the only thing keeping tmac marginally arguable are the stats. You, arguing FOR tmac should embrace them. It's ridiculous to argue about any rockets player with this board. it's a bunch of excuses, revisionist history, contrived scenario, and bubble thinking.
I tend to put them together with the: Morey is god fans, and the Rockets management can do no wrong fans. Similar thick-headedness, imho
Whereas you fall into brilliant 'Rudy Gay is on Kevin Durant's level' and 'Tim Duncan was a better defender than Hakeem Olajuwon' camps.
It always amazes me to see 20 year olds proclaiming their worship of Hakeem. If you are not at least 40 years old, you don't know what you are talking about, about him. If you are 30 you were 12/13 when he won the championship. If you were 25 you were 8. There is a Akeem BEFORE 94/95. I was privileged to witness both versions and can speak about it. I probably watched every game from 87 on. I doubt you did.
Stop being so arrogant. First, age is just a number. Second, you're making stupid assumptions. You have no idea how much basketball another poster has watched. Not only have I had the privilege of watching the Rockets my entire life (over 30, not that it matters), I've also been fortunate enough to have attended over 400 games (from Game 7 against the Suns, Game 6 and 7 against the Knicks to Moochie Norris triple overtime games to multipel y ears of losing seasons and dribble dribble dribble to Yao-mania to T-Mac, etc.) I don't live in Houston anymore, so that era in my life has ended, but I am still more than capable of speaking about basketball, as any number of fans on here are... Sure, you have bandwagon fans and fans in one court or another. Incidentally, tinman falls squarely in that camp of posters pretty much unable to make a fair argument. Love the dude for his Rocket reminiscing, but his view on TMac or any other Rocket player isn't exactly what I'd call top-notch analysis. For him, old Rockets player on winning team = great (never mind if that player pretty much quit on his team and became a menace off the court... see Vernon Maxwell). To the POINT of this thread. It's not about stats. Or wins and losses. It's about watching the game. At their peak, TMac was a much more complete player than Reggie Miller. A better all around player. A more talented player. Just was. Stats also tend to back this up, as they typically (but not always) do. Conversely, Reggie had so so so much more heart and passion than TMac. And was obviously a dynamic shooter and efficient, capable scorer. And more clutch. This is what my eyes told me. Your eyes told you that Rudy Gay was on Durant's level. Do you honestly believe this, too?
Actually the point of the Rudy Gay thread all began with a hunch: which happened when Randolph went down. The assumption was that Rudy Gay would elevate his scoring, but that did not happen. So I was wrong. Ironically, this year everybody is saying the grizzlies are better without Zach in the starting lineup. Last year it was the reverse.
Look Jay, to answer your question about the Rockets getting blown up against the Mavericks, it's just too easy to say we're not as talented as them. What happened to the other 6 games? Did our talent level just decide to rise up and then drop for game 7? No. It's mental and it's leadership. And leadership starts from the coach then down to your best players. It's ok they lost to the Mavericks, but to lose by 40, you know there was something missing in the game plan. It wasn't ok, it threw what we thought of this team out the window. This tough defensive minded JVG team getting rocked by 40?? come on dude. There's something mental going on. It's not a coincidence, that we beat Portland without McGrady and with offensively challenged Ron Artest. It's not a coincidence this guy never won a playoff series. It's not a coincidence, that after he left Toronto, they made to the 2nd round of the playoffs, he left Orlando, they drafted Howard and Howard led them to much better success. If getting into the hall of fame is simply just how a player "peaks" then Tmac needs to get his speech ready so he can thank his brainless fans and adidas. But I hope the Hall recognizes the body of work not just 'peaks'. I believe they honored Reggie by his body of work. And his body of work is way better than the talented guy who burns bridges.
Fair enough. And to be clear, I like that you value winning more than stats. I do too. I just want the Rockets to win. If they did so with 10 players averaging 10 points a game, great. Miller is twice the leader TMac ever was. But from a talent perspective I dont think its close. Keep in mind TMac rarely/never had other solid veteran leaders on his team... like Mark Jackson... a coach/leader on the floor... which admittedly he BADLY needed. And if you do look at stats, TMac high PER of 30.3 blows away Reggie's high. Of course it blows away most peoples. few have ever had a statistical season like that
I saw all these Tmac games and was excited this guy came to the Rockets like everyone else. But I was also excited to see Scottie Pippen join the Rockets like everybody else. The roller coaster of the Rockets beating the Mavericks early and the Magic Johnson declaring Yao and Tmac the next Shaq/Kobe to us getting whipped by 40 points was crazy. Then we lost to Utah, then you know the rest of the story. But as an old fan who saw Dream play, you wonder, why isn't this working? these guys have the talent. Then you watch Mario Elie interview talking about Dream after losing game 5 "I was down and Dream came up to me and said Don't worry Mario, we're going home" Then you read that Kenny 's favorite moment was not when he jacked up all those 3s against Orlando, but when Dream asked his teammates to join him when he won the MVP. Then you get it, you know what it takes to be a champion.
By this logic, I should also not like the Beatles/Led Zep or any of the bands before my time. Just because you were there doesn't mean that people who weren't can't like it.
All this post speaks to is winning versus losing. Meaning, I have no idea what TMac did or didnt say... If he won itd be a different story. Same if Olajuwon lost. But TMac did lose and Hakeem did win... So there are some leadership issues there, clearly. But I never argued otherwise. Talent trumps leadership, though. Shane Battier was a great leader. Avery Johnson... Great leader. Examples go on and on. Those guys don't make the HOF though. I still think Miller is borderline HOFer. But a great player and solid leader... Sure.
All I'm saying is that watching Hakeem his whole career I have some perspective that those who may have only watched him for those 2 championship seasons. I would never profess to understand the Rudy T, Calvin and Malone era to those that watched it first hand. A lot of rockets fans were hooked by the rockets in 94/95. But some of us were hooked far earlier than that. For me, it was when the rockets bounced out the Lakers in '86. From then on I bleed rockets until Hakeem was traded.
I think the team clearly outperformed for 6 games and it caught up with them. I don't care if they lost by 40 or 1. It's a loss. I argue the Game 7 loss to Utah was much worse - and it wasn't a 40 point loss. At home, winning in the 4th quarter and still lose. Another game I was at. And I absolutely blame that on TMac. Yao also takes blame. Yao couldnt grab a rebound down the stretch. But the offense went stagnant too. And that's because as often happened in his career, be stopped bein aggressive and started settling for jumpers. Finally, you underrate Artest, Yao and the depth of the rockets team that beat Portland. Yao was a better more mature player. Ron could still score but more importantly was a top notch defender (also not a strength of TMAC). But most importantly, the team overall was much more than a one or two man show. It had a bunch of solid contributors and depth. I don't think TMac is a HOFer. Or if he is, it's also borderline. But I do think, unquestionably he was a more talented, more well rounded, more complete, better overall player than Reggie at their peaks.
You are leaving out a major factor. Rick Adelman. His teams were NEVER a one or two man show. It's always a well balanced offense. JVG's show was about defense and the offense relied on 2 players. It was painful to watch the offense at times. Even though the TOFs here think if Tmac scratches his nose they jump like Ewoks seeing 3PO on the moon of Endor. Rick's system worked. We got to see all these good guys talent shine. I hate the TOFs for solely crediting Tmac for the 22 game streak (he didn't even play 22 games). But then again, these guys aren't real Rocket fans .
How are they misleading? TMac never made it out of the first round. Posting Reggie's Miller's first round stats in comparison with a guy that never made it out of the first round is misleading? Reggie Miller is one of the greatest shooters of all time. The rest of his stat line might be comparable to Kevin Martin's but he was a much more efficient shooter than Martin and in the clutch you could always go to Reggie for the last shot unlike Martin. Also, anybody that watched both play would say that Reggie was a much more fierce competitor than Martin. Why would i have to be smoking something to believe that we would have beat the Jazz in 07 or 08 with Reggie instead of TMac. In 07 Tmac shot 39% from the field and 25% from behind the 3 pt line against the Jazz and in 08 he he shot 42% and 20%. I'd be willing to bet a 27 and 28 year old Reggie would have played better than that in both of those series.
