REDOING THE NBA HALL OF FAME (retired in 2015 or earlier)

[worldjbfree]

Short and sweet here:

Chauncey Billups
Jason Kidd
Steve Nash
Shaquille O'Neal
Ben Wallace

[BenoUdrihFTL]

Not sure if I'm even eligible to vote but I'd go:

Shaq
Nash
Kidd
Allen
Billups
B Wallace
Porter
Marion
R Wallace
T Hardaway

The first 5 were locks for me, Big Ben seems logical next, then the final 4 was where it got a little difficult. Ultimately I think Porter/Marion/Rasheed were just more significant players for more significant teams versus anyone else remaining, and I finished with Hill over TMac for having the superior all-around game and being the greater "what if" in my mind

EDIT: Has Tim Hardaway not been selected yet? If not I'd throw him in there at 10 over Hill. I'm sure there's a degree of bias from my end, but witnessing first hand how he came in midway through the '96 season and impacted the Heat from day 1 was just beautiful. Suddenly we had a new dimension of offense fueled by a floor general that we'd never experienced before (MIA's historical rORTG before and during Tim gives an "on paper" idea). Tim's shooting was always very streaky, and I hated that, but looking at the new Adjusted TS I realize I was probably too critical of his efficiency (very slightly above league average his first 4 MIA seasons). Physically strong enough with quick hands to be sufficient defensively for elite defensive teams. Miami's Win Shares leader in '97 and '98 (61 and 55 win teams)

Timmy's PS #s take an ugly hit but imo this is a good example of how PS samples can be heavily skewed (to Tim's detriment in his case). His PS opponents and defensive rank, first 4 years in MIA:

'96: Bulls (1st)
'97: Magic (14th), Knicks (2nd to MIA), Bulls (5th)
'98: Knicks (4th)
'99: Knicks (4th)

5 top 5 defenses in 6 total series. That's pretty brutal

Timmy broke down physically and fell off a cliff past that point. And while his peak/prime was relatively short, early on it seemed that it might never even happen. Young Tim was All-NBA (2nd and 3rd) before blowing out his knee in 1993, then came back at less than his best athletic/explosive self, entering his 30s on the other coast with an entirely different kind of franchise, and still propelled himself to 3x All-NBA selections (including 1st in '97, 4th in MVP voting). So along with my Porter/Marion/Sheed reasoning (more significant players for more significant teams), Tim's "second life" in MIA after an early catastrophic injury really separates him from Grant Hill for me

[Dr Positivity]

As I've said: The expectation of the Rockets was championships. This wasn't something thrust upon by the outside, this was how TMac saw it too when he was pushing his way out of Orlando. He saw Yao as his ticket to re-create Shaq-Kobe, and given that the team was already a playoff team, I mean, they ought to be able to get to the Conference Finals a bunch of time at least right? Instead, they never went further than the 1st round, and the team became maybe the best example of an inability of two players two synergize even after years together through their prime.

Baron on the other hand was joining a Golden State team that was considered a joke. They hadn't been to the playoffs (or had a winning record) in over a decade, and while they had a young core, they hadn't turned a corner. Golden State was hopeful Davis would make the difference, else they wouldn't have acquired him, but frankly the team was an afterthought. And yet Davis led them not just to the playoffs but to the 2nd round without a star teammate (granted Jason Richardson and Stephen Jackson were solid players, but neither would I rate as highly as Shane Battier let alone Yao Ming).

I would be ok with arguing Warriors Baron as equal to or better than Rockets Tmac. I thought the Rockets weren’t as good as the sum of their parts when him and Yao were both healthy, considering how well they played when one of them was playing. However, I rate Tmac in Orlando as higher than Hornets Davis.

With that said I’m not totally against booting Tmac. I’m just not sold Davis is the guy to do it for. That Tmac/Davis is a fair argument says more about Tmac than Davis to me.

[penbeast0]

Welcome to the project BenoUdrihFTL; votes through Dutchball97:


Shaq (penbeast0, Dr. Positivity, Ryoga Hibiki, Narigo, worldjbfree, BenoUdrihFTL, Dutchball97)
Jason Kidd (penbeast0, Dr. Positivity, Ryoga Hibiki, Narigo, worldjbfree, BenoUdrihFTL, Dutchball97)
Steve Nash (penbeast0, Dr. Positivity, Ryoga Hibiki, Narigo, worldjbfree, BenoUdrihFTL, Dutchball97)
Chauncey Billups (penbeast0, Dr. Positivity, Ryoga Hibiki, Narigo, worldjbfree, BenoUdrihFTL, Dutchball97)
Ben Wallace (penbeast0, Dr. Positivity, Ryoga Hibiki, Narigo, worldjbfree, BenoUdrihFTL, Dutchball97)


Ray Allen (penbeast0, Dr. Positivity, Ryoga Hibiki, Narigo, BenoUdrihFTL, Dutchball97)
Rasheed Wallace (penbeast0, Dr. Positivity, Ryoga Hibiki, Narigo, BenoUdrihFTL, Dutchball97)

Shawn Marion (penbeast0, Dr. Positivity, Narigo, BenoUdrihFTL)

Grant Hill (penbeast0, Dr. Positivity, Narigo, Dutchball97)
Tracy McGrady (penbeast0, Dr. Positivity, Narigo, Dutchball97)

Tony Kukoc (Ryoga Hibiki)
Baron Davis (Ryoga Hibiki)
Sam Cassell (Ryoga Hibiki)
Terry Porter (BenoUdrihFTL)
Tim Hardaway ( BenoUdrihFTL)
Jermaine O'Neal (Dutchball97)

[Doctor MJ]

I would be ok with arguing Warriors Baron as equal to or better than Rockets Tmac. I thought the Rockets weren’t as good as the sum of their parts when him and Yao were both healthy, considering how well they played when one of them was playing. However, I rate Tmac in Orlando as higher than Hornets Davis.

With that said I’m not totally against booting Tmac. I’m just not sold Davis is the guy to do it for. That Tmac/Davis is a fair argument says more about Tmac than Davis to me.

Okay, I can understand that. With that in mind, I'm going to try one more thing to sway you and others to see Baron differently than you do.

I'll say up front that I don't really expect to sway enough people to get Baron the nod, but maybe I can make folks re-classify Baron a bit, as I know that's what I've had to do.

I ran a couple queries on bkref, which unfortunately isn't letting me make a convenient URL of, but the essence of it is WS/48 numbers in the regular season and playoffs in the '00s.

I can't get bkref to give me URL for my query so I'll just relay the noteworthy results.

So playoffs, '00s decade, minimum 1000 minutes.

1. LeBron
2. Duncan
3. Dirk
4. Robinson
5. Billups
6. Howard
7. Amar'e
8. Shaq
9. Baron Davis
10. Ginobili

I'm not a super-huge believer in Win Shares-style stats when it comes to arguments like this - folks know that I've been on Team Nash over Team Amar'e for forever - but it is one method of evaluating box score production, and basically if you're in the Top 10 for the decade, the metric is saying you're quite elite by that metric.

Now, Baron Davis' WS/48 in the playoffs was that decade was .189.

My other query was the same thing but in the regular season ( minimum 5000 minutes), I did a Ctrl+F for "Baron", and got nothing. He wasn't in the Top 100.

Baron Davis' WS/48 in the regular season that decade was .112. He ranked 137th.

I would argue that Baron Davis has one of the biggest regular season to playoff leaps in the history of the NBA, and that his regular season level is why you (and others, and myself previously) wrote Baron off as a guy a couple tiers below his actual ability. I think his association with playoff upsets needs to be taken seriously, that he tended to be more aggressive, attacking the rim more, and expending more energy, and when he did this, it took everything to another level.

And now remember, as you're thinking "He should have tried harder in the regular season!", his regular season +/- numbers look way, WAY more impressive than his regular season production numbers. Even at that lower level of production, he was THAT effective.

Consider what that says about his playoff impact (and if you look at his playoff on/off numbers, they're kind spectacular), and now think of the way he embarrassed teams with those upsets. Has a favorite ever lost in as humiliating fashion as an underdog than Miami to Charlotte? (They lost by 20+ points each game.) Do remember how emasculated Dirk looked against the Warriors in 2007?

I would submit to y'all that in this day and age where we have such statistical eyes on these players that typically we classify players pretty much right, but Baron represents an example of how we can still miss out. He played some incredible basketball.

[bondom34]

Not participating, but was just lurking. Not sure how I feel about this, as it's not gospel, but while T Mac blows away Davis by pretty much every measure in a box score (looking at Orlando T Mac), Davis was 16th in 5 year RAPM from 2006-11, and top 10 in both 07 and 08. In 2007 he posted what looks on quick glance like the 2nd best ORAPM in the league behind only Nash.

That just really surprised me.

[Dutchball97]

Official vote

Shaquille O'Neal
Steve Nash
Jason Kidd
Ray Allen
Ben Wallace
Chauncey Billups
Grant Hill
Tracy McGrady
Rasheed Wallace
Jermaine O'Neal

[Doctor MJ]

All right, top of the morning to y'all. My official votes:

Shaquille O'Neal - King of the Class, candidate for GOAT peak, candidate for GOAT talent

Steve Nash - candidate for GOAT offensive player, one of the most transformational players in the history of the game

Jason Kidd - a very good point guard

Ray Allen - all-time great shooter, proven to be able to be valuable in a variety of team contexts

Ben Wallace - an icon. From undrafted to the foundation of the team that killed the Shaq-Kobe dynasty. Wow.

Chauncey Billups - a guy who really kept just figuring out the game better and better as he aged.

Rasheed Wallace - of that Pistons group, the player best able to add value on the court through his career.

Grant Hill - woulda been all-timer, still recovered and had an exceptionally respected career

Baron Davis - you've heard me talk enough about, just glance through the thread if you want details.

Final spot...

Terry Porter - I picked from the list of players who have votes, and frankly among the other candidates he's a clear choice for me. The 2nd best on-court player for the Blazers (Buck gets bonus points for locker room effect, not to mention his time on the Nets) through the franchise's 2nd best run, and a fundamentally solid guy who would remain in demand after that run (and his prime) was over. A 3-point shooting guard who could play on or off ball and play defense, and was just a rock for his teams in general. Very, very respectable.

As I've said before, the two guys here who are probably going to get inducted that I'm not voting for were players who left their teams in the lurch and then disappointed. I hold this against players. Completely fine if you leave a team for an opportunity that lets you shine better and you succeed in ways people didn't think you could, a huge problem for me if you develop a bad attitude in the perfect situation for you to shine and then from there proceed to show just how limited you were.

With McGrady you have a guy who spent most of his career with low efficiency - and thus with bkref's new stat, had a negative Adjusted Shooting. People want to forgive this in volume scorers, but you always have to ask why it was necessary for the player to take so many shots he couldn't hit. Combine that with the unexpectedly low ceiling of the Yao-McGrady Rockets, and the fact that McGrady specifically whined his way out of Orlando to play with Yao without ever adapting to him, and you've got a guy with dumb, self-destructive career that literally can be skipped in terms of team success. Whether you're talking about Toronto, Orlando, or Houston, each franchise has peaks that you can point to and talk about the great players who led them there. When you do this, you will not mention McGrady's name once.

Marion? Was only ever great in one context, and managed to convince himself to be unhappy there because of his ego. In 2008, he was pushing the Suns for his next contract with the intent of getting a $100 million deal after a couple years of whining about the lack of attention he received. The Suns traded him - unwisely to be clear, Shaq on the Suns never made any sense if you understood the value of pace & space, which the Suns franchise clearly did not - and he got his chance to show what he was really worth. After failing with the his next two teams rapidly, he signed a $40 million deal with Dallas in 2009 (that's right, all of that took place in a bit over a year). He was an okay role player for them which helps his career some, but he completely blew it career-wise. The Suns would have given him WAY more than that if he'd simply been happy to keep playing the role he played in Phoenix, which was far higher primacy than any other team would ever let him play again. For me, this is the difference in general between him having a Hall level player or not.

But to each their own, I figured McGrady would be a lock here for most and that Marion would have a good chance to get in depending on competition. My opinions are the minority and that's how it goes.

[Doctor MJ]

Short and sweet here:

Chauncey Billups
Jason Kidd
Steve Nash
Shaquille O'Neal
Ben Wallace

I just realized you didn't vote for Ray Allen. Did you mean to leave him off?

Leaving off Sheed - a guy who I've been championing - is something I totally get, but while I've never been a passionate Ray Allen supporter, I kinda thought everyone would see him as Hall worthy.

[trex_8063]

OFFICIAL PICKS:

Shaquille O'Neal
Steve Nash
Jason Kidd
Ray Allen
Chauncey Billups
Shawn Marion
Grant Hill
Tracy McGrady
Ben Wallace
Terry Porter


Top HM's/"tough cuts": Rasheed Wallace, Tim Hardaway, Vlade Divac, Jeff Hornacek

[penbeast0]

This poll closes tonight, I will leave it open for at least another 4 hours or so:

Shaq (penbeast0, Dr. Positivity, Ryoga Hibiki, Narigo, worldjbfree, BenoUdrihFTL, Dutchball97, Doctor MJ, trex_8063)
Jason Kidd (penbeast0, Dr. Positivity, Ryoga Hibiki, Narigo, worldjbfree, BenoUdrihFTL, Dutchball97, Doctor MJ, trex_8063)
Steve Nash (penbeast0, Dr. Positivity, Ryoga Hibiki, Narigo, worldjbfree, BenoUdrihFTL, Dutchball97, Doctor MJ, trex_8063)
Chauncey Billups (penbeast0, Dr. Positivity, Ryoga Hibiki, Narigo, worldjbfree, BenoUdrihFTL, Dutchball97, Doctor MJ, trex_8063)
Ben Wallace (penbeast0, Dr. Positivity, Ryoga Hibiki, Narigo, worldjbfree, BenoUdrihFTL, Dutchball97, Doctor MJ)


Ray Allen (penbeast0, Dr. Positivity, Ryoga Hibiki, Narigo, BenoUdrihFTL, Dutchball97, Doctor MJ, trex_8063)

Rasheed Wallace (penbeast0, Dr. Positivity, Ryoga Hibiki, Narigo, BenoUdrihFTL, Dutchball97, Doctor MJ)

Grant Hill (penbeast0, Dr. Positivity, Narigo, Dutchball97, Doctor MJ, trex_8063)

Shawn Marion (penbeast0, Dr. Positivity, Narigo, BenoUdrihFTL, trex_8063)
Tracy McGrady (penbeast0, Dr. Positivity, Narigo, Dutchball97, trex_8063)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Terry Porter (BenoUdrihFTL, Doctor MJ, trex_8063)

Baron Davis (Ryoga Hibiki, Doctor MJ)

Tony Kukoc (Ryoga Hibiki)
Sam Cassell (Ryoga Hibiki)
Tim Hardaway ( BenoUdrihFTL)
Jermaine O'Neal (Dutchball97)

[Doctor MJ]

Edited.

Posted something about Baron Davis OBPM improvement after being inspired by Odinn's thread. Turns out I read it wrong and it wasn't quite as impressve.

Davis' OBPM goes up from 2.2 in the regular season to 4.0 in the regular season. That improvement is 1.8 and it is large, but the previous number I quoted made it a larger improvement than any on his list. With the correct number, Kareem and Kawhi have larger improvements.

Just for some reference, at 4.0, that puts him just behind Chauncey Billups for playoff performance and just above Gary Payton. Quite good, but well, I misread him as higher.

[trex_8063]

McGrady? He leaves Orlando at age 24 after he'd already left another team. This is a guy who chose to leave one team because he was overshadowed, then chose to leave the next because he didn't have enough help, and then lifted his new team like not at all. McGrady tends to get cut slack because the team was still good, but this was a guy with crap efficiency basically his whole career - yah think maybe the Rockets don't underachieve so reliably if McGrady's actually using Yao & co to make sure he himself puts up only good shots?

By contrast with TMac, this was a guy who was asked to blend in a secondary guy in his first few years in Toronto and it didn't go great (low efficiency, negligible impact), who after a brief run as the official franchise player of a team (Orlando), chose to go somewhere specifically to play with another player who was already the MVP of a playoff team and they would spend the next half decade not getting any further until a season where the team played mostly without TMac (injury) where a core of with Shane Battier as the big minute player would get to the 2nd round and put up a good fight there against the champs.

Although this one is already decided, I wanted to at least provide the counterpoint to some of the above.

The bolded portions combined seem to imply that McGrady was purely additive to a team that had already made the playoffs, and states outright that he lifted them "not at all". I don't think either is entirely true.

Firstly [to be clear], he was NOT additive to the squad that had made the playoffs in '04. There were a lot of ins and outs. The Rockets lost their two biggest minute players (who were the 2nd and 3rd-best players on the team) in Steve Francis and Cuttino Mobley, lost Kelvin Cato, an aging Eric Piatkowski, an ancient Mark Jackson, and about two-thirds of a season of Jim Jackson.

In return, they added about two-thirds of a season each of aging versions of David Wesley and Jon Barry, as well as Juwan Howard, Bob Sura [in his final season], an ancient Dikembe Mutombo.....and Tracy McGrady.

imo, Kelvin Cato and a 38-year-old Mutombo is roughly an even swap.
Losing Francis/Mobley/Piatkowski/Jackson&Jackson, and getting Sura/Howard/[partial] Wesley&Barry is a clear net loss. Perhaps not huge, but there.

So to some degree McGrady was filling a small void left by roster losses [not just additive].......and they DID get better. They improved by 6 wins and +1.99 SRS from '04 [the '05 Rockets were the best SRS in franchise history up to that point, actually].
And whereas the '04 Rockets faced a contender-level team in the first round and lost in 5 games, the '05 Rockets at least managed to go 7 games with a similar contender-level team.

In '06 the Rockets had a little more roster turnover, and more important both McGrady and Yao missed some time (Yao missed 25 games, TMac missed 35). Consequently the Rockets had a losing record and missed the playoffs. However, it's worth noting that they were 27-20 (on pace for 47 wins) in the games TMac played in; they were 7-28 (on pace for 16-17 wins) in the games he missed. Except for a handful right at the end of the season, he and Yao didn't have much overlapping missed time, btw. The Rockets were 27-30 (on pace for about 39 wins) in the games Yao played in, 7-18 (on pace for 23 wins) in the games he missed.

In '07 they get Shane Battier and in general have more roster stability than they've had in awhile. The result is they won 52 games (the most won since Barkley joined Hakeem and Drexler) and the best SRS in franchise history to that point [topping the mark they'd set in '05], and that's despite Yao missing 34 games (were on pace for nearly 55 wins in the games he played).
TMac missed 11 games that season, too; they were 50-21 (on pace for nearly 58 wins--->which would have been a franchise record at that point) in the games he played.......and just 2-9 without him.
They did lose in the 1st round again, though fwiw it was a 7-game series against a pretty respectable 51-win Jazz team that ended up going to the WCF (losing in five games to the eventual champs).

In '08, despite Yao again missing a third of the season they won 55 games and posted the 2nd-best SRS in franchise history (if you're keeping count, that's now [at that point in history] the THREE best SRS's in Rockets' history in the first four seasons with TMac). Tracy had missed 16 games this year, too; they were 46-20 (on pace for just a sliver over 57 wins--->which again would have at least tied the franchise record) in the games he played, while going 9-7 without him.
They were actually on pace for a better record in the games Yao missed than in the ones he played, btw.
They lost in the first round, though it was in six games to a contender-level Jazz team, while playing WITHOUT Yao. (the West was just brutal that year, fwiw: the 8th seed had 50 wins and a +3.74 SRS; the Warriors won 48 games [+2.38 SRS] and MISSED the playoffs)

In '09 TMac misses most of the year, and you contend he's not missed because they got by the first round. It's true they didn't fall off all that significantly (though they did win 2 fewer rs games and their SRS fell by -1.10)......and bear in mind that's with ADDING prime Ron Artest to the roster. And this was only the 2nd time (out of the four times they made the playoffs in the TMac years) they DIDN'T face a contender-level team in the 1st round, too.


Also, where his efficiency is concerned, I'm again going to point out the often overlooked aspect of offensive efficiency: turnover economy. TMac's was super-elite for a wing. I'll offer the career mTOV% for a few notable score-first star wings:

Michael Jordan: 6.54%
Vince Carter: 6.84%
Tracy McGrady: 6.85%
Clyde Drexler: 7.87%
Allen Iverson: 8.15%
Grant Hill: 8.73%
Manu Ginobili: 8.95%
Scottie Pippen: 9.17%
Paul Pierce: 9.28%


Is his impact what we'd hope or expect from a star of his reputation? Perhaps not. But "like not at all" is clearly stretching things. His average RAPM from '05-'08 was +2.78, fwiw. Yeah, it's less than we'd expect or hope for; but......"not at all"??? Not so much.

[Doctor MJ]

McGrady? He leaves Orlando at age 24 after he'd already left another team. This is a guy who chose to leave one team because he was overshadowed, then chose to leave the next because he didn't have enough help, and then lifted his new team like not at all. McGrady tends to get cut slack because the team was still good, but this was a guy with crap efficiency basically his whole career - yah think maybe the Rockets don't underachieve so reliably if McGrady's actually using Yao & co to make sure he himself puts up only good shots?

By contrast with TMac, this was a guy who was asked to blend in a secondary guy in his first few years in Toronto and it didn't go great (low efficiency, negligible impact), who after a brief run as the official franchise player of a team (Orlando), chose to go somewhere specifically to play with another player who was already the MVP of a playoff team and they would spend the next half decade not getting any further until a season where the team played mostly without TMac (injury) where a core of with Shane Battier as the big minute player would get to the 2nd round and put up a good fight there against the champs.

Although this one is already decided, I wanted to at least provide the counterpoint to some of the above.

The bolded portions combined seem to imply that McGrady was purely additive to a team that had already made the playoffs, and states outright that he lifted them "not at all". I don't think either is entirely true.

Firstly [to be clear], he was NOT additive to the squad that had made the playoffs in '04. There were a lot of ins and outs. The Rockets lost their two biggest minute players (who were the 2nd and 3rd-best players on the team) in Steve Francis and Cuttino Mobley, lost Kelvin Cato, an aging Eric Piatkowski, an ancient Mark Jackson, and about two-thirds of a season of Jim Jackson.

In return, they added about two-thirds of a season each of aging versions of David Wesley and Jon Barry, as well as Juwan Howard, Bob Sura [in his final season], an ancient Dikembe Mutombo.....and Tracy McGrady.

imo, Kelvin Cato and a 38-year-old Mutombo is roughly an even swap.
Losing Francis/Mobley/Piatkowski/Jackson&Jackson, and getting Sura/Howard/[partial] Wesley&Barry is a clear net loss. Perhaps not huge, but there.

So to some degree McGrady was filling a small void left by roster losses [not just additive].......and they DID get better. They improved by 6 wins and +1.99 SRS from '04 [the '05 Rockets were the best SRS in franchise history up to that point, actually].
And whereas the '04 Rockets faced a contender-level team in the first round and lost in 5 games, the '05 Rockets at least managed to go 7 games with a similar contender-level team.

In '06 the Rockets had a little more roster turnover, and more important both McGrady and Yao missed some time (Yao missed 25 games, TMac missed 35). Consequently the Rockets had a losing record and missed the playoffs. However, it's worth noting that they were 27-20 (on pace for 47 wins) in the games TMac played in; they were 7-28 (on pace for 16-17 wins) in the games he missed. Except for a handful right at the end of the season, he and Yao didn't have much overlapping missed time, btw. The Rockets were 27-30 (on pace for about 39 wins) in the games Yao played in, 7-18 (on pace for 23 wins) in the games he missed.

In '07 they get Shane Battier and in general have more roster stability than they've had in awhile. The result is they won 52 games (the most won since Barkley joined Hakeem and Drexler) and the best SRS in franchise history to that point [topping the mark they'd set in '05], and that's despite Yao missing 34 games (were on pace for nearly 55 wins in the games he played).
TMac missed 11 games that season, too; they were 50-21 (on pace for nearly 58 wins--->which would have been a franchise record at that point) in the games he played.......and just 2-9 without him.
They did lose in the 1st round again, though fwiw it was a 7-game series against a pretty respectable 51-win Jazz team that ended up going to the WCF (losing in five games to the eventual champs).

In '08, despite Yao again missing a third of the season they won 55 games and posted the 2nd-best SRS in franchise history (if you're keeping count, that's now [at that point in history] the THREE best SRS's in Rockets' history in the first four seasons with TMac). Tracy had missed 16 games this year, too; they were 46-20 (on pace for just a sliver over 57 wins--->which again would have at least tied the franchise record) in the games he played, while going 9-7 without him.
They were actually on pace for a better record in the games Yao missed than in the ones he played, btw.
They lost in the first round, though it was in six games to a contender-level Jazz team, while playing WITHOUT Yao. (the West was just brutal that year, fwiw: the 8th seed had 50 wins and a +3.74 SRS; the Warriors won 48 games [+2.38 SRS] and MISSED the playoffs)

In '09 TMac misses most of the year, and you contend he's not missed because they got by the first round. It's true they didn't fall off all that significantly (though they did win 2 fewer rs games and their SRS fell by -1.10)......and bear in mind that's with ADDING prime Ron Artest to the roster. And this was only the 2nd time (out of the four times they made the playoffs in the TMac years) they DIDN'T face a contender-level team in the 1st round, too.


Also, where his efficiency is concerned, I'm again going to point out the often overlooked aspect of offensive efficiency: turnover economy. TMac's was super-elite for a wing. I'll offer the career mTOV% for a few notable score-first star wings:

Michael Jordan: 6.54%
Vince Carter: 6.84%
Tracy McGrady: 6.85%
Clyde Drexler: 7.87%
Allen Iverson: 8.15%
Grant Hill: 8.73%
Manu Ginobili: 8.95%
Scottie Pippen: 9.17%
Paul Pierce: 9.28%


Is his impact what we'd hope or expect from a star of his reputation? Perhaps not. But "like not at all" is clearly stretching things. His average RAPM from '05-'08 was +2.78, fwiw. Yeah, it's less than we'd expect or hope for; but......"not at all"??? Not so much.

I'll acknowledge my own hyperbole and let your words largely just stand, except one thing:

The fact that the Rockets stayed afloat without Yao goes straight to what I was trying to say. The team was always overachieving while missing players and underachieving when healthy. They never found synergy. McGrady is not alone to be blame for this of course, I level criticism here toward McGrady both because he's the candidate here and I think it was quite reasonable to expect he could have adapted. Whereas Yao was a much more rigid player, unworthy of discussion here, but also unreasonable to expect that he'd figure out how to adapt his giant's game instead of the more optimally basketball-bodied McGrady.

[trex_8063]

McGrady? He leaves Orlando at age 24 after he'd already left another team. This is a guy who chose to leave one team because he was overshadowed, then chose to leave the next because he didn't have enough help.....

Just out of curiosity, do you similarly dock someone like Kobe Bryant (who sort of ran Shaq out of town by basically saying it's him or me, and then who----if I'm not mistaken----was saying in '07 or early '08 [before acquisition of Pau] that he wanted a trade)? I mean, Kobe lived with being overshadowed for longer, but still. And then presumably the reason he didn't leave was the organization quickly got him the required help (in the form of NOT overshadowing him).

On the flip-side, does someone like Garnett get bonus points for simply living with poor supporting casts for a decade?

[Doctor MJ]

McGrady? He leaves Orlando at age 24 after he'd already left another team. This is a guy who chose to leave one team because he was overshadowed, then chose to leave the next because he didn't have enough help.....

Just out of curiosity, do you similarly dock someone like Kobe Bryant (who sort of ran Shaq out of town by basically saying it's him or me, and then who----if I'm not mistaken----was saying in '07 or early '08 [before acquisition of Pau] that he wanted a trade)? I mean, Kobe lived with being overshadowed for longer, but still. And then presumably the reason he didn't leave was the organization quickly got him the required help (in the form of NOT overshadowing him).

On the flip-side, does someone like Garnett get bonus points for simply living with poor supporting casts for a decade?

Generally speaking, you have a good sense of my outlook here. You may know that I've spent years and years as the proverbial turd in the punch bowl as an Angeleno hearing every Tom, Dick, and Harry rave about Kobe, and coming back with "Well actually..." type statements. It's often awkward and has made it hard to keep embracing the Lakers despite having grown up a Laker fan.

I'll say that when it comes to the Shaq-Kobe era, to me there are 2 things bigger than Kobe wanting Shaq gone:

1. I hated the Shaq-Kobe feud so, so, so much. Literally it was '00-01 when I started falling out of love with the Lakers and I haven't been the same fan since. I blame them both for that...but I always blamed Shaq more. He was older and should have been more mature, but he was the one with the work ethic issues, and he was the one who really kept making the feud public. I know teammates aren't always going to get along, but I don't want to hear about it from any of them while they are still teammates. While you're teammates, your job is to find a way to work together. Passive aggressive sniping to the media tells me you're not focused on that like a professional should be.

2. The way Shaq acted in that final "Lakers Re-loaded" year kicked everything to a higher level. You have to veteran stars who are HOF locks who take a massive pay cut to join your team, and the first thing I see of you in the pre-season is you screaming "Pay Me!!!" at Jerry Buss in the middle of a game while those guys are on the same court as you. Intensely disrespectful, and incredibly stupid. The moment he did that is the moment I couldn't leave any room to blame any one else if this ended up being his last season with the Lakers.

What all this means is that while that era hurt Kobe some in my eyes, he gets something of a pass for some of the worse stuff. It bothers me more the way he demanded a trade before Gasol came, and it also bothers me the way I've seen him belittle his teammates - particularly when I've also seen them be passive, indecisive, and tend to lack resiliency. And I have more issues even with that than Kobe.

Re: Garnett bonus points for being in Minnesota for all those years? More like he gets a certain type of immunity. Given how successful he was at his Minnesota apex and how successful he was beginning 4 years later in Boston, what we all ask is "What happened in between then and how much does it hurt Garnett's career?" My answer is very little. I don't pretend there was some hidden peak between '03-04 & '07-08, but I feel confident that he could have been the best player on a title team when healthy in that time period, and I do specifically blame the Timberwolves organization for egregious mistakes.

Last note here:

I completely understand anyone feeling like I take this stuff way too far. I completely understand the specific allegation of letting an emotion-infused narrative cloud analysis. There's no doubt that happens to me sometimes, and the consensus clearly feels this is the case about McGrady. They're probably right.

My view of what McGrady did in Houston is shaped by his decision to leave Orlando, which is colored by the knowledge that McGrady was categorically foolish to do so. Here's you're talking about about a 24 year old with 2 years left on his contract being impatient in the building around of him when 1) he specifically chose to leave his first team and come sign to play in the state of his birth - this is not him being trapped in another country against his will, 2) he knew the Magic got really unlucky with Grant Hill to that point, 2) that Tim Duncan had been very interested in coming to Orlando, 3) we know that age 27-30 is typically what you're building toward when you're building around a star, and we know in retrospect that the Magic are about to have Grant Hill and Dwight Howard, both guys who will be excellent in McGrady's age 27-30 years. Yes, the team looked crappy in '03-04, but McGrady also looked like a guy with a bad attitude letting the team sag because of his misguided impatience.

So when a guy like that leaves and specifically gives his reasons for going to the next team, I'm going to judge him with a critical eye. You choose to go to a new team to play with another star? I'm going to expect that you either find ways to intelligently synergize with that guy, or that your team is just so good it doesn't matter. That isn't what happened. You can point to injuries, you can point to other excuses, but the venture is a flop when viewed from backward from the present, and so it represents what I'd consider to be a concrete case of a player damaging his career because of a combination of negative attributes (self-centeredness, lack of basketball understanding, impatience, laziness/disengagement) that are specific to the answer of the question:

"So when McGrady was really, really good, why wasn't he able to lead a team anywhere?"

Guys like that suffer in comparisons for me when compared to players who were actually essential parts of great teams, because this is a team sport. I can give you a pass for being drafted or traded against your will to bad situations, but when you flex your Player Empowerment muscles - which is totally what he was doing a decade before the era began cooking with gas - your choices, and your reasons for your choices all come back to you.

As I say all that, McGrady was a part of a 55 win team in a loaded Western Conference, so I understand people thinking "How about we just give him credit for leading a 55 win team?"

But see, this is where it bothers me that McGrady struggles to separate himself from his teammates. When you look at the +/- in those Rockets years it's not just that Yao looks a bit stronger than McGrady, it's that Shane Battier and Rafer Alston look about as good as McGrady too, and that when the team finally breaks through in the playoffs, they do so with a hole on their roster instead of McGrady.

If you begin to see Rockets McGrady as a guy with the impact of ensemble piece with the game of an inefficient volume scorer on a team with another realistic primary option, well, it's basically exactly what you'd fear might happen when a star from a bad team goes to a team with the supporting talent that in theory should lead to a title contender.

Might it have all come together had everyone just stayed healthy for long enough? Perhaps, but in general there's a kind of "clicking" that has to be achieved to make a champion team. You have to get to the point where you feel like the team is more than the some of their parts and the very best is being brought out of each major piece. I never felt like that when those Rockets were healthy, only when one or both of their two superstars was out.