Already tried it, not going to work. Swingmen should not be point guards. Sure, they can bring up the ball and run a play once in awhile, but otherwise you let a real point handle the ball. It has nothing to do with height, it's just that playing style dictates that Tmac should not be a PG. Kobe and Lebron have experimented at PG before also and it didn't work out. Now, they are wing players full-time despite having the worst PG rotations in the league. But I appreciate JVG trying to do something new.
The idea is to have Tracy iso and create. He can pass to Yao or to 3 other shooters (or 2 shooters plus Bonzi). This can't be a full-time strategy, but could be devastatingly effective late in games and at the end of quarters. I agree we don't want Tracy playing the point full-time because it would wear him out. One thing that should be worked on this season is getting Tracy involved without him having to always create on his own. He needs to get more "easy" baskets.
You beat me to the punch. I remember this and agree with it....somewhat. TMac has always reminded me of Magic, and Yao is -sort of- like Kareem. But since we're in the 'win now' mode, I'm a little leery of doing something so radicly different if we want to 'win now'. But if JVG decides to go with it, there aren't many players who could pull it off like TMac, and we have the role players now to make it happen.
"Certainly, you could make the case that he'll be our primary ball-handler," Van Gundy said, "because he's our best decision-maker. You have to surround him with enough shooting." I'm pretty sure this entire article can be reduced to this single quote. I don't think T-Mac is going to be bringing the ball up against a press or anything like that. What I DO think is that JVG wants to be able to run a lineup out on the floor early in games that doesn't include Rafer "Brickin' 3s" Alston.
good post, RD. initially, i had a hard time coming around to the idea presented in the aforementioned article. however, what you (or Magic) suggest does sound tempting, and frankly, pretty achievable with our current roster..... in fact, that's very well could be what JVG and company had in mind when assembling this roster. i think the possibilities with a roster/lineup built around that premise (tmac as primary ball handler) holds a lot of potential, injuries notwithstanding. Hmmm indeed....... EDIT: although i hate the thought of howard being our starting 4.
I think John Lopez doesn't know what he's talking about. That directly contradicts the need for shooters on the floor when McGrady is handling the ball. That lineup has only one good three point shooter, Shane Battier, and he's never been a volume shooter either.
oh my god, yao at point, that is so funny. And indeed, mismatch city. We would trample teams with yao at the point.
Since you're so certain in that ranking ("OBVIOUSLY"), you must have some very well thought out criteria. What is it?
I think a few are overreacting here. As some people mentioned, and the article, this is not a fulltime thing. When Rafer is resting, or they want to create more mismatches. I'm interested in how this will turn out. I like the basic idea. The Magic/Kareem analogy is a good one. It'll be interesting to see if they can recreate that to some degree. It's a happy time of year fellas/gals! Preseason coming up! Too much negativity! Hahaha, I'm stupid.
I guess there's no harm in trying, but I still like having a traditional PG (if you consider Rafer a traditional PG) running the offense, TMac can just concentrate on running around screens and getting open. But a lineup of: PG: TMac-Alston-JL3 SG: Wells-Head-Spanoulis SF: Battier-Snyder-Novak PF: Howard-Hayes-Padgett C: Yao-Deke
I'm not sure why people are worried about T-Mac playing point. We've already seen him do a lot of that for this team, especially last year while Rafer was out. And despite half of our team being down to injury, we were still winning a respectable percentage of games. It *is* a matchup nightmare for the other team. And he *is* the best distributor and set up man we have, not Rafer. I don't expect it to be a full time, all the time thing, but it will happen more often than usual and opponents will not know when to expect it. Lots of people are worried about T-Mac getting easier shots -- the fact is T-Mac intends to be more of a complementary player this season. In other words: T-Mac is no longer the #1 option. Yao is. The sooner people understand this, the better. T-Mac doesn't have to worry about getting easy shots if he's demanding attention and feeding the ball to Yao or running P/Rs, with shooters all over the court. The easy shots will come to him, easily. And some others need to realize that this is an offensive strategy, not a defensive strategy. That's why JVG was talking about Luther playing along with T-Mac -- to guard opposing point guards, leaving T-Mac to defend the weaker swing man. We have so many options, so many possibilities with this new team, it almost makes you giddy to think about it. Forget about traditional positions and typical lineups. I've heard lots of people around here accuse JVG of not being creative -- if this article is correct, it would be very hard to make that accusation this season.
If there is any truth or sence to this proposition, I can't see it! It sounds like another case of JVG not wanting to COACH!! The alternative is a very fast, YOUNG, able & coachable John Lucas. Is JVG trying not going to give him the chance to develop as one of our great players?
this is just a new scheme they are trying out. if it works, then we might see it for only a few minutes a game. maybe to end the half or something like that. just to throw a missmatch out there and catch the other team off guard.
If they are going to try to make T-Mac a PG I hope they don't get off to a bad start and have to make it up later. This team needs some kind of offensive identity and if Yao and T-Mac can make it work I'm all for it. You have to kind of scratch your head at all the guards the team has signed this off season in light of having T-Mac play PG. It's like the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.
I think its great, beside from the ability to run off the screen and shoot the jumper, tmac is also great and pulling up for 3s unexpectedly.
I don't know i say just give this line-up a few looks at practice and maybe run it during pre-season to see if it works but i don't see it being very effective for long periods of times. But i think they really need to look at Head and Alston in these early weeks of practice and see who would help out the team if they had Bonzi-2,TMAC-3,Batteir-4, and Yao-5 and whoever would fit that mold the best should become the "Starter" while they both can switch out for plenty of minutes
I like the idea of a point forward type of situation, but it would mean that Aslton would limited minutes. Obviously, this will only be a situational scenario.
I think Lopez needs to work on his communication skills. From what I gather, Tracy will play small forward or shooting guard. When Head, Spanoulis, and JLIII are playing the "PG", Tracy will play the point in the half court set sometimes. He won't be guarding point guards. He might not even always bring up the ball, but would get the ball early in the offense. Having the ball early will force the defense to stop Tracy first. Usually, the defense's first priority is to deny Yao the ball. I think Tracy does great things with the rock in his hands. With the depth depth the Rockets have at SF (Bonzi, Shane, and Snyder), Tracy can be rested more. Some lineups I could see where Tracy plays point: Howard, Battier, Tracy, Snyder, Head Howard, Hayes, Tracy, Wells, Spanoulis Yao, Padgett, Tracy, Snyder, JLIII
you definitely have to like the matchup possibilities this roster givers us.... i think to many people confine their ideas of a lineup to the tradiotnal 1-5 when more and more the NBA is moving towards more of a hybrid players league (not as many true positions, etc.). some of these schemes may take some getting used to (for both players and fans), but they greatly increase offensive potential and hopefully efficiency.
