[Dime] Who’s Better: Manu Ginobili or Tracy McGrady?

English DO YOU SPEAK IT?

I said, "Oh, and he only shows up in the playoffs? Have you seen the rosters on the 2005 team? How about carrying the team to 20-12 without Yao in 2007. Or carrying the team to top four seed last year without Yao for a third of the year. Without him none of that happens."

You were saying?

 

i disagree with everything written here, except for him being more talented. he wants to win, 60pts was a long time ago, different team.

we're looking good with artest as the 6th man.

 

wow, had seen the teams last year in the west conference??we were luckie enough to make it..to the playoff?
the regular season, don't mean nothing if you can't make it to the playoff, tahst what the all team play for...

 

That read on Tracy is spot on. Manu gets props for winning the big one, but seriously, Manu is number two or three on his team. Tracy has always been number one and not just in number.

p.s. I'd like to see Manu shut down Dirk in a seven game playoff.

 

I bet you have not seen the Spurs play in the last 5 years.

Ginobili finishes most of his games, and half the times he does that from isolation plays.

Look at the Suns-Spurs 2nd overtime of last seasons first playoff game, or go to the utah series the year before, he has done that many times.

You can say a lot of things about Ginobili, but saying he cannot get the job done in the end of games is not one of them

Many here say that Ginobili is not the first option for SA, and that is right, he is the third, but becomes the first options when it matters most, in crunch time, and he has done it quite well since his rookie season.
http://www.82games.com/CSORT11.HTM
check his percentages, the guy is money.

Ask Nuggets, Sonics, Phoenix or Dallas fans, they all have suffered Ginobili at the end of games, the guy practically makes half his shots in the clutch, too bad Rockets fans never had the chance to see him in playoffs.

Overall i think McGrady is a better player, for many things, his game flows natural, his shoot is more natural, but the thing that Manu gets the job done cannot be taken appart from him, and that something we will always say fo T-Mac, but hipotetically.

Ginobili has taken what was given to him and has won at any level, it can´t always be luck.

 

I think this is a little overstated. I'm not saying T-Mac didn't play good defense, but it was more about Dirk shutting down himself. He was terrible.

 

Yeah, I remember Jon Barry calling Ryan Bowen "The Germanator" in the series. Nowitzki was off.

 

that's easy to say. dirk is a great scorer. you may be off for a 2-3 game stretch, but the ENTIRE series.

we played great defense on teh guy. and we were one of the first few teams to put smaller, quicker guys on dirk and dirk couldn't adjust.

he probably would do better now b/c he has faced that type of defense now. but tracy and bowen def. did do a great job of shutting dirk down.

tracy's defense in the playoffs is overlooked. in every series, he has played tremendous individual and team defense.

 

Dirk was off the whole series and struggled in the next one against the Suns if I'm not mistaken. He was struggling with his shot and didn't have a post game he has now that would've tortured anyone.

 

he was playing much better v. the suns (i think he averaged 25+).

again, it was probably that we were one of the first few teams to put smaller quicker guys on him. and tracy at that time was much quicker and just as strong as dirk so dirk couldn't do much of anything.

he played much better v. the suns.

 

If you shot at his FG%, it wasn't real efficient. He got 25+ pts because he threw it up a ton. Again, I'm not saying T-Mac didn't play well defensively, but you have to give some credit to the offensive player sucking it up. T-Mac AND Bowen played him well, but to say that they were "shut down" defenders is misleading.

 

Well does anyone think that Ginobili would take any of the T-mac led teams past the 1st Round or to the playoffs?

I seriously doubt it.

Give me T-mac, even when he's not scoring he is still effective.

 

dirk came into the playoffs shooting 46% that year in 04-05.

1st round: 21.3ppg on 35% shooting
2nd round: 26.5ppg on 45.3% shooting.

so trust me, it was our defense. people think tracy slacks off defensively in the reg. season and assumes he always slacks off. watch his playoff series.

he has slowed down glenn robinson TWICE (went into both series averaging 21ppg but only put up 13ppg inthe playoffs), chauncey billups until game 7, and then dirk. he has played ak47 and harpring very well the past 2 jazz series.

he steps up his intensity in the playoffs, both offensively and defensively.

 

Let me clarify my statement.

Would Ginobili take the Orlando teams that T-mac led to the playoffs?

and

Would Ginobili take the Houston teams that T-mac led past the 1st Round or last year to the playoffs?


If Tim Duncan went to Orlando that year I think it's safe to say T-mac's career would have went in a different direction as far as results in the playoffs.

I don't know how Ginobili career would have went but I don't think it would be as good as it is now.

 

Good post. I think T-Mac can do a good job against big wings who like to ISO -- players who don't rely on quickness or brute strength to score. Nowitzki has improved as a post up player since that season so I'm not sure how effective T-Mac would be against him now.

 

tracy can't guard guys who run around a lot like rip hamilton or peja b/c he doesn't have the stamina. but like you said, v. guys who prefer to iso, tracy will do a great job.

right now, tracy can't guard dirk b/c he's still favoring that leg (as you can see). but as he plays more, his defense will improve.

but i don't think you'll see him on scorers as much unless battier or artest REALY struggle or are in foul trouble, which i doubt. but tracy can play D. when battier struggled last yr to defend harpring or ak47, adelman put tracy on them.

 

I'm not sure about Orlando. But we aren't comparing Ginobili to Orlando T-Mac. We're comparing him to 2008 T-Mac.

Could we have gotten to the playoffs last year with Ginobili instead of McGrady? Sure, I think its possible. Ginobili would fit beautifully in Adelman's system, because he plays off the ball, he moves the ball, and he'll hustle more in transition. Tracy does some other things better, but I see no reason to assume that we'd be a lottery team last season with Manu instead of Tracy.

 

tracy 2 straight games last yr played 48 minutes when yao went out. i don't think manu can do that.

the one thing that manu clearly lacks is a playmaker. with rafer last yr, you can't just expect manu to play off the ball all the time. he has to be a playmaker and make the game easier for his teammates. he has never done that.

could he? i don't know b/c he has never done so. but you're asking manu to become a go-to guy when he has never been asked to do so. and at age 31 with his fragile body, i doubt manu could have led us to the playoffs and take the jazz to 6 games.

 

Manu has never been a playmaker? I don't agree with that statement. Tracy is extra special with his ability to see over defenses and deliver cross court passes (amongst wings, only LeBron does it better), but Ginobili isn't a slouch when it comes to creating shots for teammates. Over the last couple years, how many wings have averaged more assists/minute than Ginobili? You could probably count them on one hand -- LeBron, Wade, T-Mac, Joe Johnson, Brandon Roy. No others come to mind, and Manu's assist/min is only a fraction less than Johnson's and Roy's.

 

Only reason I brought up Orlando because some people mentioned the fact that T-mac has never been past the 1st round.

If we are comparing the 2008 T-mac to Ginobili it's still tough to compare them because they both were hurt. I'd take the T-mac as of late over Ginobili.