- Shaquille O’Neal chose Stephen Curry over Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Tim Duncan to form his best duo
- O’Neal stated that Curry is his favorite player
- Shaq believes he and Curry won’t lose to anybody
Shaquille O’Neal is quite simply the single most dominant physical force in the modern NBA. At his absolute peak, there was no way to slow him down as he led the Los Angeles Lakers to a historic three-peat from 2000 to 2002.
While O’Neal was all about physical dominance, the player he chose to form the best duo is certainly not. When picking from a group of Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, and Tim Duncan, Shaq went with the Golden State Warriors superstar and stated they wouldn’t lose to anyone.
“I’m picking my favorite player Stephen Curry and we ain’t losing to nobody, EVER”
NBA fans reacted to Shaq’s claim with some having differing opinions.
“Maybe LeBron and Shaq if LeBron uses mostly his playmaking ability, (they) would be unstoppable probably”
“Best outside scorer in the history of the game with the most dominant force on the inside ain’t no way you can beat these 2!”
“MJ and Tim. Inside out. Tim doesn’t care about the hype, he just cares about winning.”
“Shaq and Curry = Unstoppable!!!”
“Shaq and MJ, easy. They bully the rest”
There’s maybe a little bit of bias as Curry is indeed Shaq’s favorite NBA player. In fact, O’Neal rates Curry so highly, that earlier this year he chose him as the greatest point guard of all time.
Would Shaquille O’Neal And Stephen Curry Beat Every Other Possible Duo From That Group?
You’d need a great big man against this duo, so Duncan has to be on here. While Shaq has an 18-14 advantage in their head-to-head, as per Statmuse, their numbers in those 32 meetings were quite comparable.
O’Neal averaged 21.7 PPG, 10.6 RPG, 1.7 APG, 0.4 SPG, and 2.7 BPG while Duncan put up 22.0 PPG, 12.1 RPG, 2.7 APG, 0.7 SPG, and 1.4 BPG. If you assume that these two would somewhat cancel each other out or that at their peaks Shaq would have the slight edge, the determining factor would be Curry vs. Jordan or LeBron or Durant.
While some might pick Curry over Durant, no one would have him over Jordan or LeBron. So ultimately, you’d have to say a Duncan-Jordan or Duncan-LeBron duo would probably get the better of Shaq-Curry.
