Peak: Luka Doncic or T-Mac

[Dr Positivity]

Tmac's era was harder for perimeter players to put up numbers so I'd say his 03 season was more impressive statistically. We haven't seen the best of Doncic yet and he has not been worldbeater in +/-, defense or 3pt shooting, so I don't have a problem with putting 03 Tmac ahead

[Strepbacter]

Luka has to be the most overrated player in the league.

He's nowhere near 03 T-Mac.

[Peregrine01]

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.

By "raw talent" I meant physical athleticism. TMac never had the skill that Kobe had but it's hard to think of many other guys who had his set of physical attributes.

[Ambrose]

I love T-Mac but this is Luka.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

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.

this is absolutely not true, I would say they were rated in a similar way up until 2005 or 2006.
Early 2000s it was quite a consensus that the main difference between the two was opportunity. I can come out and tell you that I was in the camp that considered McGrady a better talent.


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[Pharmacist]

How is that even a debate? I don't remember Luka being a good defender, while tmac was a good defender, Luka ain't close to Tmac, if anything Luka is a poor man Paul Pierce, and he's playing in the current no defense, no handchecking era, where everyone from PG to C jacking up lots of threes, while Tmac had it much tougher back when the league actually allowed to play defense, and players tried to guard the opposing player.

TL DR: It's Tmac, his 03 peak was amazing, he was arguably better than Kobe that year.

[feyki]

Luka probably the highest offensive volume player ever with Westbrook. Their adjusted offensive load over of %60 of the possesions. But rather than Westbrook, Doncic +5 to +10 plus positive per 100 possesions. Peak Westbrook was average at best. But his defence was already net negative in the 2020 and this year it's worse than it.

But with that kind of creation(GOAT level) and significantly positive efficiency, is almost on the GOAT level offensive impact, which is far higher than T-Mac's. But T-Mac also was much better defensive player than him. I think Doncic may have been a better player by one tier at the highest gap.

[HeartBreakKid]

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.

this is absolutely not true, I would say they were rated in a similar way up until 2005 or 2006.
Early 2000s it was quite a consensus that the main difference between the two was opportunity. I can come out and tell you that I was in the camp that considered McGrady a better talent.


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Yes, McGrady vs Bryant was an argument. But it was never the popular opinion that McGrady was better than Bryant, so how on earth can he be more "talented" than him? Bryant was a more hyped prospect (he didn't go higher in the draft because of factors unrelated to his talent, he was a well known name before he even played his first professional game) and was better or equal to McGrady at every stage of their career.

From ages 18-22 Kobe Bryant was probably better - whether you want to go by consensus at the time or hindsight. 01 Bryant and 02 McGrady are not equal seasons.

03-05, sure they're pretty even there. Could argue McGrady is a bit better in a season or two. But broadly speaking, McGrady is not clearly ahead.

But to say "absolutely not true"....seems like a bit much. There is really no basis that McGrady is more "talented" than Kobe Bryant, unless a person simply thinks athleticism and talent are synonyms. McGrady was never "better" than Bryant by any clear margin or at least for any significant amount of time - and he was not a more highly rated prospect either.