by Shea Serrano
So when Shaq19 and Hakeem would’ve met in September 1995, you’d have had (1) a version of Hakeem who was 32 years old and three months removed from the best basketball of his life (but would never approach that level again), and (2) a 23-year-old Shaq who was also three months removed from the best season of his career to that point (and was still headed toward the best basketball of his career). That’s a great game.
If we look at just their matchups from the 1995 season and the 1996 season then it’s:
SHAQ: 4 wins (all during the regular season) and 4 losses (all during the 1995 Finals) // 26.5 ppg // 13.9 rpg // 1.9 bpg // 59.7% FG
HAKEEM: 4 wins (all during the 1995 Finals) and 4 losses (all during the regular season) // 30.0 ppg // 10.6 rpg // 2.0 bpg // 46.5% FG
Those, to me, look like just about the same numbers. So really I think all of everything here just turns into a game management situation. That means we’re looking at mainly four different things to figure out who wins this game.
FOULS. Originally, the way fouls were going to be handled was the first two fouls of each round were going to be non-shooting fouls, and then everything after that was going to be a shooting foul. Let’s assume, given that Hakeem only ever had a sterling reputation in and around basketball, he’d have willfully refrained from doing the Hack-a-Shaq technique. That’s a big checkmark in Shaq’s favor because if you don’t want to send him to the free throw line, then how exactly do you slow him down?20 Shaq could just pummel his way into the lane, really. And if you want to say that 1995 Shaq was way smaller than, say, 2001 Shaq, who was like if a large building had grown arms and legs, then I’ll remind you that it was during the summer of 1995 when Shaq first truly bulked up, gaining over 20 pounds of muscle so he could play Kazaam.21 So he would’ve shown up to the one-on-one game way bigger than he was even just a few months earlier. That’s bad news for Hakeem.
OUTSIDE THE PAINT. Of course, if we’re going to consider the idea that Shaq would’ve spent most of his time trying to just beat up Hakeem down low, then we have to consider the inverse as well: Shaq would’ve been a woolly mammoth in the paint, yes, but Hakeem was not only a twisty-twisty demon around the rim, he was also a better shooter and dribbler than Shaq, which are huge assets in this sort of game. How many times do you think he’d have been able to pull Shaq away from the rim? Enough times to cause Shaq a whole bunch of headaches, I’m sure. (A subsequent outcome of this strategy: Long shots usually cause for long rebounds when they’re missed, and, all other things being equal, long rebounds usually go to the quicker player, which is another advantage for Hakeem.)
WAY OUTSIDE THE PAINT. You have to figure that either Hakeem or Shaq or both would’ve at least attempted one or two or three of those 32-foot six-pointers, right? That’s a huge bonus if you can connect on one of those. Let’s say Hakeem chucked up four of them. If he hits even one of them, that’s the same as hitting three out of four two-pointers. Could Hakeem have hit 25 percent from 32 feet away from the basket easier than Shaq could’ve hit 75 percent of his shots near the basket?22 And if Hakeem does hit one or two, what does Shaq do? Because if he comes all the way out there to guard him, then it’s a wrap. Hakeem was just too fast.
OVERALL ENDURANCE. One-on-one is super taxing. And that 12-second shot clock would’ve only made things move faster. I suspect most would be inclined to say that that would favor Hakeem, but there was a part during the This Magic Moment documentary about the mid-’90s Magic where they talked about how Hakeem’s plan to attack Shaq during the Finals was to just run him to death, only except it ended up no problem for Shaq to keep up with Hakeem because he was nearly a decade younger than him and so Shaq’s legs were still made of rubber.23 This category probably ends up being somewhere near a draw.
But so those are the main parts of the game that would’ve determined the winner.
The actual game:
• Round 1: Hakeem is surprised by Shaq’s new mass. Shaq pounds on him a lot. It’s too much for Hakeem. Shaq wins the first round by a score of 12–6.
• Round 2: Hakeem, a brilliant tactician, modifies his defense of Shaq. He starts trying to speed the game up. Shaq, who is still upset about the Finals, continues to pummel him. Shaq wins the second round by a score of 10–8.
• Round 3: Shaq, feeling proud and hoping to raise the guillotine’s blade above Hakeem’s neck, attempts an errant six-pointer. It’s all the mistake Hakeem needs. He hits three buckets in a row, pulling away. Shaq decides to conserve his energy. Hakeem wins the third round by a score of 14–4.
• Round 4: Both players settle in defensively. It’s clear that, despite all of the mascot tacos bouncing around the court shouting about some beefy crunch disaster Taco Bell is selling for $0.25 after the game, The War on the Floor has become tense. Neither player scores the entire last minute. They tie, 6–6. The winner of the next round will be awarded points for both that round and this one.
• Round 5: Hakeem hits a 19-footer. Shaq creeps out to guard him farther from the rim on the next possession. Hakeem blows by him for an easy layup. Upset, Shaq decides he won’t venture any farther than 12 feet away from the basket. Hakeem, testing Shaq’s will, dribbles out to the six-point line. Shaq stays firm in the paint, wordlessly daring Hakeem to shoot it. Hakeem does. It swishes through. He wins the round 18–6.
• Round 6: Shaq, all the way upset that he’s suddenly losing three rounds to two, goes into HULK MODE. He dominates the round, winning by a score of 16–2. They’ve both won three rounds apiece. Everyone is surprised by how close it is, and how serious both players have become.
• Round 7: Shaq hits a jump hook at the buzzer to win the round 10–8.
• Round 8: Hakeem puts Shaq in the spin cycle with the Dream Shake. He wins the round 10-8. Both players have won four rounds. It’s fucking real.
• Round 9: In the game’s most intense round, neither player scores. Tie, 0-0. The winner of the final round will be awarded the ninth-round victory as well.
• Round 10: Shaq jumps out to an early 4–0 lead, which Hakeem quickly erases with back-to-back up-and-under layups. With just 12 second left on the clock, Hakeem chases down a rebound. He looks at the scoreboard. It’s 8–8. He looks at Shaq. He jabs left. Shaq bites. Hakeem jumps right. Shaq tries to recover. Hakeem raises up to shoot a 9-footer over Shaq’s outstretched arm. The ball is in the air. The buzzer sounds. There’s perfect peace in the world. The ball drops softly through the rim. Olajuwon wins the round, 10–8, and also the game, six rounds to four.
So there you go.
If Shaq and Hakeem had played that game, who would’ve won?
Hakeem, six rounds to four.
1. “Hey, Karl. Fuck you. —MJ” (Charles Barkley actually one time did send a not to Bill Laimbeer before a game in 1990. It very simply read: “Dear Bill. Fuck you. Love, Charles Barkley.” That’s not a joke. He really did that.)
2. “Congrats on your back-to-back MVPs, though. —LBJ”
3. A typewritten note is easily the most romantic of notes. The second-most romantic kind of note is one written on parchment paper with one of those quills you dip in the ink. The last-place romantic note is if you key the words “Eat shit” into the hood of an ex’s car.
4. There is maybe a tiny chance that this Dalton Trumbo reference has made me appear more cultured and intelligent than I actually am. To be clear, the only reason I know who he is today is that there was an episode of Modern Family one time where one of the characters dressed up as him for Halloween.
5. The one I spent the most time thinking about: How did Shaq deliver the note to Olajuwon? Shaq doesn’t seem like the post office type. I hope it was like in those old karate movies where one guy is challenging another guy to a duel and so some guy shows up with a big scroll and he unrolls it and then reads it to the person who the message is for.
6. The Orlando Sentinel wrote a story about Hakeem ducking out of the game. The title: “Hakeem Can’t Answer The (taco) Bell Vs. Shaq.” The first line of
the story: “It will, like some of the contents inside a burrito, forever remain a mystery.” The second line in the story: “Now we’ll never know for whom the Taco Bell tolls.”
7. My favorite one: Shaq plays a two-on-one challenge where it’s him versus Muggsy Bogues and Spud Webb together.
8. Gary Payton’s second-place take was $50,000.
9. This game was preceded by One on One: Dr. J vs. Larry Bird. I’ve always preferred the Jordan and Bird version to the Dr. J and Bird version, though. I assume that’s because by the time I got around to really enjoying the NBA, Dr. J was gone.
10. The New York Times review of it called it a “taint on the game.”
11. LeBron would wax Steph. If they played to 15 by ones and twos, it’d be something like 15–4.
12. Garnett, big enough to guard all the big guys but also quick enough to cause problems for the little guys, would be an ideal one-on-one player in an NBA one-on-one tournament.
13. Everyone of course remembers them battling against each other in the 1995 Finals, but most forget that they played in the 1999 playoffs after Shaq joined the Lakers.
14. Interesting sidebar: Shaq has never played an entire season’s worth of games. He played 81 games in the 1993 and 1994 seasons.
15. David Robinson won it.
16. This doesn’t have to do with the 1995 season but it’s a neat stat and I wanted to put it somewhere so here we are: Olajuwon became the first player in NBA history to record at least 200 steals and 200 blocks in a season during 1988–89. As I write this, he’s still the only player ever to do it.
17. Shaq was no slouch during the Finals. He averaged 28-13-6-3 for the series.
18. Jordan won two of the other three. Olajuwon won the other.
19. I read a bunch about Shaq and researched a bunch about Shaq to write this chapter. The most egregious quote that I came across: During an interview with ESPN, Shaq, who was answering questions about his own rap career, said, “First time I heard Biggie Smalls was he said my name in a rap. [Biggie] said, ‘I’m slamming brothers like Shaquille, shit is real,’ and instantly I became a fan.” This very much seems like a lie to me. The line is from “Gimme The Loot,” a song from Biggie’s 1994 album Ready To Die. “Gimme The Loot” wasn’t one of the singles on RTD. That means Shaq would’ve somehow had to have not heard “Juicy” or “Big Poppa” or “One More Chance” (all of which were singles) in the lead up to it. We’re talking about three of the biggest songs in the country from one of the biggest albums of the year by one of the biggest rap stars in the world. And Shaq never heard it? I’m calling false.
20. Only Wilt Chamberlain missed more free throws (5,805) than Shaq (5,317).
21. This is not a joke. It’s a real thing. He really decided he needed to gain 20 pounds of muscle to play a fucking genie.
22. Shaq only made one three-pointer in his entire NBA career. It was a buzzer beater that he threw up during a game against the Bucks in 1996. He missed the other 21 he took while he was in the NBA. I’m assuming he wouldn’t have been very interested in shooting up a bunch of three-pointers and six-pointers during his game against Hakeem.
23. I’m 35 years old. When I go jogging, it feels like my legs are made of if you mixed a bunch of old nails and screws with mud.
WHICH WAS THE MOST PERFECT DUO IN NBA HISTORY?
The question is not “Which was the best duo in NBA history?” That’s too easy to answer because, for most of us, “best” would mean we’re talking about “the winningest,” in which case all we’d have to do would be to look through the win–loss records of a bunch of different duos and see whose was the best and there you go. For example, Jordan and Pippen won 30 playoff series and six titles during their time together. That’s more than any other All-Star duo after the merger.1 So, were this a thing about “best,” then that’d be it. We’d be done. The chapter would be over already.
So, the question isn’t that. The question isn’t “best.” The question is “perfect,” because “perfect” is more subtle, more nuanced, more complex. There are layers to it; there are sections of it; there are parts to get lost in and wander around in. Whether or not the duo won games is a part of the answer, sure, but only a part of it. There are other pieces to consider. The full list:
• Did they win a bunch of games?2 This can’t be the only thing, but we also can’t ignore it.
• How interesting was the duo’s compatibility, both on the court and philosophically? Any duo who, if you’re thinking of them right now and you’re saying something like, “I think they got along,” or “I think they might’ve not gotten along,” then that’s a duo that’s scoring poorly here. We need extremes. We need duos that either were cosmically connected and in love (like Stockton and Malone) or duos that were one or two good arguments away from fistfighting each other during a game (like Wally Szczerbiak and Kevin Garnett3).
• How’d their partnership end? The most important thing to consider for this category is, “How memorable was the ending?” A good duo has a narrative arc, and a good narrative arc has a strong ending. That being the case, a duo with a forgetful ending to their partnership scores lower here than a duo with a memorable ending, even if it was memorable because it was a plane crash of sorts. Bad endings are fun.
• Was each member of the duo in his prime during their time together? The old-player-paired-up-with-a-young-player thing can be fun, as can the two-young-players-on-the-precipice-of-something-great thing, as can the two-older-players-teaming-up-for-a-final-run thing. But for the purposes of this conversation, the closer the two were to being in their primes together, the better. So, as an example, if we’re just looking at Shaq-based duos here, then it’d be Shaq and Kobe4 > Shaq and Penny5 > Shaq and Dwyane Wade6 > Shaq and LeBron7 > Shaq and Nash.8
• Was the duo fun to watch? This is a big category. What was the watchability of the duo? Like, if they were on TV that night, did you absolutely have to watch their game because maybe they’d both get hot and put up a combined 95+ points together (like Steph and Klay), or maybe one of them would throw a between-the-legs full-court alley-oop to the other (like Payton and Kemp), or maybe they’d both have life-ending dunks on someone (Moses Malone and Dr. J)?
I propose that we reverse-engineer things for this chapter. Rather than already having a pick for the most perfect duo and then building a case around explaining why they were chosen, I’m going to start out with a big list of memorable duos in NBA history,9 then go through each of the categories mentioned above and erase names from the list until we get to the final, most perfect pair. Here’s who we’re starting with:
• John Stockton and Karl Malone: Eighteen seasons together on the Jazz (1986–2003).
• Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant: Eight seasons together on the Lakers (1997–2004).
• Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen: Ten seasons together on the Bulls (1988–1993, 1995–1998).
• Chris Paul and Blake Griffin: Six seasons10 together on the Clippers (2012–2017).
• Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Ten seasons together on the Lakers (1980–1989).
• Steve Nash and Amar’e Stoudemire: Six seasons together on the Suns (2005–2010).
• Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant: Eight seasons together on the Thunder (2009–2016).
• LeBron James and Dwyane Wade: Four seasons together on the Heat (2011–2014).
• Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol: Seven seasons together on the Lakers (2008–2014).
• Shaquille O’Neal and Dwyane Wade: Three seasons together on the Heat (2005–2007).
• Magic Johnson and James Worthy: Nine seasons together on the Lakers (1983–1991).
• Shaquille O’Neal and Penny Hardaway: Three seasons together on the Magic (1994–1996).
• Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash: Six seasons together on the Mavericks (1999–2004).
• Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady: Five seasons together on the Rockets (2005–2009).
• Tim Duncan and Dav
id Robinson:11 Six seasons together on the Spurs (1998–2003).
• Charles Barkley and Kevin Johnson: Four seasons together on the Suns (1993–1996).
• LeBron James and Kyrie Irving: Three seasons12 together on the Cavs (2015–2017).
• Larry Bird and Kevin McHale: Twelve seasons together on the Celtics (1981–1992).
• Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer: LOL. I apologize.
• Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler: Four seasons together on the Rockets (1995–1998).
• Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp: Seven seasons together on the Sonics (1991–1997).
• Steph Curry and Klay Thompson: Six seasons13 together on the Warriors (2012–2017).
• Chris Mullin and Tim Hardaway: Six seasons together on the Warriors. (Hardaway was drafted in 1989. He played on the Warriors until 1996, but one of those seasons was lost to an injury, and he actually finished that 1996 season as a member of the Heat.)
• Isiah Thomas and Bill Laimbeer: Thirteen seasons together on the Pistons (1982–1994).
• Julius Erving and Moses Malone: Four seasons together on the Sixers (1983–1986).