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Peak: Luka Doncic or T-Mac

Way too early bro. Luka still hasn't started his peak. I think he has many levels to go. Just wait until he loses the baby fat and leans up. Let's wait and see how it goes, hopefully injury-free and without Lebron's and KD's super-team shenanigans doing too much damage to his possible legacy.

LAL1947 wrote:Way too early bro. Luka still hasn't started his peak. I think he has many levels to go. Just wait until he loses the baby fat and leans up. Let's wait and see how it goes, hopefully injury-free and without Lebron's and KD's super-team shenanigans doing too much damage to his possible legacy.

the question is whether his peak so far (aka his current form) is better than tracy mcgrady ever was. definitely not too early to ask that because it has nothing to do with the future.

jalengreen wrote:

LAL1947 wrote:Way too early bro. Luka still hasn't started his peak. I think he has many levels to go. Just wait until he loses the baby fat and leans up. Let's wait and see how it goes, hopefully injury-free and without Lebron's and KD's super-team shenanigans doing too much damage to his possible legacy.

the question is whether his peak so far (aka his current form) is better than tracy mcgrady ever was. definitely not too early to ask that because it has nothing to do with the future.

Fair enough. I'll refrain from voting though.

Depends if you take 03 Mcgrady at face value or not. 03 was an outlier for him, generally you want to see like 2-3 years at a particular level to establish peak. Luka already has two seasons that on average he was probably better than Tmac ever was.

No-more-rings wrote:Depends if you take 03 Mcgrady at face value or not. 03 was an outlier for him, generally you want to see like 2-3 years at a particular level to establish peak. Luka already has two seasons that on average he was probably better than Tmac ever was.

I'm going 1 year Peak. As we do on this board.

mdonnelly1989 wrote:

No-more-rings wrote:Depends if you take 03 Mcgrady at face value or not. 03 was an outlier for him, generally you want to see like 2-3 years at a particular level to establish peak. Luka already has two seasons that on average he was probably better than Tmac ever was.

I'm going 1 year Peak. As we do on this board.

I get that, I’m just saying in Tmac’s case since he never came that close to that level more than once it has to diminish the value some.

Peak Tmac was better than Kobe… if we’re talking about 1 year peak then Luka isn’t on that level

No-more-rings wrote:I get that, I’m just saying in Tmac’s case since he never came that close to that level more than once it has to diminish the value some.

I don't see why though. I and many others don't do that for guys like Hawkins or Walton and injuries were part of Tmac's struggles. Sometimes guys just have outlier type seasons as well and I don't think it somehow demeans how good they were in that one season by virtue of them not reaching that level again. Especially since we know TMac had all world size and athleticism at his position.

T-Mac

Regular season and playoffs combined, Luka.

LAL1947 wrote:Way too early bro. Luka still hasn't started his peak. I think he has many levels to go. Just wait until he loses the baby fat and leans up. Let's wait and see how it goes, hopefully injury-free and without Lebron's and KD's super-team shenanigans doing too much damage to his possible legacy.

And yet, the conversation is already over for me.

Doctor MJ wrote:

LAL1947 wrote:Way too early bro. Luka still hasn't started his peak. I think he has many levels to go. Just wait until he loses the baby fat and leans up. Let's wait and see how it goes, hopefully injury-free and without Lebron's and KD's super-team shenanigans doing too much damage to his possible legacy.

And yet, the conversation is already over for me.

Haha! Well, I feel bad dismissing T-Mac... cos his peak was cut short by injury. So I'm trying to be gracious by abstaining. More importantly, I don't want to jinx Luka.

mdonnelly1989 wrote:

No-more-rings wrote:Depends if you take 03 Mcgrady at face value or not. 03 was an outlier for him, generally you want to see like 2-3 years at a particular level to establish peak. Luka already has two seasons that on average he was probably better than Tmac ever was.

I'm going 1 year Peak. As we do on this board.

One year peak must still put into context, to account for variance


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LAL1947 wrote:Way too early bro. Luka still hasn't started his peak. I think he has many levels to go. Just wait until he loses the baby fat and leans up. Let's wait and see how it goes, hopefully injury-free and without Lebron's and KD's super-team shenanigans doing too much damage to his possible legacy.

Question about Luka and T-Mac and somehow LeBron, Durant and sUpErTeAmS gets in there.

I think people really confuse T-Mac the actual player and the idea of T-Mac.
In real life, T-mac never put it all together. In his early 20s he put us all on alert that he was going to become the best player in the NBA. His scoring talent, the sheer effortless way he could score, was jaw dropping. He also showed some serious promise as a rebounder and a shot blocker. I remember thinking T-Mac was going to become a guy who could play 4 positions defensively while leading the league in scoring. He was toiling away on bad teams, but T-Mac was the most talented guy in the NBA.

But he never really became that. Injuries and a clear lack of development reduced T-Mac to an over-talented gunner with a nice drive and dish game. Before he even hit 26, he was overly reliant on that wild pull-up game. He never became a good finisher (weird strange hole in his game considering how athletic he was and how good he was at getting to the line), his defensive peak was probably in his Toronto days. It's totally fair to blame it all on injuries, but as his talent level decreased, he never found little ways to adjust and stay effective. From an efficiency perspective, he only had 1 great season, and his all-around game really petered off.

Yes T-mac is one of the most talented players ever. But his time as a super-effective NBA player might have been a single season, though you can stretch his prime out for maybe 3 seasons.

You can compare 2003 T-Mac to Luka, but that's it.

I'm gonna go with Luka. He's a top 5 player (IMO) in an era that's incredibly stacked. TMac was a very good passer, but Luka is one of the greatest playmakers of all time, in the same vein as LeBron. Also, as a scorer, it looks like Luka was a bit more efficient relative to league and he's essentially unguardable. The only weakness he really has is turnovers. He's got an endless array of one on one moves, is great from midrange, is a decent enough three-point shooter and I actually think he's probably a better finisher than TMac due to his football player-esque build

jamaalstar21 wrote:I think people really confuse T-Mac the actual player and the idea of T-Mac.
In real life, T-mac never put it all together. In his early 20s he put us all on alert that he was going to become the best player in the NBA. His scoring talent, the sheer effortless way he could score, was jaw dropping. He also showed some serious promise as a rebounder and a shot blocker. I remember thinking T-Mac was going to become a guy who could play 4 positions defensively while leading the league in scoring. He was toiling away on bad teams, but T-Mac was the most talented guy in the NBA.

But he never really became that. Injuries and a clear lack of development reduced T-Mac to an over-talented gunner with a nice drive and dish game. Before he even hit 26, he was overly reliant on that wild pull-up game. He never became a good finisher (weird strange hole in his game considering how athletic he was and how good he was at getting to the line), his defensive peak was probably in his Toronto days. It's totally fair to blame it all on injuries, but as his talent level decreased, he never found little ways to adjust and stay effective. From an efficiency perspective, he only had 1 great season, and his all-around game really petered off.

Yes T-mac is one of the most talented players ever. But his time as a super-effective NBA player might have been a single season, though you can stretch his prime out for maybe 3 seasons.

You can compare 2003 T-Mac to Luka, but that's it.

Summed pretty perfectly how I feel about T-Mac. Basketbawful had a really good post about T-Mac a long while ago (link: http://basketbawful.blogspot.com/2009/01/worst-of-weekend-buzzer-beater-edition.html). He had more raw talent than Kobe but never really came close to what Kobe became. One was almost hell-bent on getting the absolute most out of himself while the other just seemed satisfied getting by.

Yeap, I think Kobe had better spine))
Also, T-Mac '03 is The GOAT.)

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Peregrine01 wrote:

jamaalstar21 wrote:I think people really confuse T-Mac the actual player and the idea of T-Mac.
In real life, T-mac never put it all together. In his early 20s he put us all on alert that he was going to become the best player in the NBA. His scoring talent, the sheer effortless way he could score, was jaw dropping. He also showed some serious promise as a rebounder and a shot blocker. I remember thinking T-Mac was going to become a guy who could play 4 positions defensively while leading the league in scoring. He was toiling away on bad teams, but T-Mac was the most talented guy in the NBA.

But he never really became that. Injuries and a clear lack of development reduced T-Mac to an over-talented gunner with a nice drive and dish game. Before he even hit 26, he was overly reliant on that wild pull-up game. He never became a good finisher (weird strange hole in his game considering how athletic he was and how good he was at getting to the line), his defensive peak was probably in his Toronto days. It's totally fair to blame it all on injuries, but as his talent level decreased, he never found little ways to adjust and stay effective. From an efficiency perspective, he only had 1 great season, and his all-around game really petered off.

Yes T-mac is one of the most talented players ever. But his time as a super-effective NBA player might have been a single season, though you can stretch his prime out for maybe 3 seasons.

You can compare 2003 T-Mac to Luka, but that's it.

Summed pretty perfectly how I feel about T-Mac. Basketbawful had a really good post about T-Mac a long while ago (link: http://basketbawful.blogspot.com/2009/01/worst-of-weekend-buzzer-beater-edition.html). He had more raw talent than Kobe but never really came close to what Kobe became. One was almost hell-bent on getting the absolute most out of himself while the other just seemed satisfied getting by.

Doesn't seem to me he had more talent than Kobe. More impressive body doesn't equate to more talent.

Kobe was a higher rated prospect than McGrady and was better than McGrady at pretty much every age of their career.