The Tape
Was David Robinson better than Shaquille O'Neal?
David Robinson, 1989-2003, against Shaquille O'Neal, 1992-2011. The numbers levelled to one league, then the call.
Method, stated plainly: scoring is adjusted to a league averaging 114 points per team per game. Rebounds and assists are printed as they were recorded, with the league scoring rate beside them, because a rebound in 1962 came out of a different number of missed shots and we will not pretend one multiplier fixes that. Career lines for active players run through 2024-25.
What the numbers say
Adjusted to a league averaging 114 points a game, Shaquille O'Neal is the bigger scorer: 34.7 a game in 1999-00 against 33.5 for David Robinson in 1993-94. That is a real gap of 1.2 points, not an era illusion — Shaquille O'Neal's league averaged 97.5 and David Robinson's averaged 101.5.
Shaquille O'Neal wins the glass by 2.9 rebounds a game (13.6 to 10.7), which in his era meant standing in traffic rather than waiting for a long one.
David Robinson: An MVP, a Defensive Player of the Year and a scoring title closed out with 71 points on the last day of the season. Shaquille O'Neal: The most physically unanswerable player of the last 40 years, in the lowest-scoring era since 1955.
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