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Topics: NBA, Basketball, Shaquille ONeal
Ryan Baldi
Shaquille O'Neal has fired back at a claim that he is only the fifth best center in NBA history in typical Shaq style.
The former Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat star is considered one of the most dominant big men in basketball history.
O'Neal won four NBA championships in his career – including a run of three successive titles with the Lakers in which he was named Finals MVP every time – and was named the league's Most Valuable Player in 2000.
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Yet according to outspoken sports pundit Chris "Mad Dog" Russo, the 7ft 1ins icon ranks behind the likes of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Hakeem Olajuwon and Moses Malone.
Russo even claimed Tim Duncan – a five-time champion with the San Antonio Spurs who spent most of his career as a power forward – was a better center than Shaq.
"Let's just get it straight. I will smack the S*** out of that dude," O'Neal responded when confronted with Russo's comments on The Big Podcast With Shaq.
“However, Kareem? Yes,” O’Neal continued, admitting he did not belong at No.1 on the all-time list of the NBA's best centers.
“Wilt—only because he has more points than me. [I] missed a s*** load of free throws. That would have put me past Wilt. So because he has more points, I'll let that slide."
Chamberlain – who played for the San Francisco Warriors, Philadelphia 76ers and LA Lakers between 1959 and 1973 – still holds many NBA scoring records to this day.
Across his career, he scored a total of 31,419 points. O'Neal scored 28,597.
But while O'Neal was a notoriously bad free-throw shooter, with a career success rate of just 52.7 per cent, Chamberlain was even worse from the foul line, converting just 51.1 per cent of his attempts.
“I’m the most dominant center ever," O'Neal said. "I don’t ever want to hear another name again.
“So that will put me at number three. I passed Hakeem Olajuwon up. Hakeem beat me, I came back and beat him. Moses Malone, I passed him up six years before I retired.
"So I will put myself at number three."