ESPN INSIDER: TOP 10 BALLHOGS... Hey guys, Just something that I thought would interest you from my ESPN Insider acct. (I'm only typing what he said about Tracy, it won't let me cut and paste plus this article is LONG....) "Top 10 Ball Hogs" according to Terry Brown NBA Insider-- 1. Allen Iverson 2. Baron Davis 3. Tracy Mcgrady Stats: 31.4 Possesions per game (23.3 shots,5.5 assists,2.3 turnovers) Skinny: He begged for the spotlight in Toronto, and after finally getting it in Orlando, he couldn't wait to fall under Yao Ming's shadow in Houston. Could very well be the most important individual adjustment in the NBA this year. 4. Stephone Marbury 5. Lebron James 6. Vince Carter 7. Paul Pierce 8. Kevin Garnett 9. Jason Kidd 10. Kobe Bryant
Some players jobs are to put the biscuit in the basket and others are to get it to them. this list only shows who the players who are supposed to shoot. if tracy were the point gaurd on this team and his job was to distribute to scorers, my guess is he would not be on this list. Give me two or three of the guys on this list and a couple role players any day.
This isn't an opinion base list, well sort of, his opinion was that a formula of shots+assists+turnovers=the amount of "impact" possessions a player has per game, the higher the sum the more of a ball hog the player is. It's not perfect, but if you're going to use stats it's not too bad...
Chad Ford, now Terry Brown, geez!! ESPN should hire reliable news sportscaseters. Tracy McGrady WAS the Magic!!! Who could he pass it to? KG should have gotten the rock a lot more. JK, thats like saying Magic Johnson or Dennis Rodman was a ball hog when Magic was known to be a PASSER like JK and Rodman was a REBOUNDER. I guess Jk shouldn' run the offense all the time, he should share????
Amazing SF is not even on that list, but instead he has Lebron and Kid who likes to pass more. That has to be the most ridiculous list ever. Ballhog is overratted, sometimes certain player need the ball more if the teams needs to be successfull(Allan,Tracy and Baron).
Now I remember why nobody actually pays for the Insider...it seems like a list that was put together like a raffle drawing. I dont even know why I'm replying garbage, but Stephon passes way too much. Kobe never passes We have to put a gun to KG's head to make him shoot the ball. J Kidd is the best distributor in the league. Where is Francis? T-Mac better be holding on to the ball in Orlando (past) and baron Davis too, becuz Mashburn is always hurt. Did i mention that Kobe doesn't pass? And if KG ballhogs, then so does Shaq and Duncan, but wait they are all MVPs and the Great Ones get the ball.
I'd think that Assists would be a GOOD thing on this list...and be SUBTRACTED from the total, not added.
Post again in the GARM thread. Someone in **************** . net posed an interesting debates: # assists is not a good way to gauge unselfishness, especially for PGs. PG's role is to faciliate the ball movement. Guys like Marbury and Francis have ball at hands all the time and keep dribbling until they find an opportunity that leads to assist. They may have high assists but are not unselfish. A better gauge is #assists/ # passes for PGs. Lower is better because it means a PG passes the ball even if it won't lead to assists. You need enough assists to qualify though.
What qualifies to a ball hog? If the player poess the ball is the most efficient one, he should have the ball as much as he wants. Tmac is Olando, there wasnt anybody else on that team could do better than him. Now we have to see how he plays with Yao. It's not fair to say someone is ball hog just by showing how many minutes he has the ball in his hand.
Yeah but considering giving out assists to be part of ball hogging isn't a good way to guage unselfishness either. Ball Hogging is all about chucking shots. Guys that put up the most shots per possession are the biggest ball hogs, not guys that will pass it to teammates for a score.
5.5 assists for a shooting guard isn't bad at all. I'll take that from my SG anyday. Francis, who is a PG, averaged about 6. After the trade was made, I went back to see some of the Rox/Orlando games from the past 3 years. I noticed Tracy isn't that much of a ball hog as I thought he was. He has good court vision, many times he would make sweet passes on the pick-n-roll or when he would drive. Of course he was passing to Declerq and other scrubs. But I think he's a underrated passer. Many of those passes are passes that Steve or Cuttino wouldn't have made.
2003-2004 FGA/GM jason kidd - 14.3 steve francis - 14.1 and if being a ballhog is simply about holding the ball alot (which is what they're going with here essentially) then, yeah, kidd is a ballhog. it may not be a bad thing for the team, and he may get a lot of assists, but how many people handle the ball a lot on that team other than kidd? in 02-03 he led the team in scoring and averaged 9 apg. that's a lot of ballhandling/hogging.
Many of the above posts are guys who didn't feel like getting the whole story straight but couldn't wait to bash a media columnist for no reasons. It is sad to see such garbage posts in this site. Terry Brown used a formula to come out with his top-10 list, as simple as that. He didn't even say all these guys are 'real' ballhogs. He even started with a paragraph that mentioned guys like Paul Pierce had no choice but to hogged the ball in order for his team to win. I assumed this is also the case for TMac. From his comments on that top-10 list, you only get the 'ballhog' feel from Allen Iverson, Baron Davis, and Stephon Marbury. This is an article with 'ballhog' in names only. Too bad many posters couldn't, or not willing to, see it.
Exactly! To me, a ballhog is someone you pass the ball to and 99 times out of 100 it ain't coming out of his hands except to shoot or turn the ball over. And most of the time he's NOT a franchise player, except in his own mind, of course. Even if he has one or more wide open teammates, the ballhog is dead set and focused on getting his shot off. For instance, let's say a player(cough, Cuttino, cough)gets a pick from a teammate(cough, a 7'6" guy, cough) who then rolls WIDE OPEN toward the basket, only to be completely ignored by the ballhog, who takes an off balance fall away shot because his drive was cut off by the double team that left his 7'6" teammate wide open waiting for the pass and easy score that never came. That's your basic ball hog!
