How Good Was Shaq on Defense? Good but Not Amazing!

Shaq was a very good defender who played strong post defense and defended the rim well but was less effective in space. When motivated, Shaq was a physical freak who excelled on defense. But his conditioning and effort varied throughout his career and that kept him from being an all-time great defender. 

Shaq on Defense: Stats

Using statistics can be one of the best ways to judge a player from the past’s abilities. Anyone who has ever had a sports conversation knows there are a lot of opinions out there. Some are grounded in reality but others make you scratch your head.

Using stats to look back at a player’s career can cut through some of those confusing opinions and ground a discussion in facts and not in sometimes-faulty memories. 

Basketball Reference lists five defensive statistics in its advanced statistics section. They also list defensive rating in their per 100 stats, which attempts to measure a player’s defensive effectiveness per 100 possessions.  I will look at each of those numbers individually for Shaq below. 

When taken together, the numbers tell a pretty clear story:  Shaquille O’Neal was a positive force for his teams on defense who falls short of being one of the all-time elite defenders. 

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Rebound, Blocks and Steals

Shaq had a rebounding percentage of 23.6%, which puts him 44th all time in the NBA. This is a pretty good number for him, but Shaq was a physical monster and you might even expect him to be higher.

There is a big element of strength and power in rebounding and Shaq certainly had that. But, sometimes, you have to go get them and he was not always as quick as a player like Kevin Garnett who got even more.

As an intimidating physical force, you’d expect Shaq to block shots and he did. His 4.6% career block percentage left him 24th on the all-time list. This is a good number for Shaq.

You would not expect someone Shaq’s size to steal a lot of balls and he did not. His .9% career steal percentage is low. It is lower than both Tim Duncan and Dirk Nowitzki, so this is a bad number for him but not really unexpected either. 

Overall Defensive Statistics

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Defensive rating essentially measures how many baskets a player gives up per 100 possessions. Shaq had a strong 101 defensive rating that leaves him 58th on the NBA all time list. 

Defensive box plus/minus is an estimate of how many points a player gave up per possession when compared to a league average player & team. Shaq had a .7 career defensive box plus/minus. 

To give some context to that number,  Kobe had -.1! So Shaq’s looks pretty good. Not all-time by any means as you’ll see below. But fine. He ranked 144th all time. 

Defensive win shares is a complicated stat that attempts to measure how much a player contributes to his team while on the floor. 

Shaq finished with 66.4 career defensive win shares and is ranked 19th all time. A note about career defensive win shares is that even some poor defenders who play a long time can rack up win shares. 

But, at the same time, if you look at the top 20 besides Shaq for DWS, you’ll see names known as being good or great defenders. 

Shaq’s career big-picture defensive stats are good. He is certainly a well-above average defender but he does fall slightly short of some of the all-time greats. Let’s make some comparisons in the next sections to get more context. 

Comparing Shaq to Poor/Average Defenders

Rather than looking at stats in a vacuum, it can be helpful to look at them in comparison to other players. I am starting with a comparison of Shaq to two other players I have written about. 

Both are Hall of Famers known more for their offense than defense. In later sections, I will compare Shaq to all-time great defenders and he comes up short. I hope this section will balance those by showing Shaq was no poor defender. 

Dominique Wilkins has the worst stats, and is likely the worst defender, of anyone I have written about. He was a lazy defender who did not give enough effort on D. Larry Legend  had a great quote about the statue the Hawks made for him not being sculpted in a defensive stance. 

Dirk Nowitzki was not a naturally gifted defender. He struggled when he entered the league and they called him Irk because he played no D. Dirk worked at it, however, and became a passable defender by using smarts, positioning and effort. 

Stats	Shaq (rank on all-time NBA top 250 list)	Dom. Wilkins (rank on all-time NBA top 250 list)	Dirk Nowitzki (rank on all-time NBA top 250 list)
Def. Reb %	23.6 (44th)	12.5% (NR)	21.9% (85th)
Block %	4.6(24th)	1.0 % (NR)	1.9%(150th)
Steal %	.9 (NR)	1.8%  (NR)	1.2% (NR)
Def. Rating (lower is better)	101 (58th)	108 (NR)	104 (186th)
Def. Box +/-	.7 (144th)	-1.1 (NR)	.35 (228th)
Def. Win Shares	66.4 (19th)	35.1 (147)	62.6 (25th)

This comparison makes it clear that Shaq was a much better defender, in nearly every area, than weak/average NBA defenders. Shaq was a serious force on the defensive end in a way that someone like Dirk never could be and someone like ‘Nique had no interest in being. 

Comparing Shaq  to All-Time Great Defensive Centers

Okay, so Shaq was good on defense. How good? Well, let’s compare him to two of the greatest defensive centers to ever live: Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson. They actually played in the same general era, so the comparison is a fair one. 

Stats	Shaq (rank on all-time NBA top 250 list)	David Robinson (rank on all-time NBA top 250 list)	Hakeem Olajuwon (rank on all-time NBA top 250 list)
Def. Reb. %	23.6 (44th)	23.4 (50th)	23.8 (38th)
Block %	4.6(24th)	5.7 (10th)	5.4 (14th)
Steal %	.9 (NR)	2.1 (152nd)	2.4 (78th)
Def. Rating (lower is better)	101 (58th)	96 (4th)	98 (13th)
Def. Box +/-	.7 (144th)	3.1 (1st)	2.5 (7th)
Def. Win Shares	66.4 (19th)	80.1 (10th)	94.5 (4th)

As you can see, Shaq doesn’t fare well in this comparison. He was with the two greats in terms of rebounding. But that is about it. They both blocked more shots, got way more steals and had much better overall defensive stats than Shaq. 

This table points toward Shaq not being one of the all-time great defensive centers and that is almost certainly true. 

In fact, in the modern game both of these players would likely fare much better than Shaq because each of them had much greater mobility than him and they were better defenders in space than he was. 

Both the Admiral and the Dream started before Shaq in the NBA, but all three played each other and overlapped significantly. It is not like they played in a different league. But, even if they had, they would likely have had the same advantages over him because they were both recognized as more versatile defenders than he was. 

Comparing Shaq  to Other Great Defenders of His Era

While the Dream and the Admiral both started playing in the NBA before Shaq, the Big Fundamental and the Big Ticket both started a bit after him. It’s probably not fair to compare a monster like Shaq to Kobe on defense or other wings of this era like T-Mac or Vince Carter. Those comparisons would likely favor Shaq in any case. 

But it seems fair to compare numbers vs other big men. And two of the best big men of that era happened to be great defenders. Duncan played a lot of center after David Robinson retired, so that is a straight comparison while KG was more of a true power forward who got stuck guarding 5’s at times. 

Stats	Shaq	Tim Duncan	Kevin Garnett
Def. Reb %	23.6 (44th)	26.5 (13th)	26.0 (15th)
Block %	4.6 (24th)	4.6 (26th)	3.0 (81st)
Steal %	.9 (NR)	1.1 (NR)	1.9 (200th)
Def. Rating (lower is better)	101 (58th)	96 (3rd)	99.1 (19th)
Def. Box +/-	.7 (144th)	2.3 (11th)	2.09 (20th)
Def. Win Shares	66.4 (19th)	106.3 (2nd)	91.5 (7th)

As you can see, Shaq comes up well behind these two all-time great defenders. It is not laughable – like comparing Dominique Wilkins’ defense to KG’s would be! But of the three, just like in the comparison to Robinson and Olajuwon, Shaq comes a clear, distant 3rd place. 

 Did people think Shaq was a good defender while he was playing?

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Shaq started his career being viewed as a fairly strong defender who needed to be careful about fouling. When you are Shaq’s size, you can get called for a lot of fouls quickly. When you hit someone, they usually don’t absorb it well. 

Every team he ever played on needed Shaq on offense, so he was often careful about fouling and, to an extent, this could limit his defense. 

But most reports indicated that Shaq was a tough defender as a young player for the Orlando Magic. Watch the video below and you’ll see him faring well against players including Alonzo Mourning, Patrick Ewing and David Robinson. 

Those types of players also speak to why Shaq was so good in his early years. The league was very much a league of post players. Shaq was a force at post defense for the obvious reasons: he was bigger and stronger than everyone. 

He was also a great rim defender early in his career for the same reasons. You did not want to come into the paint against him because he was much stronger than you – no matter who you were! Shaq blocked shots against nearly all comers. 

Shaq was also a force in his earlier years because his motivation was so strong. He was trying to prove himself against those great centers and to the league in general. And a motivated Shaq was a scary Shaq on defense.

As his career progressed, Shaq lost some of that edge. He became more complacent and less willing to give max effort on defense night after night. 

His conditioning became a question going forward in his career as well. When combined with a noted slowing down in his speed, this led to a reduced effectiveness on defense for him.

A large part of the game was still played in the post throughout most of his career. And Shaq was always strong there. But as time went on, he became less effective in space and against the pick and roll. 

Ironically, it was during this slowing-down phase that Shaq made his three all-NBA defensive second teams. As I wrote when discussing Kobe, who made 12 all-defensive teams, the voting can be really flawed for these things. 

Players who play on winning teams, are good on offense, and pass the casual eye test on defense often get these awards over better defenders. Young Shaq probably deserved it much more! 

At the end of his Laker years, Shaq was guilty of standing and watching too often and making last-second lunges to stop drivers instead of getting in good position and anticipating. The video below details some of those poor defensive efforts that played a role in costing the Lakers a title in 2004.

In his last few years, Shaq was nearly immobile and not the defensive player he was in his prime. He was always a threat near the rim and in the post, but he lost most of the movement that made him incredible in his early NBA years. 

Summary

Shaquille O’neal was a good defender who protected the rim well and was solid in the post. Shaq had really good career defensive stats and could dominate at times on defense – especially as a young player. But his conditioning and effort varied during his career and he was not one of the consistently great defenders in league history. 

Photo Credit: “Shaq” by Bob Bekian is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0