drza wrote:
I don't mind at all bringing up counter-examples. In fact, that's kind of my point. I don't have a dog in this fight, as I'm not a particular fan/non-fan of any of the 3 players involved. I just think all sides to the story should be presented, the cons as well as the pros.
I agree, I think it was a perfectly legitimate point, I'm just extending the debate, that's all.
I've seen lots of talk about T-Mac's postseason failures and Pierce's ECF run, but I hadn't seen very much about Pierce's struggles to get his team to .500 or T-Mac's relative consistency leading solid teams.
Difficult to compare, though; Pierce suffered from similar roster issues and had greatest success in the postseason than T-Mac has with a partner (and Walker <<<<< Yao)... but hasn't generally had the same injury issues.
And T-Mac's career has been shorter, at least the meaningful part after Toronto. His Houston squads have never been as bad as Pierce's Boston squads pre-KG/Ray-Ray, either, so the relative nature of their records is incomparable on that account.
To whit, T-Mac played on crappy teams for a bad coach for three years and then went to Houston to be coached by JVG (an offensive (Please Use More Appropriate Word) but an excellent defensive coach) with a really good big man and some decent roleplayers. Pierce labeled long and hard with nobodies, specialists and Antoine Walker... and then without Walker. So it's difficult to compare the number of "successful" regular seasons because their situations have been so different.
But if all we're getting is "Pierce carries a team to success" without pointing out how rarely he did so, then I don't think we're painting a whole picture.
And that's an absolutely valid point; context is everything. Pierce's success did certainly come in a weakened EC, but you'll notice that in that season they made the ECFs, they won 5 more games than McGrady's Magic did (49 wins, more than any single-season success T-Mac had in Orlando) and were +2 wins on the Magic the year after, when they made the semis. It's worth mentioning that they beat the reigning EC champion Sixers in the first round, then beat the Pistons (the 50-win Central Division champions) before losing in 6 to the Nets.
The year after, they beat the Pacers and got swept by the Nets, while the Magic went down in 7 to the Pistons (though to be fair, the Magic were epic in their ineptitude that year on account of injuries and such and the fact that they won 42 games is actually quite impressive and almost 100% attributable to McGrady).
If McGrady had been on Pierce's Boston teams, they would have done as well or better, IMO, no question.