Leave it to an oddsmaker to settle a back-and-forth disagreement between a former and current NBA star.
On Wednesday, prior to the Warriors' game against the Raptors, Steph Curry defended his team in response to comments that had been made previously by Shaquille O'Neal.
"I think we'd easily win," said Shaq, referring to a hypothetical matchup between his 2001 Lakers — who won all but one playoff game that year — and the current Golden State Warriors.
"Oh, he's dead wrong," said Curry. "Of course we'd beat them."
While we'll never be able to know who'd actually win the matchup, we do have an idea of who'd be favored … and it's not even close.
According to Jeff Sherman of Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas, the current Warriors team would be a 12.5-point favorite over Shaq's Lakers on a neutral court.
For reference, the most similar spread for a current NBA team taking on the Warriors — based on our Action Network Power Ratings — would be the Brooklyn Nets, who rank 12.3 points behind Golden State in our current rankings.
Of course, much of the reason (I think) for the wide margin has to do with the differences in how the game is played today compared to 18 years ago, something Steph was willing to acknowledge:
"Teams that dominated their respective eras need to be left alone in terms of what that means. Hopefully that's how they'll approach us when they talk about us 20, 30 years from now looking back."
