McGrady’s Peak
In a discussion about this year’s MVP candidates at APBRmetrics the other day, everyone’s favorite biostatistician, Gabe Farkas, made this comment:
For me, [Tracy] McGrady‘s 2002 and 2003 seasons are the gold standard of ridiculous individual performances in the recent past. Comparing LBJ‘s 09 season to those two T-Mac seasons, it looks like LeBron has him beat almost across the board. Honestly, I’m looking at these numbers and thinking “yikes!”
That’s particularly apt in relation to our earlier post about King James’ historically-awesome performance so far this season. In that post, I raved about LeBron’s virtually unparalleled (unless your name is “Wilt Chamberlain” or “Michael Jordan“) combination of offensive efficiency and the rate of possessions he’s using while on the floor — the two most important stats to look at when evaluating a player’s offensive performance.
But when translated to 2008-09’s scoring environment, take a gander at Tracy McGrady’s 2001-2004 performances alongside LeBron’s last 4 seasons:
There’s no question LeBron has been better from age 21-24 than T-Mac was, but offensively it’s not as big a disparity as you might imagine. In fact, as good as LBJ has been this year on offense, McGrady was actually even better in 2002-03 (though he finished only 4th in MVP balloting). After T-Mac’s amazing season, John Hollinger had this to say about him:
“I wrote a year ago that McGrady was a better player than Kobe Bryant and would have thought that [the 2002-03 season] 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 Ratio was the lowest among small forwards and a far cry from Bryant’s. The fact that he also had the league’s top Usage Rate is doubly impressive. Basically, he created a zillion shots without any miscues, and that alone put Orlando into the top half of the league’s offenses…
“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…
“Looking at the big picture, Tim Duncan is great, and Shaq is dominant, but McGrady was the best player in the league [in 2002-03]. 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.”
Simply put, during his peak in Orlando, McGrady was an amazing player. Just brilliant. Sure, he had his issues with defense, an area where he doesn’t compare to LeBron or Kobe, but overall he was the NBA’s 7th-best player by Win Shares in ’01, 10th in ’02, and #1 in ’03. He was one of those rare players capable of single-handedly carrying a franchise on his back — and you can be sure Orlando always asked that of him, given Grant Hill’s injury problems.
Our memory of T-Mac’s one-time greatness has faded since his arrival in Houston, however, as the years of wear and tear on his body have rendered him an oft-injured shell of the player who was so dominant with the Magic. So too has the specter of his many 1st-round exits, blown spectacularly out of proportion in a way that only today’s sports media can, overshadowed his other on-court accomplishments. All the while, McGrady is still searching for even a taste of playoff success, even as he struggles to keep his body intact long enough to remain on the court and put his talents to use.
But even if he never makes it out of the first round, take some time to appreciate McGrady’s career. Nowadays, T-Mac is not the top player in the NBA (far from it), but remember that there was a time when he was in fact the very best the league had to offer.
Filed under: NBA, BB-Ref Blog