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What Does It Mean to Be a Shaq Stopper?

What does it mean to be a Shaq stopper? Jim McIlvaine explains why tougher shots and a body in the paint could matter, even when Shaquille O’Neal kept scoring.

By Brett Hanson · Underdog Podcasts · October 28, 2017

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Chris Horwedel asked Jim McIlvaine about being called a “Shaq stopper.” McIlvaine’s answer came with a correction: nobody expected Shaquille O’Neal to have an eight-point night because he was guarding him.

To be a Shaq stopper meant making O’Neal work harder for his points. A center could hold his ground, contest a shot and make Shaq take another attempt to reach his usual total. Teams valued that work even if the scorer still finished with 25 or 30 points. McIlvaine said the extra shots could make winning harder for Shaq’s team.

What does a Shaq stopper actually do?

Start with the spot where Shaq gets the ball. If he catches it close to the rim, a defender may already be in trouble. A center’s first job is to meet him early enough that the catch happens farther out. Then comes the less glamorous work: staying between him and the basket without using up all six fouls.

The defender also has to be there when Shaq shoots. A block is easy to count. A shot taken from a few feet farther away takes more care to see, yet it can matter just as much. So can forcing Shaq to gather the ball again while his teammates wait for a pass that never comes.

McIlvaine put the idea plainly on Tales from the Association, hosted by Chris Horwedel. If Shaq scored 25 or 30 but needed more shots to get there, McIlvaine said, “it’s harder for his teams to win.” That was his case for the job. The “stopper” part was doing the job no favors.

There was reason to keep expectations modest. In his first Lakers season, 1996–97, O’Neal averaged 26.2 points and 12.5 rebounds in 51 games. He made 55.7 percent of his field-goal attempts. A team preparing for him needed a plan that allowed for the strong chance he would score anyway.

Why did Seattle want Jim McIlvaine?

Seattle had just reached the 1996 NBA Finals. The SuperSonics lost to Chicago in six games, then faced a new problem in their own conference: O’Neal joined the Lakers that summer. The Sonics wanted to get back to the Finals. They needed someone who could spend time in the paint against him.

McIlvaine stood 7-foot-1 and had made his name blocking shots in Washington. He was a second-round pick in 1994. By the summer of 1996, he had shown enough in a reserve role to draw interest from several teams, according to his account. The offer from Seattle was not even his highest, he said. He chose the Sonics because he wanted to join a team with a chance to win.

It was a large commitment. A September 1996 report said his seven-year contract could pay as much as $35 million with incentives. The same report put his previous season at 2.3 points and 2.8 rebounds per game. Those figures looked odd beside the salary, especially with Seattle star Shawn Kemp set to earn less that season. McIlvaine acknowledged the gap at the time: “There’s no way I should make more money than him.”

The points average did not explain what Seattle hoped to buy. McIlvaine could take a defensive assignment that someone else would otherwise have to take. He liked that work. He told Horwedel that teams saw value in a starting center who would defend, take charges and make life harder for the league’s biggest centers.

Which Washington games made teams notice?

For most of his first two NBA seasons, McIlvaine sat behind other centers with the Bullets. Then Gheorghe Mureșan was injured late in the 1995–96 season. McIlvaine got a run of starts. He told Horwedel he played more than 35 minutes a night over roughly 10 or 12 games, his first long chance to show what he could do with regular minutes.

One game gave teams a startling box score. On April 21, 1996, Washington played the Bulls, who were headed toward their 72nd win. McIlvaine played 35 minutes and finished with 11 rebounds and nine blocks. He scored six points. Chicago won 103–93. Those nine blocks said more about his appeal than the six points did.

“So in terms of saying Shaq stopper, nobody's going to stop that guy. But just make it more difficult.”
— Jim McIlvaine, on Tales From the Association

McIlvaine remembered the game as a near triple-double. He also remembered coming close to averaging a double-double during his stretch as a starter. Those are his descriptions, rather than a claim that one game proved he could play 35 minutes every night. The opening came late, after a long period of limited court time.

Still, it changed the question teams could ask. They had seen the shot blocker in short spells. Now they had seen him stay on the floor and keep making plays. A club looking for a defensive center could picture what he might provide with a steadier role. McIlvaine said that stretch was where he made his money.

How can a center help when Shaq scores 30?

A defender can lose an individual contest and help his team win the game. That sounds slippery until the shot count comes in. If a scorer reaches 30 on fewer attempts, his team has more possessions left for everyone else. Make him use several extra attempts, and those possessions are gone.

McIlvaine said Jimmy Lynam watched his numbers and plus-minus figures closely. He also said general managers, including Seattle’s Wally Walker, saw value in making stars less efficient. That was McIlvaine’s account of what they noticed. It does not prove every extra Shaq shot came with McIlvaine guarding him.

That difference matters. A box score can show Shaq’s attempts and McIlvaine’s blocks. It cannot, on its own, assign credit for each difficult catch or missed shot. Nor does a block total show every time a defender was pushed too deep. The NBA says its basic statistics reach back to the league’s first season, while its advanced statistics begin in 1996–97. There is no neat public number that settles McIlvaine’s claim about those Washington matchups.

McIlvaine did not offer a neat number, either. He offered the kind of target a coach could use: make Shaq take more shots for the points he was likely to get. It was a narrower goal than the nickname promised, and a more useful one.

Why did McIlvaine want to keep his weight?

Seattle coach George Karl and his new center had different ideas about the ideal body for the job. McIlvaine told Horwedel he had spent years trying to add weight. He reached about 265 pounds and felt better able to hold his place under the basket. Karl, McIlvaine said, asked whether he could lose 15 or 20 pounds to run the court faster.

McIlvaine had an obvious reply. He said Shaq outweighed him by about 40 pounds even at 265. Karl answered that Seattle played the Lakers only four times a year. McIlvaine then brought up Portland’s Arvydas Sabonis and Utah’s Greg Ostertag. He saw big centers elsewhere in the West, including on teams Seattle cared about beating.

This was a real basketball choice. Extra weight might help a center resist a shove near the rim. Less weight might help him keep up with Seattle’s pace. McIlvaine wanted Karl to see what he had added before asking him to shed it. He recalled arriving in Seattle and hearing from Karl that he was not the center the coach had wanted.

So the nickname hid an awkward detail. Seattle had signed a man to handle powerful opponents, while its coach wanted that man lighter and quicker. Both needs could exist in the same game. McIlvaine was the one who had to carry the answer onto the court.

Did Jim McIlvaine stop Shaq?

No. He did not claim to. Horwedel brought up the “Shaq stopper” label, and McIlvaine laughed at the idea of holding O’Neal to a terrible shooting night. His version of success was smaller: contest the catches and shots often enough that the Lakers paid a price for each trip inside.

Seattle did have success after signing him. The NBA’s 1996–97 season review says the Sonics finished one game ahead of the Lakers in their division. Houston knocked Seattle out of the playoffs in the conference semifinals. Neither result measures McIlvaine against Shaq by itself. They do show why the Sonics had wanted another answer in the paint while trying to stay near the top of the West.

For the rest of McIlvaine’s account, listen to the Tales from the Association episode “Tales from the Association: Jim McIlvaine.” The weight discussion says plenty about the assignment. A center had worked to reach 265 pounds, looked across the conference at the men waiting for him, and was asked if he could lose 20.