APBRmetrics

Chronz1 · Joined: 22 May 2006 Posts: 201

Id really appreciate If someone was willing to give a brief player profile on Tmac from the 02-03 season when he avg 32. Im guessing it was the 03-04 Forecast. Curious to see what it is Hollinger expected from Tmac and what he made of that season.

**asimpkins** · Joined: 30 Apr 2006 Posts: 245 Location: Pleasanton, CA

"I wrote a year ago that McGrady was a better player than Kobe Bryant and would have thought that last year proved it once and for all. That's why I was shocked and dismayed when the MVP voting came out and Bryant ranked third while McGrady was fourth.

Look, I don't mean to keep knocking Kobe, but the difference between style and substance here is too big to ignore. Bryant is immensely well-known, appears on TV all the time, and tends to do spectacular mid-air theatrics that you'll talk about for the next three weeks. He's a great player, one of the five best in the league. But he still can't carry McGrady's jock. Put the two side-by-side, and everything Bryant does, McGrady does as well or a little better.

The big subtle difference between the two that most talking heads can't appreciate is that McGrady never turns the ball over. His Turnover Rate (7.1) was the lowest among small forwards and a far cry from Bryant's 9.6. The fact he also had the league's top Usage Rate is doubly impressive. Basically, he crated a zillion shots without any miscues, and that alone put Orlando into the top half of the league's offenses. His overall PER of 30.25 has only been exceeded by three players in the past 16 years: Michael Jordan, Shaquille O'Neal, and David Robinson.

McGrady does some things with flair -- his penchant for throwing the ball off the backboard to himself and dunking, for instance -- but a lot of his skill lies in his ability to jump straight up over a defender and nail a jump shot. It's impressive, but it's not as exciting as Kobe, and that creates a mistaken impression about who is really the better player. It doesn't help that McGrady is the league's most sleepy-eyed player since Sam Perkins.

McGrady also loves to jump stop while gliding from left to right, covering immense tracts of territoy on the way to the rim, but the jumper is the staple. He shot 39 percent on 3-pointers, and considering how many of those were taken off the dribble under duress -- he took six a game, for crying out loud -- that's an amazing figure.

The one legitimate criticism of McGrady is that he isn't as active on defense as he could be. McGrady keeps his man fairly quiet, but Orlando ranked 11th against starting small forwards, and he has the ability to put them into the top four or five. He's also not as active on the help side. McGrady's blocks per game have fallen sharply the past three seasons, and last year were less than half of what he got in Toronto in 1998-99.

Looking at the big picture, Tim Duncan is great, and Shaq is dominant, but McGrady was the best player in the league last season. McGrady's only 24 and is getting better every year. It's really vexing to see that the media have billed Kobe Bryant as the closest thing to the next Jordan for the past five years, and the whole time they had the wrong guy."

deepak · Joined: 26 Apr 2006 Posts: 665

Whoops. McGrady was incredibly good that year. But it appears like it was a fluke year.

Chronz1 · Joined: 22 May 2006 Posts: 201

Wow, I miss that TMac thanks for posting it asimpkins. Ima try and buy some of these maybe I can find some deals somewhere

**asimpkins** · Joined: 30 Apr 2006 Posts: 245 Location: Pleasanton, CA

From Hollinger's ESPN chat today:

"Kobe (Los Angeles): Am I the best shooting guard since Jordan? Ive won 3 rings, a scoring title, and 4 all defensive first teams

SportsNation John Hollinger: (2:44 PM ET ) I'd say so. Three years ago I would've gone with T-Mac, but their careers have gone in opposite directions since then. "

Chronz1 · Joined: 22 May 2006 Posts: 201

bchaikin · Joined: 27 Jan 2005 Posts: 687 Location: cleveland, ohio

here are their stats over the past 6 seasons:

name---------G------Min---min/g-ScFG%-touch--%shoot-%fouled-%to-%pass-reb/48-pf/100min-st/100min-BS%--pts/g
bryant------441---17660---40---.542----1.60-------34--------12------5------49-----7.0--------7------------4--------0.9----28.6
mcgrady----420---16555---39---.521----1.58-------36--------11------4------49-----8.3--------5------------4--------1.4----27.3

doesn't get any closer than this...

the only other player with touches/min this high the past decade that shot the ball with as much as 1/3 of their touches was AI...