O’Neal’s Past Play Against East’s Elite
As Jermaine O’Neal arrives in Toronto, his mission for this season is clear: restore his standing amongst the game’s elite and elevate the Raptors from “also-rans” to serious contenders.
Both objectives depend heavily on his surgically restored knee holding up. They are equally contingent on his ability to elevate his game against the beasts of the Eastern Conference: Boston and Detroit. That means O’Neal must raise his level of play against Kevin Garnett and Rasheed Wallace. Does his history against these dominant forwards suggest he will do so?
Before we examine O’Neal’s track record against Garnett and Wallace, it would be sensible to retrace his background more completely to establish patterns in his play and how his career trajectory can be traced compared to his peers.
O’Neal was draft by the Portland Trailblazers in 1996 and played only sparingly for them as a non-rotational player. In fact, he started only 18 games over four years and averaged less than 12 minutes a game over his time in Portland.
Upon being traded to Indiana, his statistics improved significantly to averages of 12.9 points and 9.8 rebounds per game. That season he also led the league in total blocks (228, a franchise record) and led the East in double-doubles. Considering how limited his role was in Portland, it is practical to assess his historical statistics only after he was arrived in Indiana.
O’Neal truly hit his stride in the 2003-04 season as he lead the Pacers with averages of 20.1 points and 10.0 rebounds a game. Despite struggling with injuries and the fallout of the team’s infamous brawl against Detroit, he still averaged a team-high 19.4 points and 9.6 rebounds a game in 2006-07, the last season he played over 55 games. Despite his success, the metrics at www.basketball-reference.com still only list his Hall of Fame Probability at 0.018 (37th among active players)
With this foundational understanding of O’Neal place in the game for the majority of his time with the Pacers, let us look at how he did against Rasheed Wallace’s Pistons, a key foil for the Raptors this season.
In his last five games against Wallace, O’Neal scored 25 points or more three times and over 20 in each contest. Further, he also pulled down double-digit rebounds in four of those games. Despite that individual achievement, the Pacers lost four of those five games. If we look back even further to 2004, when Wallace joined the Pistons, we see that the Pacers were only 6-9 in such games.
The complete stat lines from these contests are below, ordered by his highest scoring game:
Date W/L MP FG FGA FT FTA ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK PF PTS
1/20/04 W 39 10 17 8 8 2 13 15 1 0 4 3 28
1/27/05 L 43 10 22 7 8 1 8 9 2 0 4 3 27
12/13/06 W 38 8 17 10 10 3 11 14 2 2 1 3 26
1/28/07 L 41 7 17 12 16 2 10 12 0 1 5 5 26
12/29/06 W 38 9 22 7 10 4 9 13 2 1 4 1 25
12/28/07 L 30 8 13 9 12 1 5 6 4 0 3 2 25
10/29/03 W 35 10 18 2 5 4 11 15 2 1 5 5 22
12/25/04 L 38 7 19 7 10 0 7 7 1 0 5 4 21
12/29/07 L 37 7 18 6 6 2 9 11 5 1 2 2 20
11/19/04 W 36 5 14 10 14 3 10 13 3 0 0 4 20
4/3/07 L 39 10 16 0 0 1 6 7 3 1 2 1 20
12/19/03 W 38 9 20 1 2 5 6 11 1 0 2 5 19
4/9/06 L 34 6 12 0 0 0 5 5 2 1 2 3 12
4/4/04 L 37 4 15 1 6 3 6 9 1 0 3 0 9
3/24/06 L 29 3 9 2 4 1 6 7 2 0 1 4 8
It would seem that, despite having consistent success personally against Wallace, O’Neal’s teams often lost. That does not bode well for Raptors fans hoping his mere presence will elevate them above a Pistons team that has made the Conference Finals six consecutive times.
Now, onto O’Neal’s record against Garnett. Admitted, these statistics are harder to project against how he might fare now against Garnett given the increased quality of Garnett’s team compared to that in Minnesota. Still though, there are some interesting trends to notice.
Since joining Indiana, O’Neal has faced Garnett 10 times. In these games he has scored in double figures in all but one game and went over 20 points on five occasions. He also managed to grab at least nine rebounds in six of these contests. His record against Garnett also speaks volumes, as his Pacers went 7-3 against Minnesota since 2000. The complete stat lines from these contests are below, ordered by his highest scoring game:
Date W/L MP FG FGA FT FTA FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK PF PTS
12/16/00 L 38 11 18 8 10 0.8 2 7 9 0 0 2 5 30
4/14/06 W 38 10 16 9 12 0.75 2 10 12 4 0 2 3 29
11/9/04 W 33 9 22 4 5 0.8 4 4 8 0 1 3 6 22
11/2/02 W 41 9 23 3 4 0.75 4 10 14 0 0 2 4 21
11/16/02 W 34 10 20 0 0 - 9 11 2 2 1 4 20
11/25/03 W 33 7 16 3 4 0.75 1 8 9 5 0 6 6 17
12/20/03 L 31 6 18 4 4 1.00 2 3 5 0 1 1 4 16
3/15/02 W 41 7 14 1 3 0.333 2 5 7 4 1 1 4 15
12/23/06 L 35 5 11 1 7 0.143 1 10 11 2 1 5 4 11
2/25/01 W 16 1 4 2 2 1.00 2 2 4 2 0 0 4 4
Jermaine O’Neal has arrived in Toronto leaner and healthier than he has been in at least three seasons. He has said all the right things to the media, talking about his intensity, his will to win, and his burning desire. If he stays healthy (admittedly a big if) he gives the team a defensive presence underneath it has not had since Antonio Davis was an All-Star.
The team is hoping he will team with Chris Bosh to give them shot-blocking and rebounding to compete with the strong frontcourts in Detroit and Boston. His past statistics show he has had individual success against those team’s star post players, though did not always win the contests. But if he can consistently match his historical production against Garnett and Wallace, he may yet make the Raptors a serious player next spring.
Photo Credit: Icon Sports Media
This article was written by:
Trevor Smith - who has written 38 posts on Hoops Addict.
Trevor Smith is a management consultant living in Toronto, Ontario. He currently writes for HoopsAddict.com, and previously worked for NBA Cares. He is a graduate of Queen's University.
Comments
By DougSmithSux on October 7th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Yay!
By Josh on October 7th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
You think that the overall record against Detroit and Minnesota might have more to do with which teams were better in that timeframe and less to do with Jermaine O’Neals individual performance?
I think it’s a great sign that O’Neal was able to elevate his game against the leagues best defenders, and it’s too bad that Detroit was the most dominant team in the East during that time frame and it should be expected that he would hold more wins against the Timberwolves, who had a couple good teams in said timeframe, but mostly were a middle-of-the-pack team.
By Trevor Smith on October 7th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Josh- you make a good point and are very right to mention how mediocre the TWolves were, which was why I prefaced the stats by pointing out that the Pacers should have won those games.
As for the Pistons, before the Malace at the Palace the Pacers had clearly pulled ahead of them as the dominant force in the East (in that very game they were blowing the Pistons out in Detroit). It only troubles me that they were only splitting games with them after having lead the whole NBA in wins the season before.
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