Why is Tracy McGrady one of purest scorers despite low efficiency (TS 51.9%)

[UglyBugBall]

TS% is not a real number is like saying FG% is not a real number. What are you saying does not make sense man, as NBA continue to use FT and three pointers in the box score.

FG% is a raw number. Player took 10 shots, how many did he make? It's very clear. TS% is not. It completely fakes a players efficiency through mental gymnastics. If Curry took only 3 point shots and nothing else at all, he'd have a TS% of like 63%. The catch? He would have only made 42% of his shots... Complete BS. Let's not try to fudge (fake) the numbers to reward playstyles we like better.

Your math doesn't....Math?

Two players take 10 shots.

Both make 4/10 shots.

Player A: made 3- three point shots and one 2FGA.
Player B made 0 -three point shots and all were 2FGA.

Both players have 40% FG.

Player A scored 11 points.
Player B scored 8 points.

Player A gave his team 1,1 point per possession.
Player B gave his team 0,8 ppp.

If such trend continued for 98 possessions ( imaginary number of average nba game ) and this trend continued, where player A is part of team A who keeps his 1,1 PPP vs player B on team B and his 0,8 PPP final result of a game would be 108:78


Player A, by taking more 3s outscored player B by whooping 37,5%.


This is like second grade math. It takes serious mental gymnastics to not understand why efficiency in basketball is integral part of offense. Almost Every nba guard can score 20 points a game if you give him enough shots. Efficiency among them makes difference between ones who should be aiming for 20 ppg and ones that aren't nba level good. Like, Monta Elise used to put 25 ppg on 52% TS. It's not that hard. Problem? it's not that useful either.

Problem among some of people is not understanding what opportunity cost is. Once you replace high usage chucker from offense, shots don't disappear. They are allocated toward other players, mainly starters. That's why often bad teams play better without "star" who is nothing but high usage chucker. . Case and point, Bulls without Derozan and Lavine. Or Rudy Gay. On every single team. Each and every got better by addition by subtraction. Despite his "not bad" stats.

If your point is that we should value efficiency, then just use PPP like you did in your own example. It's clean and actually tells you what it claims to... points per possession. No stat 'magic'. Just straight-up output per trip down the floor.

TS% on the other hand pretends to be about "shooting efficiency" but it’s not. It inflates the value of threes and blends in free throws, something that's not even part of actual shot making during the game. That’s not “shooting efficiency” that’s a cooked stat rewarding specific styles.

Curry shooting 42% from the field gets masked by TS% and suddenly he’s a model of “efficiency.” Like, cool, but he’s still missing more shots than he makes. TS% just massages the number until it looks good. You can’t sell that as clarity, it’s marketing.

If you want a real measure of scoring efficiency, use PPP or per-possession stats. At least then the number actually reflects what it's called, and describes what’s happening on the court, not what the formula designer wants to reward.

[dhsilv2]

It's crazy how valuable people on this board make TS% out to be. They seem to think total points/2(FGA+(.44xFTA)) is the best and largely only way to judge an offensive player. Because its "advanced" and their thinking is advanced and superior haha. TMac was a beast, incredibly hard to stop and when he got in rhythm, one of the toughest players to stop I've seen. The net would barely move on his makes. For star players, I'll take ability to generate and make a wide variety of shots over TS% all day.

There's nothing "advanced" or special about TS%. It's just the best way to explain scoring efficiency to someone who understands only FG%.

If someone is inefficient as a volume scorer, all else equal. He's a worse player, period end of story.

Now, all else is rarely equal so you can then start discussing what isn't equal. But you can't avoid a baseline comp when talking about similar volume scorers. That's why there's still a reason to compare PPG and MPG between peers and then go to things like TS%.

If people thought TS% was everything. This thread wouldn't exist. There would be no question. We'd just say "yep bad TS%, next". Instead we have multiple pages discussing TMAC beyond his TS%. And the reason is that there's not a single person who's felt that TS% alone was a mic drop.

People on this forum constantly push TS% over FG%, that’s just a fact. And let’s be real , TS% rewards specific playstyles like jacking threes well and drawing fouls. It punishes guys like Kobe who took tougher, bad shots and still put up big numbers.

TS% isn’t some pure measure of efficiency. it’s a Frankenstein stat built through adjustments and math gymnastics of raw shot conversion data. It’s not actually showing “efficiency” in any real sense, it’s essentially an opinionated version of efficiency that rewards styles that some people like to see over others.

You can easily use PPG, FG%, or even PPG per 36 to compare scorers. If you want to go advanced, use per 100 possessions or PPP, at least those give you a clean, straightforward number without the smoke and mirrors.

TS% doesn't hurt Kobe at all. It actually helps Kobe greatly vs FG%.

But lets put your argument to the test. Using the above explain to me why Curry in 2015 was a vastly superior scorer to Anthony Davis. Again don't tell me he's better. Explain it in depth so I can understand how much better he was.

[dhsilv2]

FG% is a raw number. Player took 10 shots, how many did he make? It's very clear. TS% is not. It completely fakes a players efficiency through mental gymnastics. If Curry took only 3 point shots and nothing else at all, he'd have a TS% of like 63%. The catch? He would have only made 42% of his shots... Complete BS. Let's not try to fudge (fake) the numbers to reward playstyles we like better.

Your math doesn't....Math?

Two players take 10 shots.

Both make 4/10 shots.

Player A: made 3- three point shots and one 2FGA.
Player B made 0 -three point shots and all were 2FGA.

Both players have 40% FG.

Player A scored 11 points.
Player B scored 8 points.

Player A gave his team 1,1 point per possession.
Player B gave his team 0,8 ppp.

If such trend continued for 98 possessions ( imaginary number of average nba game ) and this trend continued, where player A is part of team A who keeps his 1,1 PPP vs player B on team B and his 0,8 PPP final result of a game would be 108:78


Player A, by taking more 3s outscored player B by whooping 37,5%.


This is like second grade math. It takes serious mental gymnastics to not understand why efficiency in basketball is integral part of offense. Almost Every nba guard can score 20 points a game if you give him enough shots. Efficiency among them makes difference between ones who should be aiming for 20 ppg and ones that aren't nba level good. Like, Monta Elise used to put 25 ppg on 52% TS. It's not that hard. Problem? it's not that useful either.

Problem among some of people is not understanding what opportunity cost is. Once you replace high usage chucker from offense, shots don't disappear. They are allocated toward other players, mainly starters. That's why often bad teams play better without "star" who is nothing but high usage chucker. . Case and point, Bulls without Derozan and Lavine. Or Rudy Gay. On every single team. Each and every got better by addition by subtraction. Despite his "not bad" stats.

If your point is that we should value efficiency, then just use PPP like you did in your own example. It's clean and actually tells you what it claims to... points per possession. No stat 'magic'. Just straight-up output per trip down the floor.

TS% on the other hand pretends to be about "shooting efficiency" but it’s not. It inflates the value of threes and blends in free throws, something that's not even part of actual shot making during the game. That’s not “shooting efficiency” that’s a cooked stat rewarding specific styles.

Curry shooting 42% from the field gets masked by TS% and suddenly he’s a model of “efficiency.” Like, cool, but he’s still missing more shots than he makes. TS% just massages the number until it looks good. You can’t sell that as clarity, it’s marketing.

If you want a real measure of scoring efficiency, use PPP or per-possession stats. At least then the number actually reflects what it's called, and describes what’s happening on the court, not what the formula designer wants to reward.

PPP and TS% treat 3 point shots exactly equal. One can't inflate and the other not.

I can't tell if you're trolling at this point. If you wanted to make an argument against TS% being arbitrary you could...but I'm not sure you even know enough about the metric to do so. But then we'd still have eFG% which isn't arbitrary at all either and treats 3 point shots exactly the same as PPP or eFG% or TS%.

The issue all 3 metrics will have is trying to identify what is and what isn't a possession because of technical free throws and to a lessor extent with historical data being fouled on a 3 pointer vs a 2 with historical data sets.

[LakersLegacy]

That was the lowest scoring era with the most defensive actions that are called fouls now

Lower than every other year of NBA

[tsherkin]

People on this forum constantly push TS% over FG%,

That happens because just using raw FG% is stupid. We've learned enough about how the game works to understand that pure FG% doesn't capture all of the elements of scoring efficiency, particularly when you look at it from the POV of return per possession.

that’s just a fact. And let’s be real , TS% rewards specific playstyles like jacking threes well and drawing fouls. It punishes guys like Kobe who took tougher, bad shots and still put up big numbers.

No it doesn't. Kobe was a +3% rTS guy for a decade. He did just fine in that regard.

You can easily use PPG, FG%, or even PPG per 36 to compare scorers.

No, you can't, not if you want to be taken seriously. PPG and PTS36 only describe volume output. You can put up loads of shots and score lots of points and be FAR worse than other scorers.

[cupcakesnake]

FG% is a raw number. Player took 10 shots, how many did he make? It's very clear. TS% is not. It completely fakes a players efficiency through mental gymnastics. If Curry took only 3 point shots and nothing else at all, he'd have a TS% of like 63%. The catch? He would have only made 42% of his shots... Complete BS. Let's not try to fudge (fake) the numbers to reward playstyles we like better.

Your math doesn't....Math?

Two players take 10 shots.

Both make 4/10 shots.

Player A: made 3- three point shots and one 2FGA.
Player B made 0 -three point shots and all were 2FGA.

Both players have 40% FG.

Player A scored 11 points.
Player B scored 8 points.

Player A gave his team 1,1 point per possession.
Player B gave his team 0,8 ppp.

If such trend continued for 98 possessions ( imaginary number of average nba game ) and this trend continued, where player A is part of team A who keeps his 1,1 PPP vs player B on team B and his 0,8 PPP final result of a game would be 108:78


Player A, by taking more 3s outscored player B by whooping 37,5%.


This is like second grade math. It takes serious mental gymnastics to not understand why efficiency in basketball is integral part of offense. Almost Every nba guard can score 20 points a game if you give him enough shots. Efficiency among them makes difference between ones who should be aiming for 20 ppg and ones that aren't nba level good. Like, Monta Elise used to put 25 ppg on 52% TS. It's not that hard. Problem? it's not that useful either.

Problem among some of people is not understanding what opportunity cost is. Once you replace high usage chucker from offense, shots don't disappear. They are allocated toward other players, mainly starters. That's why often bad teams play better without "star" who is nothing but high usage chucker. . Case and point, Bulls without Derozan and Lavine. Or Rudy Gay. On every single team. Each and every got better by addition by subtraction. Despite his "not bad" stats.

If your point is that we should value efficiency, then just use PPP like you did in your own example. It's clean and actually tells you what it claims to... points per possession. No stat 'magic'. Just straight-up output per trip down the floor.

TS% on the other hand pretends to be about "shooting efficiency" but it’s not. It inflates the value of threes and blends in free throws, something that's not even part of actual shot making during the game. That’s not “shooting efficiency” that’s a cooked stat rewarding specific styles.

Curry shooting 42% from the field gets masked by TS% and suddenly he’s a model of “efficiency.” Like, cool, but he’s still missing more shots than he makes. TS% just massages the number until it looks good. You can’t sell that as clarity, it’s marketing.

If you want a real measure of scoring efficiency, use PPP or per-possession stats. At least then the number actually reflects what it's called, and describes what’s happening on the court, not what the formula designer wants to reward.

Curry averages 47%fg, 42%3pt, 91%ft, and in his prime that was 50/54/90...
but you want us to only look at FG% to understand efficiency and ignore the rest of the game.

You're being reductive. It's fine if you don't like what ts% tells you, but it's a very basic stat (not "mental gymnastics"). Part of me gets where you're coming from. Sometimes there'd be some playoff James Harden games where he barfs up a million misses, but enough of his makes were 3s, and he got to the line, so now TS% says the game wasn't too brutal. It is the reality though. Free throws from a good free throw shooter are easy money and "efficient". 3s are worth more than 2s, even when hit at a slightly lower rate. It's just math and really not that complicated. We can complain about it, but there's no real argument here, you get that right?

[tsherkin]

You're being reductive. It's fine if you don't like what ts% tells you, but it's a very basic stat (not "mental gymnastics"). Part of me gets where you're coming from. Sometimes there'd be some playoff James Harden games where he barfs up a million misses, but enough of his makes were 3s, and he got to the line, so now TS% says the game wasn't too brutal. It is the reality though. Free throws from a good free throw shooter are easy money and "efficient". 3s are worth more than 2s, even when hit at a slightly lower rate. It's just math and really not that complicated. We can complain about it, but there's no real argument here, you get that right?

What James Harden tells us is that there is more detail beneath the hood, for sure. But it's also something we saw from David Robinson and Karl Malone in the playoffs or otherwise against higher-order defenses, right? When your main deal is drawing fouls or hitting threes and you struggle with pure shot-making, you introduce a lot of variance into your game. But the free throws do tend to establish a baseline of efficacy even on those off-nights, which helps... and in Harden's case, he's also a high-end playmaker, so his overall offensive value is usually there if he has any kind of support (like Robinson's D).

Broadly, it's obviously better to make more raw FGs than to miss them, but yeah, this idea that we need to use PPP instead of TS% is just weird. It measures efficiency per true shooting attempt, which is designed to account for all the ways you can score, and to put that into a digestible number. 58% or whatever is a lot easier for most people to parse than PPP, because it's a more relatable figure.

And as you say, there's no real argument here. There is truth to the idea that there should be consideration of things BESIDES just TS%, but the idea that it is mental gymnastics is... ridiculous at best, and disingenuous at worst.

[og15]

That was the lowest scoring era with the most defensive actions that are called fouls now

Lower than every other year of NBA

Tmac's career spanned from 97-98 to 11-12, his last season as a somewhat useful player was 08-09, so you have 11 years where there was illegal defense, then zone + 3 in the key, then hand check enforcement, it was a lot of time as OP didn't cite just one season.

TMac's inefficiency is not simply because of era, because, for example from 00-01 to 07-08, TS%
McGrady: 52.4 (Orlando only: 53.7)
Kobe: 56.0
Carter: 53.7
Pierce: 56.2
Allen: 57.9
Arenas: 55.6
Redd: 56.3
Ginobili: 59.0
Lebron: 54.8
Wade: 56.3
Carmelo: 54.5
Peja: 59.0

Obviously not all these guys (Peja, Manu) were first options, but TMac next to Vince was also inefficient, and we have the young guys at the end also (Lebron, Wade, Melo) and they still do better.

So clearly it's not primarily about the era he played in and more about health, shot selection, shooting ability (including FT's), etc. Iverson was at 52.2 in that stretch, and he's a small high volume PG, so TMac should not be at his level of efficiency.

[An Unbiased Fan]

Tmac's scoring is overrated. Like dude was a physical freak and fun but there's been a lot of revisionist history about retired players the past 5 years, and he's at the top of the list.

[ShootersShoot]

People on this forum constantly push TS% over FG%,

That happens because just using raw FG% is stupid. We've learned enough about how the game works to understand that pure FG% doesn't capture all of the elements of scoring efficiency, particularly when you look at it from the POV of return per possession.

that’s just a fact. And let’s be real , TS% rewards specific playstyles like jacking threes well and drawing fouls. It punishes guys like Kobe who took tougher, bad shots and still put up big numbers.

No it doesn't. Kobe was a +3% rTS guy for a decade. He did just fine in that regard.

You can easily use PPG, FG%, or even PPG per 36 to compare scorers.

No, you can't, not if you want to be taken seriously. PPG and PTS36 only describe volume output. You can put up loads of shots and score lots of points and be FAR worse than other scorers.

I have issues with TS% as well but it is a muchhhh better indicator of scoring efficiency than fg%. I would even go as far to say using fg% as an indicator of efficiency is lacking knowledge of the game and how its played today. It may have been more useful when threes were just a gimmick but today it is almost useless as a lone stat. At least use eFG% if you want to eliminate free throws from the equation. Turnovers can be factored in as well, so something like PPP..

FG% is literally the last stat I would use to determine scoring efficiency.

[tsherkin]

I have issues with TS% as well but it is a muchhhh better indicator of scoring efficiency than fg%.

And of course, TS% should come with consideration for all those other factors. Single numbers rarely tell the FULL story, and are typically best-used as summaries, short-hand, or openers to further discussion, no doubt. But as you say, there are too many other components to scoring, and they cannot be ignored in favor of just pure FG%. I agree, using just FG% is an indicator of weak knowledge. Not that TS% alone is some holy grail of understanding, it requires qualification and context, but it is notably better than pure FG%.

[MrGoat]

Tmac's scoring is overrated. Like dude was a physical freak and fun but there's been a lot of revisionist history about retired players the past 5 years, and he's at the top of the list.

Peak T Mac's scoring is certainly not overrated. His peak was very short thanks to the back issues but 2003 T Mac had one of the greatest scoring regular seasons ever. You could argue it's actually more impressive than any of Jordan's regular seasons when you consider Jordan played in an era where the scoring was higher, the defenses were worse, and he got some free points at the line because he also had one of the friendliest whistles of all time

[D.Brasco]

Tmac's scoring is overrated. Like dude was a physical freak and fun but there's been a lot of revisionist history about retired players the past 5 years, and he's at the top of the list.

Peak T Mac's scoring is certainly not underrated. His peak was very short thanks to the back issues but 2003 T Mac had one of the greatest scoring regular seasons ever. You could argue it's actually more impressive than any of Jordan's regular seasons when you consider Jordan played in an era where the scoring was higher, the defenses were worse, and he got some free points at the line because he also had one of the friendliest whistles of all time

But it was statistically worse than Harden's peak scoring season, yet people seem to look at McGrady's in a much fonder way.

[MrGoat]

Tmac's scoring is overrated. Like dude was a physical freak and fun but there's been a lot of revisionist history about retired players the past 5 years, and he's at the top of the list.

Peak T Mac's scoring is certainly not underrated. His peak was very short thanks to the back issues but 2003 T Mac had one of the greatest scoring regular seasons ever. You could argue it's actually more impressive than any of Jordan's regular seasons when you consider Jordan played in an era where the scoring was higher, the defenses were worse, and he got some free points at the line because he also had one of the friendliest whistles of all time

But it was statistically worse than Harden's peak scoring season, yet people seem to look at McGrady's in a much fonder way.

The stats are meaningless if you don't account for the difference in eras. Like Jordan, Harden was playing in an era where it was much easier to score than 2003 T Mac. Scoring in the early to mid 2000s was just tougher. For reference, in 2004 T Mac was the only player in the league who averaged even 25 points

[D.Brasco]

Peak T Mac's scoring is certainly not underrated. His peak was very short thanks to the back issues but 2003 T Mac had one of the greatest scoring regular seasons ever. You could argue it's actually more impressive than any of Jordan's regular seasons when you consider Jordan played in an era where the scoring was higher, the defenses were worse, and he got some free points at the line because he also had one of the friendliest whistles of all time

But it was statistically worse than Harden's peak scoring season, yet people seem to look at McGrady's in a much fonder way.

The stats are meaningless if you don't account for the difference in eras. Like Jordan, Harden was playing in an era where it was much easier to score than 2003 T Mac. Scoring in the early to mid 2000s was just tougher. For reference, in 2004 T Mac was the only player in the league who averaged even 25 points

You can't just pick which era you think was better or harder. The early 2000s was the iso hero ball era, it made for individual star heroics but the overall game could be rough. The idea was that if you were a star you'd just jack up shots regardless if it was smart or efficient to do so. There was a lot that era that left to be desired, when you remove the rose colored nostalgia glasses.

[og15]

But it was statistically worse than Harden's peak scoring season, yet people seem to look at McGrady's in a much fonder way.

The stats are meaningless if you don't account for the difference in eras. Like Jordan, Harden was playing in an era where it was much easier to score than 2003 T Mac. Scoring in the early to mid 2000s was just tougher. For reference, in 2004 T Mac was the only player in the league who averaged even 25 points

You can't just pick which era you think was better or harder. The early 2000s was the iso hero ball era, it made for individual star heroics but the overall game could be rough. The idea was that if you were a star you'd just jack up shots regardless if it was smart or efficient to do so. There was a lot that era that left to be desired, when you remove the rose colored nostalgia glasses.

Everything has to be looked at in context though, and TMac also didn't play his whole career in an 03-04 environment either.

02-03 had 6 players with 25+ ppg, 01-02 had 6, and 00-01 had 8 (9 if you count Jamison at 24.9),

04-05 had 7, 05-06 had 10, 06-07 has 12, so we don't want to cherry pick 03-04 as the representative season either.

You can argue that was an outlier season with a combination of a lot of things making offense around the league poor: too much iso, poor spacing one man team builds, defense better adapted to using zone principles and a lot of loading up on the isolation side with poor rosters to counter.

Unintended consequences of the rule changes they made to encourage more ball movement, skill play, spacing and team play. Well, sure, if teams have shooting and build balanced rosters and don't play isolation basketball (and the teams who met those criteria had very good offense still).

That is part of why Jordan said zone would have been bad for his career, because, yes, if you have poor spacing rosters and you're running tons of iso and teams can zone up legally, it's not the best set up for efficient team offense. Of course his logic didn't account for the fact that how his teams built rosters (multiple non spacers, spacing created by illegal defense) and that the more isolation playstyle many teams started doing was not mandatory.

[MiamiBulls]

Tracy Mcgrady as a scorer was incredibly overrated, his best value as an Offensive Player was his Passing/Playmaking & Ball handling along with his Turnover Economy which is what made him an effective Offensive Hub despite putrid scoring efficiency in Houston.

He mostly gets praised as a scorer based around his aesthetics: silky, buttery, effortless, yet high degree of difficulty comparatively to other players. He had the highest shot diet of pullup jumpers in the NBA.

Mcgrady main issue as a scorer was the fact that he was a poor Rim finisher & a poor FT shooter. He wasn't efficient as the most efficient area on the court.

League Average at the Free Throw Line at SG was 80%, Mcgrady shot 75% - 77% at the Foul Line.


In 2001 Season amongst 26 Guards who averaged 3.5 FGA within 5FT from the basket, Tracy Mcgrady had the 9th lowest fg% at the rim.

2002 amongst 30 Guards who averaged 3.5 FGA within 5FT, Mcgrady’s rim fg% 13th Worst out of 30.

2003 amongst 31 Guards who averaged at least 3.5 FGA within 5FT, Tracy had the 11th worst fg% at the rim out of 31 players.

2004 amongst 32 Guards who averaged at least 3.5 FGA within 5FT, Mcgrady ranked 19th out 32 Guards in rim Fg%.

2005 amongst 34 Guards who averaged averaged at least 3.5 FGA, Mcgrady ranked 21st out 34 players in rim fg%.

He was below average efficiency when compared to other Guard of the times.

Tracy Mcgrady TS ADD rankings Year-over-Year

1999: 273rd out of 440 players

2000:353rd out of 439 players

2001:113th out of 441 players

2002:61st out of 440 players

2003:3rd out of 428 players

2004:63rd out of 442 players

2005:290th out of 464 players

2006:451st out of 458 players

2007:446th out of 458 players

2008:451st out of 451 players

He has never ranked inside the Top 60 in TS ADD rankings in any season outside of 2003. Hasn't shown he can be efficient playing in Toronto or Houston with other star players.

As a scorer he was essentially a 6'9" Iverson with a fluke 2003 Season.

2001 through 2005(sans '03)

26 PPG Per 75 on +0.6% rTS

Allen Iverson 4 Year Scoring

2004 through 2008

26 PPG Per 75 on +0.9% rTS