Tracy McGrady is really a great all around player who is not great at scoring?

Barkley? Charles was certainly capable of being a great scorer. This is a blurb from NBA.com's history section, which at least gives a hint of what Barkley could do from time to time:


In Barkley's first season with the Suns, the team had the NBA's best record and he became only the third player to win league MVP honors in the season after being traded. For the year, Barkley averaged 25.6 points and 12.2 rebounds to rank fifth and sixth, respectively. The nine-year veteran then carried Phoenix all the way to the NBA Finals. Chicago defeated Phoenix 4-2, but Barkley was brilliant, averaging 26.6 points and 13.6 rebounds in 42.8 minutes per game in the postseason. He also scored 44 points and hauled down 24 rebounds in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals against the Seattle SuperSonics.

http://www.nba.com/history/players/barkley_bio.html


And Rodman was never a great "all around" player. He was never a great scorer. Hell, Rodman was never a scorer at all. Charles was.

 

Defense never held a great deal of interest for Charles, lol, that's for sure, but he still made an impact on the defensive end with his rebounding, if nothing else. The man wasn't great at everything, like Hakeem, but few, if any, were.

 

Well Barkley had a lot of multi-faceted skills. I'd say he's closer to being an all-around player than not. He had a post-up game, could face up, run the floor, rebound on both ends, pass extremely well out of the post, had decent range on his jumper, and an excellent handle for a big guy (both in the open court and with his back to the basket).

Might as well take this opportunity to post the best Barkley video out there:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qfvb5JW8yo0

 

Oh, that was sweet! Charles was one of those players, and we all know who they were, that you hated to have beat you, but you loved to watch them play. I loved watching the man play basketball.

 

Ironically Barkley went down trying to playing defense in his last game, he tried to block a shot by who, Tyrone Hill?

 

McGrady is, or at least was, one of the greatest, most fluid and effortless, scorers I've ever seen. The guy dropped 62 in a game - 62!

the problem really started for him when he slipped on his Rockets jersey, as seems to be the way more often than not, he lost his way after that.

 

Your first sentence says it all, which is why stats don't tell the story by themselves. Statistical analysis is underused when evaluating NBA players but this thread shows how it can be abused to paralyze common sense and "prove" something completely false.

 

Does anyone else remember Barkley jacking up WAY too many threes in his last years. To answer the earlier question about great players not being great scorers, John Stockton would be one. I think Pippen is another. Both could score, but they were not "great scorers".

 

i disagree wholeheartedly. while not known for his scoring, bill russell was undoubtedly a capable scorer. consider the fact that he played with a team full of hall of fame players, was responsible for completed dominating the paint and doing all the dirty work. still he managed to average ~20ppg for a few seasons. on some of the celts biggest games, russell would come up with a 30pt 30 rebound performance.

russell just didn't believe that scoring was the most important part of the game. in fact, he knew that it was the least important...at least for him. that did not mean that he was incapable and, in the biggest moments, he often showed that he could put up the #s.

 

are you honestly going to tell me that ben wallace and dennis rodman are great all around players??? those are specialists, my friend, not great all around players.

and are you saying that barkley was a great all around player who was not capable of being a great scorer? are you serious?

EDIT: just saw your response re: barkley. i assumed you were writing that in response to my original query...name a great all around player that was not capable of being a great scorer. in fact, you were answering something completely, uh, different.

barkley was not a great all around player. great all around players are synonymous with the 5 tool baseball player.

 

Pete Maravich didn't play a lick of defense.

 

the 1970s didn't play a lick of defense.

 

Nah one guy Scoring 100 points is no defense.