Many enjoy a good David vs. Goliath story. But sometimes, the battle of the Goliaths takes center stage. Today we’re looking at two 7-footers who changed the game of basketball in their respective eras with their unparalleled dominance in the NBA – Shaquille O’Neal and Wilt Chamberlain.
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Just last year, Shaq stated during an interview with Relevo, “I am the most dominant player to ever step on a basketball court. I haven’t seen anyone yet who I thought could stop me.”
But if anyone contests Shaq’s undisputed claim to the ‘Most Dominant’ title, it’s the great Wilt Chamberlain.
The big man knew this comparison existed even when he was still in the NBA. In fact, he admitted that he signed with the Boston Celtics in order to beat Wilt in the all-time scorers’ leaderboard.
“I wanted to pass him up in points so bad because I was gonna arrogantly say, ‘I’m the most dominant big man ever,'” the 2000 NBA MVP explained.
Unfortunately, the Big Diesel retired with 28,596 regular season points, trailing Wilt’s 31,419. Despite failing to break the record, Shaq went on record to say that he would “bust Wilt’s a**” if they faced off during their prime.
The Big Dipper commented on this comparison too, saying that Shaq’s style of play wouldn’t hold up in his era.
Unfortunately, there’s no way to prove or disprove that statement. So let’s do the next best thing and take up a statistical comparison of the two legendary big men.
Points, rebounds, and assists: The Big Dipper vs. The Big Diesel
Before the hack-a-Shaq rule, there was the hack-a-Chamberlain practice. Both 7-footers scored with such ease and consistency that fouling them was often the only way of saving any points. The charity stripe is where Chamberlain and O’Neal both struggled.
Wilt attempted 11,862 free throws (#2 all-time) and converted 51.1% of them during his career. On the other hand, Shaq attempted 11,252 foul shots (#4 all-time), converting them at a 52.7% rate.
Even though they were just 610 free-throw attempts away from each other, there is still a clear difference in how they got there. O’Neal played 162 more NBA games than Chamberlain, but he couldn’t match his 45.8 minutes per game average. Therefore, Shaq racked up his free throws while playing nearly 6,000 fewer minutes.
So the question becomes, what truly constitutes dominance? Wilt’s conditioning and athleticism allowed him to play the full 48 minutes, and more sometimes. On the other hand, Shaq’s brute strength forced defenses to foul him more often, and he couldn’t stay on the floor as long as Chamberlain could.
This inadvertently feeds into the other numbers fans compare when looking at the NBA giants. O’Neal potentially could have beaten Chamberlain in several statistical categories, if he played Wilt’s minutes. But the NBA at Shaq’s time was not conducive to playing so many minutes.
Wilt the Stilt leads the league with 23,924 rebounds all-time, while Shaq comes in at the 15th spot with 13,099. The Diesel also trails in assists, racking up 1,617 fewer dimes than the Big Dipper.
However, where Shaq has the edge over Chamberlain is in his effectiveness. For his career, O’Neal boasts a true shooting percentage of 58.6%. Wilt, on the other hand, is at 54.7%.
Due to the difference in their eras, Wilt also played in far fewer postseason games than Shaq.
In the playoffs, Chamberlain scaled down his scoring, averaging only 22.5 points to go with 24.5 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game. O’Neal scored 24.3 points per game in the postseason, but couldn’t collect even half of Wilt’s rebounding numbers.
Unfortunately, the late Wilt Chamberlain retired in 1973, a season before the NBA began recording numbers for blocks and steals. Therefore, most of the data about his defensive impact is conjectural, with a fan studying 100 games from Chamberlain’s last 2 seasons and finding that he averaged a whopping 8 blocks per game!
However, since it isn’t verifiable data, this comparison is not a very desirable one.
Was Shaq physically more assertive than Chamberlain?
You can’t argue with broken backboards, let alone a dozen of them. Shaq’s strength was so unparalleled that the NBA had to reinforce all their baskets in 1993 to withstand the Big Diesel. O’Neal always packed more pounds than the Big Dipper, outweighing him by 15-25 pounds in their prime.
But that wouldn’t make much of a difference in a matchup, as Chamberlain was one of the strongest NBA players ever.
Wilt reportedly benched up to 500 pounds in his prime, even pressing 465 at the age of 59. That surpassed Shaq’s bench press record from his playing days of 450 pounds.
Partly due to his era and partly due to his mythical stardom, there are several stories of Chamberlain’s physicality that read like fiction. The two-time NBA champion once claimed that he easily had a 48 inch vertical in his prime. However, looking at footage of Wilt’s dunks and blocks, it can be assumed that he was at least clearing 40″.
O’Neal, on the other hand, played during an era that made his workout data far more accessible. His vertical reach was recorded at 32″ during his pre-draft procedures. Even in height, wingspan, and hand spread, Wilt’s numbers were superior to Shaq’s.
However, where their physical differences stood out the most was in their athleticism.
Not only did Chamberlain possess the motor to play all four quarters of basketball, he could also complete the 40-meter dash in just 4.6 seconds. In this regard too, O’Neal couldn’t keep up as his 40 meters took 5.8 seconds.
To be fair, this was recorded in 2009, after Shaq’s physical prime had passed. Moreover, Wilt was a former top of division 1 AAA conference track-and-field athlete before he played professional basketball.
Nonetheless, what made both of these giants so incredible was their ability to record guard numbers in the dash with their massive frames.
Who is the most dominant: Shaquille O’Neal or Wilt Chamberlain?
There are a few more qualifiers to this question before we can arrive at the answer. Wilt joined an NBA that featured just 8 teams, and by the time he retired, the league had welcomed its 18th team, the Utah Jazz. This certainly affected the intensity of his schedule and how grueling a regular season was for him compared to his modern-day counterparts.
While many have argued that this is a caveat in Chamberlain’s legacy, the flipside of this argument is that all of the best talent in the country was concentrated during that era of the league.
Across his career, Wilt had to face Bill Russell (one of the greatest defensive centers in NBA history) 94 times in the regular season. Chamberlain played against 12 other Hall of Fame centers, trailing only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in terms of the level of competition faced.
Of course, Shaq was challenged by his own contemporaries like Hakeem Olajuwon and Tim Duncan, but he only had 52 combined matchups against them during the regular season. The expansion of the league spread the talent out across its many teams and O’Neal didn’t have to compete against Hall of Fame centers every other night as a result of it.
In conclusion, Wilt outmatched O’Neal in nearly every physical category and dominated every statistical category against stiffer opposition. Even without considering the plethora of ridiculous records held by Chamberlain, it’s his ability to adapt and remain available that makes him more dominant.
Chamberlain clearly had the strength to barrel through opponents and play at the rim. But the physicality of his era forced the Big Dipper to play with greater finesse. He scored with fadeaways and finger rolls around the rim, displaying a greater touch and feel at his size than Shaquille O’Neal did.
Of course, Shaq was leagues ahead of Wilt in terms of ball handling, but he could never materialize that into high volume playmaking. This, along with the fact that Wilt Chamberlain led the league in assists during the 1968 season, gives him the edge over Shaquille O’Neal as the most dominant player ever.
However, we must not forget the Shaq won two more Championships than Chamberlain, that can give him the edge for many fans and analysts.
