2008 All-NBA: McGrady vs Billups

uberhikari · Post #1 » by **uberhikari** » Wed Oct 5, 2022 7:05 pm

Can anybody explain why Tracy McGrady made the All-NBA team over Chauncey Billups in 2008?

Looking over their respective stats and teams this seems like one of the biggest All-NBA snubs ever. Not as bad as Harden in 2016 but still pretty awful.

The '08 Pistons won 59 games, were 4th in SRS (6.67), 2nd in Nrtg (8.4), and 6th in Ortg. Billups put up 17-7 on 61.9 TS%, and was clearly the best player on the Pistons. Like, there's not even a possible argument for either Rip or Rasheed being better than Billups.

On the other hand, the Rockets were 8th in SRS (4.83), 9th in Nrtg (5.2), and 17th in Org. McGrady put up 22-5-6 on 48.7 TS%. And he had Yao (for 55 games).

Billups had 2x the WS, WS/48, OBPM, and VORP. Billups even had a much better PI ORAPM: 4.14 vs 2.94.

So, what the hell happened in the All-NBA voting in 2008?

parsnips33 · Post #2 » by **parsnips33** » Wed Oct 5, 2022 7:21 pm

Well I doubt many of the voters were looking at SRS, Net rating, true shooting, or VORP

Colbinii · Post #3 » by **Colbinii** » Wed Oct 5, 2022 7:25 pm

Look at the box score.

Jaivl · Post #4 » by **Jaivl** » Wed Oct 5, 2022 7:39 pm

22-6 vs 17-7. That's probably about all they saw in the 00s.

Post #5 » by **tsherkin** » Thu Oct 6, 2022 2:08 am

Jaivl wrote:22-6 vs 17-7. That's probably about all they saw in the 00s.

Or today. Voting isn't a lot deeper now, lol.

Post #6 » by **Fadeaway_J** » Thu Oct 6, 2022 2:09 am

Wasn't that the season Houston had some record win streak? Like 28 in a row or something? That probably had a lot to do with it.

Cavsfansince84 · Post #7 » by **Cavsfansince84** » Thu Oct 6, 2022 3:01 am

McGrady was just thought of as being much more of a star player than Chauncey was. That's pretty much all it was imo. Having said that, I think some voters have started to rely on different forms of analytics much more since then but some probably are still voting like they did back then in terms of how they evaluate players.

AEnigma · Post #8 » by **AEnigma** » Thu Oct 6, 2022 3:17 am

Fadeaway_J wrote:Wasn't that the season Houston had some record win streak? Like 28 in a row or something? That probably had a lot to do with it.

This is probably the answer, because Allen Iverson had better box score scoring and passing averages than McGrady did (and Iverson had good efficiency too!), but voters still took McGrady over him.

Post #9 » by **tsherkin** » Thu Oct 6, 2022 3:22 am

AEnigma wrote:
Fadeaway_J wrote:Wasn't that the season Houston had some record win streak? Like 28 in a row or something? That probably had a lot to do with it.

This is probably the answer, because Allen Iverson had better box score scoring and passing averages than McGrady did (and Iverson had good efficiency too!), but voters still took McGrady over him.

That's true, that was the best TS% season in Iverson's career at 56.7%, and his 3rd-best season by WS/48. It was also far and away his best TS+ at 105, +2.7% rTS.

For McGrady, who played 16 fewer games that season and 4.8 fewer mpg (AI played 82 games and led the league in MPG and minutes played), he posted 21.6 ppg, 5.1 rpg and 5.9 apg on 48.7% TS (90 TS+) and was dramatically inferior by most of the statistical stuff you could look at. AI did have Melo, but apart from that, it's difficult to envision a pro-McGrady argument.

Post #10 » by **Fadeaway_J** » Thu Oct 6, 2022 3:24 am

AEnigma wrote:
Fadeaway_J wrote:Wasn't that the season Houston had some record win streak? Like 28 in a row or something? That probably had a lot to do with it.

This is probably the answer, because Allen Iverson had better box score scoring and passing averages than McGrady did (and Iverson had good efficiency too!), but voters still took McGrady over him.

I just looked it up. It was 22 in a row, and a good few of them happened after Yao went down for the season. As I recall, a lot of it was down to Houston suddenly having really good depth, but T-Mac was the last "star" standing, so...