″/250 and he still would have been good with his same skill set? (Rhetorical question – under that circumstance I am not sure he would have even started for half the teams in the league). Kareem, Olajuwon, Duncan, heck, even guys like Sabonis – those were basketball players. Shaq? An ogre with Nikes. I can go out and hoop with the grade school kids and score 50-60 points in a game every night…it does not make me a good player, I am just a lot bigger and stronger than the rest of the little folk.”

You must not have seen Shaq in his prime. He was bigger, stronger AND faster and more agile than most other centers he played against. Sure, Hakeem and Robinson were quicker than he was. They were quicker than a lot of small forwards too. Shaq’s greatness came from his unique size and agility. And the reason he never led the L in rebounding was more to due with lack of effort than lack of skill.