Shaquille O?Neal Fires Shots at Michael Jordan By Claiming His Lakers Would ?Easily? Defeat Prime Bulls

Shaquille O?Neal is not new to hot and controversial takes. He is arguably the most dominant player in the history of the NBA. The 7’1” giant was a force to reckon with in the NBA. He was drafted by the Orlando Magic and played four seasons with them, even leading them to an NBA Finals.

He then went on to win three NBA championships with the Los Angeles Lakers along with late legend Kobe Byant. Recently, on one of his Instagram Live interviews, he confessed to Canadian journalist Arial Helwani that his three-peat Lakers would easily defeat a Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls.

Shaquille O’Neal replied,?“Yes. Easily” to defeating a prime Michael Jordan championship team.

Shaquille O’Neal vs Michael Jordan over the years

However, NBA fans were not amused by Shaq’s claim as they defended Jordan’s legacy. In terms of matchups, Dennis Rodman would do a good job guarding Shaq, not to say that Shaq wouldn’t terrorize rodman in his prime. Jordan won three rings after Shaq was drafted into the league.

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In the 21 times, Shaq and Jordan met, Michael Jordan has a 12-9 winning record over Shaquille O’Neal, including a 6-4 record in the playoffs.

Notably, Jordan averaged relative highs in four out of five categories, putting up 28.7 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 4 assists. Moreover, It is worth mentioning that in an overtime thriller on Jan. 16, 1993, between the Orlando Magic and the Chicago Bulls, Jordan dropped a whopping 64 points.

Even though we witnessed them play each other, Shaq and Jordan never shared the stage in their prime. Any comparisons about who would come out victorious between both the Phil Jackson-led teams would be speculative.

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In a recent video from the NBA archives, we saw Jordan go one on one with Shaq and got defeated. However one cannot rule out Michael Jordan as his outclassing skillset was enough to make every matchup favorable.

What would give Shaquille O’Neal the edge over the prime Bulls

Even though Shaq would be accompanied by Kobe, Jordan would arguably outperform Kobe in every metric. In the Instagram live video, Shaq explains what would separate the 72-10 Bulls from the three-peat Lakers.

He said, “Cause I would’ve killed Luc Longley, Bill Wennington, [Bill] Cartwright,” he said. “The factor is me and my free-throw shooting.”

With both Shaq and Kobe averaging 28 points, they cruised through to the 2001 Finals and went 15-1. This was one of the most dominant post-seasons ever. With Shaq, the question comes down to, ‘Who will defend him?’. It would be truly one of the greatest games of all time.