Shaquille O’Neal has finally retired. And now it is time to wonder where Shaq ranks among the all-time great players in NBA history.
Shaq was obviously a “HUGE” player. This is obviously true in a physical sense. And it is true in a statistical sense as well. He was an outstanding rebounder; and as a scorer, he was both efficient (from the field) and prolific. But he did have one deficiency. He never really learned how to hit free throws consistently.
Across his entire career he only hit 52.7% of his shots from the charity stripe. And only once – in 2002-03 – did he hit more than 60% in a season.
A couple of years ago I looked at how this one weakness impacted Shaq’s career production. Now that Shaq’s career is finished (assuming he doesn’t come back), let’s update this examination.
Across Shaq’s career he posted the following numbers:
- 252.8 Wins Produced
- 0.289 Wins Produced per 48 minutes [WP48]
His most productive season was 1999-00, when he produced 27.1 wins and posted a 0.411 WP48.
Now let’e imagine how this story changes if Shaq converted about 75% of his free throws (about the NBA average). With this one change to Shaq’s production, the above numbers would be as follows:
- 333.9 Wins Produced
- 0.382 Career WP48
- 33.1 Wins Produced in 1999-00 with a 0.502 WP48
Here is how these WP48 marks compare to a sample of all-time great players (with all-time beginning in 1977).
As one can see, the inability to hit free throws consistently leaves Shaq a bit short of players like Magic, MJ, Sir Charles, the Admiral, and Bird.
As I noted two years ago, a similar story is playing out with another Orlando Magic center. Dwight Howard is also an amazingly productive big man who has trouble hitting his free throws. Across Superman’s career he has only hit 59.8% of his free throws. Despite this weakness, Howard has already produced 139.2 wins and posted a 0.328 WP48. And this past year – his most productive so far – he produced 23.8 wins with a 0.389 WP48. Had he converted about 75% of his free throws, though, these numbers would have jumped to
- 0.464 WP48 in 2010-11
- 0.387 Career WP48
And here is how Howard’s numbers compare to some current great players:
Once again, Howard’s best is not quite as good as KG, CP3, and King James at their best. But if he hit his free throws, Superman would be the most productive player in the game today.
Obviously it is too late for Shaq to change this aspect of his game. It is reported, though, that Howard will spend the summer working on his free throws. And if that work pays off, Howard should be an even more amazing player next season (assuming there is a next season).
Let me close with two more observations from the above tables.
First… LeBron at his best is not quite as productive as MJ was at his best (but it is close).
And secondly… Nowitzki – despite what he did last night – is not as productive as Larry Bird, and he is not one of the top ten players of all time.
– DJ
Wages of Wins Journal 
Ben
June 3, 2011
Magic, Barkley, Admiral, Bird, and Chris Paul all better than Jordan. Ok….
marparker
June 3, 2011
I’m not sure if its possible but I would love to see the career playoff numbers. I think those numbers are what people are basing their perceptions of who the best players ever were. In my own work, Olajuwon flies up the charts. Robinson comes down to earth a bit. It looks a lot more like perception when I calculate the playoff numbers.
Also, this is the only metric that put Bird this far apart from Nowitzki. That is the mainstream perception but this is not a mainstream number. Oh the agony.
Also, Im toying with adding (deffgpercentage/defreboundpercentage) to my own metric. I’m wondering if you ever tried this. I’m getting some really interesting results but dont know what to make of it.
marparker
June 3, 2011
Ben,
You cant look at a .33 guy and say hes not as good as a .35 guy. The numbers aren’t far enough apart on that level.
Secondly, if you look at bestwp48 you’ll see that only one man on this list surpasses Michael.
stephanieg
June 3, 2011
Ben: Jordan was just another great player among many across NBA history, not god incarnate. If anything he’s a little overrated because he found himself on stacked teams that won a lot of titles, was a media darling, and was probably the most entertaining “wow” player ever.
A better way to make fun of WP would be mentioning that if Dallas wanted to improve, by this metric, they should’ve traded Dirk for Kris Humphries.
Daniel
June 3, 2011
@stephanieg The best way to make fun of WP is mentioning that if Philly wanted to improve, they should trade Allen Iverson…. wait…. um…. if Denver wanted to improve, they should trade Carmelo… um….
Jax
June 3, 2011
Wins Produced clearly underrates Dirk and his importance to Dallas (2-7 without him this season).
In fact other members of the WoW Network have noted this, which is why in an ironic twist, people looking for decent WoW analysis turn to the other bloggers rather than the creator himself.
Daniel
June 3, 2011
The only way Mavs’ 2-7 record is damning evidence to WoW is if you completely ignore the minute allocation that occurred when Dirk was sidelined.
His minutes were taken by Brian Cardinal, who played20mpg+ over that stretch with .005 wp/48 for the season and Deshawn Stevenson, who played 30mpg in that stretch at .008 WP/48 for the season. Also, Caron Butler shifted to the 3 and Marion Shifted to the 4, and given that their raw WP/48 would be negatively impacted by their positional adjustments and that neither of them produced at a rate inconsistent with their regular-season production, the Mavs were hurt by this shift in position as well.
WoW completely explains the Mavs’ plummeting when Dirk was out. Instead of having their average production be approximately .050 at SG .150 at SF, and .175 at PF, they dropped to .020 at SG, .075 at SF, and and .100 at PF. Over an entire season, that drop in production is worth about 15 wins.
Considering Dallas only produced a little over 50 wins this season, it’s not surprising that a lineup that would win 35 games lost to San Antonio x2, OKC, Orlando, and Indiana (they played 6 games against playoff teams in that stretch).
Nick
June 3, 2011
One important thing to note when considering both Magic & Jordan, is that Jordan came back a couple of times, and also missed a prime(ish) season due to his first retirement. While Magic, retired at 31 essentially.
If both players had retired at 35, it would be safe to assume that Magic’s career WP/48 would be lower, and that Jordan’s would be higher. Hanging on a couple extra seasons at a less than spectacular level can do fair bit of damage to that.
So it’s by no means fair to just look at WP/48 and conclude one player is better than the next.
Has there ever been research into a Age-Adjusted WP/48. Essentially we know a player peaks at 24, so we should be able to adjust for a player’s WP/48 in regards to the history of players at his position, at his age. Might be a better way to determine how good a player has been playing thus far in his career. Would be useful for figuring out which players are good prospects, and who was a better player for at a certain point of his career.
Also, just because Kris Humphries has a higher WP/48, doesn’t mean a trade would automatically improve Dallas via WP. You have to take into account the player’s roles when considering this. Each player on Dallas would take more shots, and see a slight decrease in FG%, and Reb%, this might off-set the edge you have in Humphries & Nowitzki for the team level. Also, you might see a different assignment of minutes for the rosters.
Just because WP produces a higher value for KH doesn’t mean that it is saying that it will easily translate into actual results. I feel like this is a odd theory that people like to use to prove that a model is flawed. Everything has to be taken in context. For the logical fallacy crowd, see : Argumentum ad populum, and red herring.
Chicago Tim
June 3, 2011
And Magic Johnson was fricking amazing.
MikeMother
June 3, 2011
@Ben – you DO remember that Jordan came back at 40 for the Wizards, right? And that, in his prime, he quit for two years to pretend to be a baseball player?
Read https://dberri.wordpress.com/2006/06/01/the-case-for-michael-jordan/ Jordan’s career average is hurt by those two events. Bird quit when he got old, ditto magic. But players who stay to long hurt their career average.
It really is that simple, and Wages Of Win calls MJ the greatest player of all time https://dberri.wordpress.com/2006/12/04/on-jordan-and-rodman-again/
So, there is that!
dm
June 4, 2011
If Shaq Daddy could hit 75% of his free throws he would have way less free throws because no one would intentionally foul him all the time.
dm
June 4, 2011
And secondly, Shaq is the true son of Jor-El not Dwight Howard.
Ransom Hollister
June 4, 2011
Shaq worked extremely hard on free throw shooting, shot thousands of them in practice. He simply could not make them in games, leading some to believe it was psychological.
And, as Benjamin Morris noted (http://skepticalsports.com/?p=1232):
“One of the audience questions was about why NBA players are such bad free throw shooters. Pritchard gave a series of lengthy answers having to do with pressure, but I think those miss the main point. The more you are required to do aside from free throws, the more variables are going to go into your selection to play in the NBA—thus, the more likely it is that your strengths will lie in other areas. NBA players are the most talented free throw shooters in the world for people with their skillsets. This is almost true by definition for the present, but I suspect it is probably true historically as well. If we asked how good of a free throw shooter every player in the league is relative to the history of players who do everything else as well as they do, I suspect that modern players are the best free throw shooters ever. E.g., Dwight Howard may seem like a clanker, but he may be the best free throw shooter among people who play center as weIl as he does in NBA history.”