sam_I_am wrote:
I think/hope Rondo has matured over the past year and in the playoffs, he has pretty much always tried to play the right way and hence moderately better. But during the regular season over the passed few seasons, he has often overpassed for selfish reasons. Focusing on triple doubles is not being unselfish. Many NBA players stat pad during the regular season but Rondo in the past clearly did it. And I'm not saying McGrady hasn't stat padded himself.
It's pretty unfair to compare a great defensive post up center with McGrady.
When Tim Duncan didn't have great teammates in college, he didn't have much success despite being a great player from his sophomore year onwards. By success I mean making the Final 4. Duncan never made it. Why? Basketball is a team game and Duncan had unbelievable luck for teammates in the NBA but pretty bad luck for teammates in the NCAA's.
Look even prime TMac is no Jordan but the same arguments you made here against TMac were made against Michael Jordan. And they were very unfair then and they are very unfair to TMac.
Jordan's teammates got *much better*, his main competition declined and the rest is history.
I'm anti bad inefficient volume shooting but given the teams he was on, McGrady in general was absolutely playing the right way in his prime with Orlando.
Now if Grant Hill had been healthy, he could have shared much more of the scoring burden.
In one series, McGrady scored 33.8 points, he averaged 8.3 assists and just 2 turnovers. 8.3 assists is usually involving your teammates!
The real knock that people can have against McGrady is that compared to some superstars he probably didn't work on his game as much. There was not much McGrady could do about his injuries but McGrady could have probably concentrated more on his shooting so he was a better player in his prime and was able to cope better when injuries set him back.
I think you overrate TMac because of his numbers. Anyone who puts up numbers like that is special but he dominated the ball, took a huge number of shots (Melo and Durant would be envious) and he played no defense.
Great player but you can't ignore the fact that he had to put up a gross number of shots to get his points. When you hog the ball it is inevitable that you'll get assists but I don't think McGrady beat defenses with his passing the way Lebron does for example. Jordan at least drew a lot of fouls so he could get his 30 on less FGA and the opposing SG wasn't averaging 25 too.
My last comments on Tmac since it is off topic. Jordan who was obviously much better averaged 22.9 FGA for his career while McGrady actually only took that many 2 regular seasons. And McGrady got to the line a lot too in his prime but I fault him for not being a better free throw shooter. Carmelo often shot just as much but he doesn't get that many assists. Jeff Van Gundy and Rivers have praised McGrady's passing. It was an underrated part of his game.
As for McGrady's defense, I think you are really underrating it as well. He had defensive versatility like if need be he could guard Dirk but he can't guard all 5 spots at once. He was never Ron Artest but he established himself in the NBA as more of a defender and was a very good defender early on the first couple of seasons in Orlando. Like any other big time scorer as his scoring burden got higher, he took more plays off during certain seasons but Kobe did that as well after Shaq left especially. In 2004-5, he was #5 in the NBA in defensive win shares.
I just think its nuts to thing Rondo even should be discussed in the same breadth as prime Tmac but I've never said prime Tmac was as good as prime Duncan/KG/Jordan/Shaq/Lebron/Durant. I'd much rather have those players.
