Shaq, after the media session, took some one-on-one questions, meeting with small groups of the media, and in that time had nothing but praise for Nets All-Star center Brook Lopez, who he referred to as the best big man in the NBA.He listed his Top 5 bigs, in order, as Lopez, Roy Hibbert, Dwight Howard, Marc Gasol and DeAndre Jordan, noting that he likes more traditional bigs and not necessarily power forwards playing the center position.
On the criticism that Lopez isn't a very good rebounder, Shaq said, "I didn't rebound well, and nobody gave a fu*k... Reggie Evans, let that motherfu*ker rebound." To Shaq's point, he added that having a rebounding power forward like Evans and, this year, Kevin Garnett, allows Lopez to be a truly dominant scorer. He did note that Leopz should be pulling down 8-10 boards per game, but he didn't think the rebound criticism was any reason not to put Lopez as the best big in the NBA.
Finally, on Prokhorov, I asked Shaq if he thought the kind of spending he did this summer was good for the game and he said, first and foremost, Mr. Prokhorov is a businessman. "He's done a great job...In the business world, those who put a lot usually get the return on their investment in a short period of time," Shaq said, comparing this situation with what Mark Cuban did with the Mavericks, Mickey Arison with the Heat, the Yankees, the Cowboys -- though, "it's not working for them now, with fu*king [Tony] Romo."
"When you look at that starting five," he said of the Nets," I was thinking about that the other day -- Deron Williams, Joe [Johnson], Paul [Pierce], Garnett, Lopez -- holy ****, that's nice."
As for the other prognosticators, the general consensus seems to have the Nets as the 7th best team in the NBA, according to preseason power rankings, though Marc Spears of Yahoo has the Nets at No. 11 on his list, which is mostly do to "uncertainly" -- both coaching, ego and health-wise.
10/28/2013 8:10 AM
