Was Corey Maggette a lot better than we realized at the time?

[HotelVitale]

Corey’s shooting and volume scoring were (much) lower than the other guys there, and he wasn’t nearly as good of a distributor as the other backcourt players. That meant he got his high efficiency by *not* spreading the court or passing the ball. Doesn’t mean he wasn’t good—he was a good, not great shooter (but very inconsistent, as Roscoe Sheed said), and semi-adequate defender. That adds up to a decent NBA starter. But, like I said, the value shown in advanced stats overstates things to some degree. He was a nice player.

He's also not really that valuable in basic advanced stats. During his 8 year peak he averaged around a 1.5 VORP, which would be around the 60th best player in the league most years. That's not bad but this year that's where people like Justin Holiday, Marcus Smart, Brook Lopez, etc are at. So if the main argument for him being underrated is 'hey advanced stats show he was better than we think!' that might not take you that far. (He was also paid like a top-50 player during that time, and was of course injury prone, so his value takes a couple hits there.)

Also to add to your point that even as a volume scorer he wasn't particularly good: he played huge minutes on the Clips and only ended up with about 20pts per 36 during those peak years, which this year would be like 45th and back then (lower scoring era) still would be outside the top 20.

Overall seems fine to keep him as a good-efficiency, decent-volume scorer who didn't really help the offense beyond that and wasn't at least a little below average at everything else. Hard to put a number on that value, but I don't think it's high enough that we should talk about him as 'underrated.'

[Warriors Analyst]

I’m a Warrior fan who had the misfortune of watching Maggette. I recently took a look at his stats, which is why I’m chiming in here. His efficiency is pretty hilarious; Maggette’s free throw rate was so high that he had 8 seasons that topped Harden’s career best! Maggette was around 58% TS if you take out his rookie and final two years in the league when he played 50 odd combined games. All of this in spite of the fact that he only shot above 35% from three in four seasons.

As other posters have mentioned, Maggette was a ball stopper and not a great shooter. And boy did he stop the ball. I hated watching Maggette because him getting the ball often guaranteed the end of a possession and so I knew I’d watch Maggette ramrod a defender on the way to the hoop or chuck up a pull up midrange shot. I think there’s an argument to be made that Maggette would have been a more effective player as a 4 that saw lots of his minutes with bench units. Don Nelson did play Maggette at the 4, but those teams were pretty bad so it’s hard to evaluate how useful Maggette was in the context.

I think Maggette came into the league 10 years early, but it’s hard for me to say he was a good player. For someone with his body, he should have been a great rebounder, but the numbers there are pedestrian. The ball stopping really did bog down offenses and he didn’t have the court vision to kick out to shooters when he got deep in the paint. When Maggette got the ball, you knew what was going to happen with it; he was gonna drive to the hoop and make a shot or get fouled. In that sense Maggette was a bit of a proto Harden, albeit with no court vision and a poor jumper, which made him a pretty infuriating player to watch. I think in this era, a smart coach would mitigate those issues by making him a super sub 4 in lineups with shooters. Most bench units need scoring more than they do defense and Maggette would be great for keeping a team afloat, but I’m not sure I’d want Maggette our on the floor in crunch time.

[HotelVitale]

I’m a Warrior fan who had the misfortune of watching Maggette. I recently took a look at his stats, which is why I’m chiming in here. His efficiency is pretty hilarious; Maggette’s free throw rate was so high that he had 8 seasons that topped Harden’s career best! Maggette was around 58% TS if you take out his rookie and final two years in the league when he played 50 odd combined games. All of this in spite of the fact that he only shot above 35% from three in four seasons.

That's not as impressive as you might think. Free Throw Rate is calculated in a stupid way--it measures how many free throws you have per field goal attempt. Harden has actually drawn more fouls per minute in each of the last 6 seasons than Maggette's career high rate, but Harden obviously gets up a lot of 3s and layups in addition to drawing heaps of fouls. So all Maggette's crazy high FTR tells you is that he sort of ONLY drew FTs--if he wasn't doing that, he wasn't doing much of note. Free throws accounted for 40%+ of his points many years, Harden drew the same or more amount of fouls but they make up only like 1/3 to 1/4 of his pts.

[esqtvd]

So all Maggette's crazy high FTR tells you is that he sort of ONLY drew FTs--if he wasn't doing that, he wasn't doing much of note. Free throws accounted for 40%+ of his points many years.

Ace. Exactly how I remember it, and I watched or listened to pretty much every game.

C-Magg was a one-trick pony, but it was a VERY good trick. If Blake had learned it instead of crying and shrieking and complaining to the refs every time he was touched, he might be on his way to the Hall of Fame. Instead he's known as a whiner and a flopper and everybody hates him.