Idiot, go check the realgm knicks v rockets thread. you're buddy over there was supporting the knicks. Before you open you're clacker, get you're facts straight.
But that constituted most of his Rockets career. Yes, the Orlando T-Mac would've been awesome. But not the version we got. Even if you just look at his first year. 25.5% of his shots at the basket. 7.1FTA/game. In Contrast, Dwayne Wade in that same year, an utterly ridiculous 52% of shots at the basket, 9.9FTA/game. James Harden so far, 36% of shots at the basket, 9.1FTA/game. I love a lot of things about T-Mac, how he could create his own shot when offense stagnates, best passing wing in the NBA, but dude did NOT go to the basket as a Rocket.
Tmac lived off that mid-range most of his time in Houston which none can dispute. Mind you, prior to the disaster of the microfracture surgery, he had the best mid-range game in the NBA.
You know what most people nowadays dont see about centers of today and centers since Shaq won his championships at LA? The change in rule....back then there was this rule which benefited centers the most....the defensive 3 second violation, if Yao played during that ruling, things would be so much more different, he would have benefited tremendously from it. I wonder....when did they do that rule change?? i believe it was a year or 2 before Yao came into the league....well too bad
T-mac took it to the rim a higher percentage of the time as a Rocket than a Magic which contradicts your statement about the Orlando T-mac being a better fit. How many times did we see T-mac drive from the top of the key after a screen and then lob to Yao for a dunk? That was their bread and butter 4th qtr play for years.
Do you have his adjusted +/- for 2008? That was the only year in his career where he was the primary offensive option.
You are right. He was always a jumpshooter, but I guess I watched a lot more highlights when T-Mac was there, so I had a skewed impression. Still, shooting a lot of jumpers is still shooting a lot of jumpers. No. The bread and butter play in the 4th quarter had always been T-Mac coming of a pick and shoot a 20 footer. I know it was a long time ago, and I doubt there are convenient stats to back up this statement, but the frustration of watching him pulling up jumpshot after jumpshot in games can't be a mistake.
If you go back and watch the playoff games especially in the 4th qtr when the Defenses honed in on him....look at the Utah series especially - there was a stretch where he hit Yao for 4 or 5 consecutive dunks off a pnr/drive. JVG had Tmac and Yao playing very well together. They were the best two some in the NBA and why people thought the Rockets could win a ring. They just had too many scrubs around them.
RAPM has a tendency to underrate or overrate players that have a huge body of work over those that don't. And it has some of the flaws in APM, such as it's greatly dependent on the quality of his teammates and his opponents, the coaching system, the role he plays, etc. It's a great tool, but we shouldn't really take it very seriously. For what it's worth, RAPM doesn't think highly of Olajuwon's offensive impact on the floor neither.
You're referring to RAPM estimates based on minutes played in each game and the final score of each game. We can't really know what sort of adjusted +/- rating players from that time would have gotten without complete play by play records. Also, Olajuwon upped his game significantly from regular season to playoffs, particularly in the championship years. Advanced stats are generally more favorable towards David Robinson and Shaquille O'neal than Hakeem, even in the early 90s, but that's regular season. Olajuwon's greatness was cemented in the postseason.
I was speaking in grand scheme of things, not just one particular 4th quarter stretch. FWIW, Morey did mention that he once drove to Tracey's house and showed him a powerpoint presentation titled "Tracybeaggressive", which was about how his failure to attack the basket made him less effective. http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=7393832&postcount=62
Finally got time to go through the blog. If this is Paine's source, then that ESPN article is just regurgitated BS. That blog entry was not talking about overrated and underrated players per se. It was comparing two different stats RAPM and win shares and see how they correlate to each other. His conclusion was that OWS tend to overrate big men as compared to ORAPM and tends to underrate good passers. The ESPN entry didn't even mention OWS. The -.05 figure calculated over 12 years is also suspect, as Durvasa pointed out since Yao has mostly positive RAPM for his career.
The year-by-year positive offensive RAPM for Yao that's posted on Jeremias Engelmann's site is actually a hybrid statistic -- it combines adjusted +/- with Yao's box-score based ratings as prior information. Because Yao, by the boxscore, was a superstar-caliber offensive player that will boost his overall offensive ratings. Maybe that's the right way to look at it, though. I think its interesting to look at pure adjusted +/-, without the boxscore stats mixed in, just as an alternative rating to consider even though there's a greater chance it is way off. And by source, I meant that Paine may have gotten the RAPM number he used from that blog entry. Or, maybe he got it directly from Engelmann's site which used to have them until a few months back.
When did I say he broke his own foot on purpose? You have the reading ability of a 3rd grader. Shall I blame it on our education system?
My mistake for not mentioning the RAPM is an estimates given the lack of play-by play data. It's based on more than just the minutes played and the final score of each game. It takes into account ORtg, opponent ORtg/DRtg, pace, minute distribution between starters and bench based on quarterly score, and for xRAPM, a greater weight toward the box score component. It's far, far away from being flawless, but it's better than nothing. Anyway, even if one is not a Rocket fan, basketball fans should know about Olajuwon's dominance in the playoff. Especially when he made a fool out of David Robinson in 95 being the most memorable one, at least for me.
Can you point me to a source for the RAPM? I see the "xRAPM" stats are here, but I'm not sure where to find the year-by-year, pure RAPM online.
Yes he was. I will use the playoffs to indicate why. Agaisnt the mavs: Still early but his inconsistency already was an issue. His inability to catch the passes in the post/turnovers was also painful to watch. Against the Jazz: Jazz exposed ans exploited his weaknesses. His moves were mechanical and methodical allowing the Jazz defenses to read them and recover, especially Kirilenko on help defense. He should have killed Okur but he did not. The Jazz also exploited his inability to seal his man. Yao was nota dominant offensive force against the Jazz and he should have been. He was also exploited on defense. Both Okur and Boozer's career highlights have been their playoff performances against Yao. Against the Trailblazers and Lakers: Once Yao dominated in the first game of the series, the Blazers adjusted by fronting him the rest of the series. This pretty much nullified him the rest of the series. He became just another role player. Yao did not dominate against the Lakers either. His performance against them in the critical game 3 was especially disappointing. Think about this....Yao never had a dominating playoff series against anyone. He never gave you that feeling that he would just put his team on the back and take them to the next round. I have never seen a player get so stifled as he did when fronted. The reason was his balance issues. It took time for him to shift and establish balance. He also had problems sealing his man off which is needed to beat a fronting defense. And lastly, he didnt have the greatest hands in the world which you absolutely need when being fronted. To me Yao was a very good regular season player but a only a good playoff player at best on offense. He was not someone you could ride on throughout the playoffs. He was very scoutable. I think he was more valuable in terms of defense.
