03 T-Mac V Current Shai
Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2025 2:24 am
Better Player
Sports is our Business
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2447767
JustBuzzin wrote:03 Tmac is the best player I ever saw with my own eyes.
This one is easy. Such a shame Orlando wasted Prime Tmac. Dude was playing with some bums.
OkcSinceSGA wrote:Mac is more naturally gifted but SGA is undoubtedly the better all around player.
mdonnelly1989 wrote:OkcSinceSGA wrote:Mac is more naturally gifted but SGA is undoubtedly the better all around player.
Do you think he fits in the D-Wade, Kobe, Dirk, KD Tier?
Yoshun wrote:I picked SGA because I think he's the better defender, but this was really hard for me. Prime TMac is one of the most fun players to watch in NBA history. The man was capable of just taking over a game and beating pretty much anyone single handedly at any time. It's so strange to think he's only 45. 5 years older than LeBron and he stopped playing 13 years ago.
tsherkin wrote:Yoshun wrote:I picked SGA because I think he's the better defender, but this was really hard for me. Prime TMac is one of the most fun players to watch in NBA history. The man was capable of just taking over a game and beating pretty much anyone single handedly at any time. It's so strange to think he's only 45. 5 years older than LeBron and he stopped playing 13 years ago.
I'm on this train.
For a single season, McGrady was amazing (obviously great in a bunch of other years too, but not like that). He was in shape, he was hitting 3s like no other point in his career, strong year at the line. Good all around game. Nasty isolation skills. Basically all the stats propping up his offensive dominance. Gets burned by many because he went down to those Pistons (who won the title the following year), but he had NOOOOOOTHING on that Magic squad. Like, they literally started Drew Gooden, Gordan Giricek, Jacque Vaughn and Andrew DeClerq in that series alongside McGrady. SHAWN KEMP played 10 mpg in the playoffs, and spent the rest of the time floating above the stadium as the Goodyear blimp. It was ugly.
I'm taking SGA because he is a better shooter and a better defender, but for a single season, it isn't a trivial debate.
Yoshun wrote:He had a 40+ point triple double against my Nets that year I'm still in awe of. We couldn't stop him.
Still though, it makes me appreciate just how damn good SGA is playing. It's rare to have a guy who does basically everything extremely well. He's very good to elite at pretty much every aspect of basketball.
tsherkin wrote:Yoshun wrote:He had a 40+ point triple double against my Nets that year I'm still in awe of. We couldn't stop him.
He was wild-as, man. When that 3 was falling for him, he was super dangerous. It was a big part of why he was able to score despite how useless his team was, and how poorly-spaced they were. But he also had a fairly flat shot, and when his back issues started to take his legs out of his shot, then his J started to decline pretty quickly.Still though, it makes me appreciate just how damn good SGA is playing. It's rare to have a guy who does basically everything extremely well. He's very good to elite at pretty much every aspect of basketball.
Shai is definitely going bonkers.
mdonnelly1989 wrote:I suppose if you're in the MVP discussion with a player elite as Jokic then you must at least be no more less than 1 tier below and a lot of people have Jokic as a top 5-10 talent of all time at this point. So Shai at minimum should be a top 10-20 talent ATM does that sound right?
Doctor MJ wrote:Back in '02-03 it made sense to talk about what TMac could do with better teammates, but then we saw it and it was nothing special. Yes he had some injuries that reduced him from peak, but in general, TMac just wasn't a guy who had a really adept sense for how to make teams win, which was why he was never seriously seen as an MVP level guy in his own time.
Doctor MJ wrote:I have to say: Seems to me like Shai looks better by literally any stat I can find, including the relative stats which cover literally any argument about "it was tougher back then".
Back in '02-03 it made sense to talk about what TMac could do with better teammates, but then we saw it and it was nothing special. Yes he had some injuries that reduced him from peak, but in general, TMac just wasn't a guy who had a really adept sense for how to make teams win, which was why he was never seriously seen as an MVP level guy in his own time.
70sFan wrote:I come close to this one - despite amazing stats profile, I don't see Tmac as true all-time peak and Shai is getting close to that level. McGrady had one insane season but he never replicated it, or even came close to it. I am always very sceptical of one season wonders like this one, especially with Tmac who doesn't seem to have the best BBIQ out there.
tsherkin wrote:Doctor MJ wrote:Back in '02-03 it made sense to talk about what TMac could do with better teammates, but then we saw it and it was nothing special. Yes he had some injuries that reduced him from peak, but in general, TMac just wasn't a guy who had a really adept sense for how to make teams win, which was why he was never seriously seen as an MVP level guy in his own time.
To be fair, he had about three seasons where he was reasonably healthy, then a fourth in 03-04 where he was there as a total offensive player but had fallen off a lot as a scorer. That's the season where his back really started to get in the way.
So we never really got to see him fully healthy and clicking in his prime. He and Yao didn't have amazing chemistry, but they also had JVG coaching them, and he was not a coach noted for his offensive brilliance. Plus, both McGrady and Yao were unhealthy often, and Yao couldn't really support volume. They did immediately win 51 in their first season together, and won 52 a couple seasons later when McGrady was healthy again, then lost in 7 to a tough Jazz team with Deron Williams and Boozer... the latter of whom REAMED them out in Game 7. 55 wins despite lack of health a year later, lost to the same Jazz. Then 53 despite health issues... and lost in the second round to the title Lakers.
I don't know that it's fair to really look at McGrady and say that he didn't know how to make teams win. They won with him. Orlando was a disaster-class in roster construction, and the Rockets were unhealthy most of the time, and the West has been a murderer's row for a quarter century.
Doctor MJ wrote:There's nothing about those last two seasons that seems off compared to his norms. It's just that '02-03 when TMac was 23 was the outlier, and everyone just assumed he'd get better after that because that's the norm in basketball.
I'd say this sums up TMac well. People thought that because got a decent number of assists he must be a good playmaker, but really he was just an athlete who was allowed to play in a proto-helio fashion that he never should have been slotted into.