IMO, Shaq is the ultimate must score player in the league, simply because he cannot be stopped except by fouling. Now, he may have fallen off a bit as he's gotten older, but watch how effective he is at the end of games in the playoffs.
Has something changed since he's been in Miami? I don't know b/c I haven't seen as many games. In LA Shaq was a liability at the end of games b/c he can't hit his throws. Phil used to take him out of the games during offensive possessions in the last couple of possessions for that reason. Heck, the league changed the rules b/c teams used to just hack-a-Shaq ... remember?
Sorry, but Shaq is not clutch ... quite the opposite. Not only from the line either. I can recall several times down the stretch where he'd throw up bricks from the field. Maybe someone can dispute this with stats, but that's my recollection.
I think its funny how members of this board continually ripped on Shaq while he was on the Lakers. He always commits offensive fouls, he never gets called for 3-second violations, he travels, he's not that skilled just big, yada, yada, yada. Now that he's been on the Heat everyone's giving him props and focusing their animosity on Kobe. I don't have to run a regression analysis to see the trend here ...