In a world focused on the pace speed of modern NBA basketball, it is easy to celebrate Stephen Curry, Mike D’Antoni, or the analytical movement of the three-point revolution. But with a surprising twist, former head coach and offensive mastermind Mike D’Antoni pointed out an unlikely person as a catalyst for the rise of the three-point shot. Shaquille O’Neill.
yes, that Shaquille O’Neal – 7’1″, 325 pounds of natural forces dominated paints as before or before. The overwhelming domination in that post Forced The NBA will evolve in a different direction. Ultimately, it ultimately leads to the three-point heavy style seen today.
D’Antoni’s unlikely perspective
Known for his “under 7 seconds” offense with the Phoenix Suns and innovative use of a three-point shot with the Houston Rockets, D’Antoni didn’t hide his belief in playing fast, widening the floor and maximizing efficiency. He went ahead of the curve and was often criticised for the system that shaped the league’s future with hindsight.
However, in an interview that reflected the evolution of crime in the NBA, D’Antoni surprised many by trusting O’Neal’s. Domination after ERA The exact reason was that the league had to move away from that style of play.
“Shaq was so dominant that the team had no choice but to change,” D’Antoni said. “He couldn’t play the same game. If he got bigger and tried to bang on the post, you’d lose. So the team spread the floor, shot three, and tried to win with speed and intervals. That was the only way of competition.”
In other words, the league did not evolve away from the post because it was ineffective. Shaq made it impossible to win that way unless you have Shaq.
Shaq’s Era: The Domination of Paints
To understand D’Antoni’s logic, we must return to the early 2000s when Shaquille O’Neal was the most unstoppable force in basketball. During his prime with the Los Angeles Lakers, Shaq averaged over 27 points per game, earning 11 rebounds, leading the league multiple times in the percentage of field goals, and won three consecutive NBA championships from 2000 to 2002.
There was no answer to him in the post. The team tried double teams, zone defense and hack A-Shaq. If you played a traditional big guy against him, you lost. If you tried to get smaller, he punished you. Shaq wasn’t just a good thing.
So, what do teams do when they can’t fight fire with fire? They change the game.
Strategic Change: Fighting Giants at Speed and Interval
Many coaches and front offices began exploring alternative strategies, and many coaches and front offices faced a must-have battle inside. What happens if you make him work defensively, instead of trying to match Shaq’s sizes? What happens if you space the floors out, pull the big guy out of the paint and prioritize it over power?
Mike D’Antoni took the idea and ran in Phoenix. Steve Nash Running Point, Amar’e Stoudemire, as a dynamic pick-and-roll threat, and with a roster full of shooters, D’Antoni’s Suns pushed Tempo and launched Threes at a rating rarely seen in the league at the time. They were not built to stop Shaq – they were built Outrun and Outscore he.
“We weren’t going to run through the Lakers or the Spurs,” recalls D’Antoni. “But we were able to try and beat them in another game, and it pretty much worked.”
D’Antoni’s Suns never built a final, but they laid the foundation for a new style of play. Other teams warned. Then came the Golden State, Stephen Curry and the full-scale three-point revolution.
The age of analysis checks the shift
Maybe Shaq was Cause Shift of Justification It came later in the form of analysis. The boundary game took over as the team began to better understand the value of a three-point shot and the inefficiency of the long two.
However, analysis did not invent the shift. They simply examined new ways to survive. The three-point shot wasn’t just a trick. That was Strategic Needs It was born from an era when traditional interior scoring could only be done before. Especially when Shaq was holding the paint in place.
And as D’Antoni points out, once the genie left the bottle it never returned.
“If you see that a team can win by shooting threes, you won’t look back.
Shaq’s indirect legacy in modern games
Ironically, Shaquille O’Neal may be the biggest reason today’s big men are expected to stretch the floor. Shaq proved the power of size, but he also revealed its limits in a changing league. After him, all the big men in the center disappeared. Today’s center, Nicola Joki? , Joel Embiid of Karl Anthony Towns, shooting as comfortably from across the arc as they post.
And it’s not just a centre. The team is now built around intervals and pace. Corner 3 is sacred. Bed spacing cannot be negotiated. It’s a completely different game, and it all comes from the moment when the old way of doing things hits a wall called Shaquille.
The irony of influence
There is a beautiful irony in D’Antoni’s argument. Shaq was a player who chuckled at three-point shots and dominated in a nearly replicable way, and might have pushed the league on his own to embrace the very style he rejected. Without Shaq, postgames could remain the dominant strategy. Instead, the need to compete with him created an environment in which innovation flourished.
And Mike da Antoni, who is often on the wrong side of Shaq-led playoff losses, has become one of the architects of that innovation.
“Shaq has evolved us,” D’Antoni said. “And when we did it, the game changed forever.”
Lessons of evolution and adaptation
The story of Shaquille O’Neill’s indirect role in the 3-point revolution is a perfect example of how evolution works in life, not just basketball. Advantages in one area often force others to innovate or perish. Shaq’s pure dominance closed one strategic door, but another.
In trying to solve the “Shaq problem,” coaches like D’Antoni unleashed a whole new way of playing the game. It wasn’t something that was already well and it wasn’t good – it I’m doing something different. And in doing so they laid the foundation for the revolution.
Today, teams routinely employ 40 or 50 3-pointers in their games. The guards will pull up from 30 feet. Big men are expected to shoot from range. And while Shaq himself has never played that way, his influence is felt with every property that starts five outs, all pick-and-pop 3s, and all the lineups trading speed.
Final thoughts
Mike D’Antoni’s achievements to Shaquille O’Neal may sound strange in his initial hearing, but they make perfect sense when viewed through the lens of basketball’s evolution. Shaq did not only control his time It is defined It was very thorough and he unintentionally started the next one. As they tried to beat him, the league discovered a new path paved with three pointers, intervals and paces.
Sometimes the biggest innovators don’t change, force It changes as the status quo becomes obsolete.
So remember the next time you see the 3-point barrage of hell. Somewhere in the surge in shots, there is the legacy of the 7-foot giant who didn’t care about the 3-point line, but whose presence became the most important shot in the game.
