Nowadays, Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley are the key members of one of the most loved sports analysis shows – Inside the NBA. The comedic duo doesn’t fail to enlighten fans with expert insights while also leaving the viewers in splits pretty often. However, long before they decided to join the sets of TNT, both of them were dominating the NBA hardwood.
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Shaq and Barkley played for 19 years and 16 years, respectively. Across their illustrious careers, the big men racked up several accolades. Ultimately, their resume was worthy enough to get them enshrined into the Hall Of Fame. Let’s deep-dive and compare the different stats that O’Neal and Chuck lodged during their tenure in the NBA.
Shaquille O’Neal
Career Points Per Game: 23.7
Shaquille O’Neal is one of the most dominant big men. Using his physical stature to an unfair advantage, the Big Aristotle would often bully defenders. The former LSU Tiger earned his bread and butter by living in the paint, scoring a vast majority of his total 28,596 points from within 4 feet from the basket. In 1995 and 2000, Shaq even won the NBA’s scoring title.
Career Assists Per Game: 2.5
O’Neal was able to use his dominant figure when scoring the ball. However, he couldn’t master the skill of playmaking as he has only 2.5 assists per game.
Career Rebounds Per Game: 10.9
Standing at 7ft 1”, Shaq was bound to grab a plethora of rebounds. However, as surprising as it may sound, despite averaging as high as 13.9 rebounds per game in a regular season, the centre never won the rebounding title in his career.
Career Blocks per game: 2.3
Not only was Shaq a beast in the paint while on offense, but also on the defensive end. The big man had a commanding presence in the paint, that would often cause players to pass up relatively open shots. And for those who were courageous enough to try and shoot over Shaq, they got their shots swatted away.
Career Field Goal%: 58.2%
Shaq was always lauded for being an efficient scorer. Living in the paint, the Los Angeles Lakers would seldom miss shots. Across his 19-year career, Shaq even led the league in field goal percentage a whopping 10 times.
Career Free Throw%: 52.7%
It isn’t common to see a player have a better field goal percentage than a free throw percentage. It goes without saying that Shaq was horrid from the charity stripe. In fact, he was so bad that teams would take advantage of his awful free throw shooting by purposely fouling him – Hack-a-Shaq.
Charles Barkley
Career Points Per Game: 22.1
Charles Barkley was one of the most gritty players in the league and was hell-bent on scoring by any means possible. However, Barkley wasn’t known for being a high-volume scorer and never had a season where he averaged 28.4 points or better.
Career Assists Per Game: 3.9
Similar to Shaq, Barkley wasn’t best known for his court vision. To be fair, Sir Charles was always surrounded by capable floor generals to take on the playmaker role.
Career Rebounds Per Game: 11.7
Standing at 6ft 6”, Barkley was among the shorter forwards in the league. Despite being three inches shorter than the average power forward and five inches shorter than the average center, the Phoenix Suns legend managed to win the rebounding title in 1987. Hence, “The Round Mound of Rebound” is an accurate nickname given to him.
Career Blocks per game: 0.8
Barkley was able to grab rebounds despite being relatively short. However, his leaping abilities couldn’t help him in swatting shots away.
Career Field Goal%: 54.1%
Barkley was known for being an efficient scorer. His two-point field goal percentage (58.1%) was excellent throughout his career. However, it was the increasing number of three-point attempts that he took that caused his field goal percentage to take a hit.
Career Free Throw%: 73.5%
Unlike Shaq, the Chuckster wasn’t an embarrassment from the free throw line. However, he was a subpar shooter from the charity stripe, with the league’s average free throw percentage being 75.1% during his tenure as a professional in the NBA.
Whose numbers are better between Shaq and Barkley
Barkley averaged more assists, rebounds, and free throw percentage than Shaq. While his incredible stats did result in several individual accolades – 11 All-Star & All-NBA selections, a rebounding title, and an MVP – he wasn’t fortunate enough to get his hands on the coveted NBA championship.
Whereas, Shaq had a distinguished career, winning numerous individual and team accolades. Regarded as one of the most decorated players of his time, the Diesel had 15 All-Star selections, 14 All-NBA selections, two scoring titles, an MVP, four championships, and three Finals MVP. Clearly, Shaquille O’Neal had the more decorated career among the two.
