Quote:
Originally Posted by BuckW4GM
you're right, i did not see shaq played when he was a freshman and sophomre at lsu. i did saw him played a few times as a junior.
looking at their measurement numbers, shaq is 2 inches taller than oden. shaq weighed in at 303 lbs. in his predraft measurement, after he came out of lsu as a junior. as a freshman, oden played at 275 lbs. in his final month at osu. so the numbers favor shaq in term of size. i would also give the edge to shaq in term of strength, but not by much. watching the video clips when shaq played at lsu, especially during his freshman season, their size looks very similar to me. as far as athleticism, i'd say they're very comparable.
looking at both of their stats as a freshman, oden's stats compare favorably to shaq's as well. this is after oden played his entire freshman season with his right hand in a cast.
i'm not saying i'm expecting oden to be as good as shaq. although, i'm betting that oden will be closer to shaq than bynum to oden.
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Shaq at LSU was a monster as a teenager.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ih2EnUeCyU
At the age of 18 and 19 years old he was averaging 26ppg/14rpg/2apg/4bpg at LSU. Oden averaged a respectable 16ppg/10rpg/1apg/3bpg, nowhere near Shaq's LSU numbers. The numbers, in this case, tell the story.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hap
Shaq wasn't exactly that great at footwork or touch when he first came into the league. He used brute strength more than anything else. It wasn't until after he got abused by Hakeem that he altered his game to include more than just barreling into players.
Their freshman #'s are actually similar, cept that Oden scored more and rebounded (a lot) less.
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Just the opposite actually happened, though; Shaq was slender coming into the league compared to what he was in, say, the late 90's early 00's, when he did nothing but barrel and use his great agility for his size to get his points. Just the opposite when he was younger; lots of good change of direction, his footwork was still superb as a young guy, and he absolutely had touch around the basket. Hakeem had nothing to do with any change in Shaq's game. Shaq got bigger and stronger at the behest of Phil Jackson during the summer of 1999.