Well, I go on another basketball board and fellow friend and Rockets fan on the board told me to post this message for him since he's not a member here. Here is the message.... I see a lot of people around here have great misconceptions about what kind of player T-Mac was when he was with Orlando. I have been a huge fan of T-Mac since his Magic days, and have Magic games downloaded on my computer....so I am very well accustomed to T-Mac of the Magic. First of all, people seem to think he was like Dwyane Wade where he drove fiercly to the basket almost every single possesion. Well, you guys couldn't be more wrong. Compared to what he does today, he took roughly the same ratio of jumpers:drives to basket that he does today. He has always been more of a jumpshooter than slasher. There are 2 BIG differences to that T-Mac and the Rockets' T-Mac, though- 1) Position. The biggest difference about T-Mac then was that Doc Rivers had a PG in Darryl Armstrong that could bring up the ball, and it allowed T-Mac proper scoring position. For T-Mac, this was in a post up position 18ft out on the left wing. From this position, he was lights out...able to shoot turnaround jumper, post up, drive on either side of rim, step back jumper, the dribble right and spin left fadeaway, etc... With the Rockets, since they have never really had a good playmaking PG, he has always gotten the ball 30ft out straightaway. Being that he doesn't have D Wade speed, and since he plays SG rather than SF, he cannot take players off the dribble all the time. This means that most of the time with JVG, he was forced to take bad pullup jumpers, and this really hurt his shooting percentages.When he was put into the proper scoring position, the 18ft postup, he was terrific (check the first few shots of the Mavs game where he scored 45). 2) Willingness to absorb contact at the rim. While he is still just as good at getting to the rim as he has always been, he has increasingly been more hesistant to fly into defender and go to foul line. Instead, when he gets near rim he fades away and throws a tear dropper. He showed better ability to forcefully attack basket against the Jazz, but for the most part when he got near rim he would hesitate. Now that I have cleared those things up, I want to say that I expect big things this year from T-Mac. When Adelman says he will use T-Mac off ball more, I truly think he doesn't mean that he will have T-Mac slashing to basket constantly, throwing down multiple alley oop's per game, and running around screens like Rip Hamilton...rather he will force the true PG's to get offense running, and get T-Mac into a better position to score at an efficient rate. If this happens, I fully expect T-Mac's PPG to rise a bit, FG % to rise to around 46-47%, 3pt % to rise, and being closer to the basket also will likely increas ehis rebounding numbers. With all that happenning, he will re-establish himself as the 2nd best scorer in the league (behind Kobe).
I agree that Tmac has never had the (young) Jordan or Wade type of mentality when it comes to attacking the basket, but last season he threw up more jump shots than usual and I mainly believe it's because he was afraid to injure his back.....I still remember the Hornets game where he got fouled hard when he took it to the basket, and he never came close to getting to the basket for the rest of the night.
This part makes no sense. As horrific as Rafer was at many things last year, the one thing he did do well was get the ball up the court. And even with all that, Darrell Armstrong was never all that either when T-Mac was there. He had a good season with Orlando in 00-01, T-Mac's first season there, but to the exten Tracy had the best statistical seasons his last two, Darrell's career was already in decline. The other points make more sense. It was (1) a T-Mac thing. He just doesn't drive as much anymore, partly/mainly due to his back; and (2) JVG and offense do not go together. Adelman's use of Tracy should be as looked forward to as his use of Yao...one would expect the game to get easier on offense for both of them...maybe not resulting in better stats, but certainly increased efficiency (Tracy higher FG%, Yao fewer turnovers).
Nice post. Does clear things up a little more. I also would rather have him post up. He does seem to have trouble beating some players (Derek fisher) off the dribble.
Good point... "(2) JVG and offense do not go together. " Good point... Rafer's ability to bring up the ball and initiate the offense
I think you're missing the point. His point was that Armstrong would bring up the ball and dump it into T-Mac in the post. Well the only issue now is that we have a really tall Chinese guy standing there instead so T-Mac has to hang out on the wings a lot more and as a result settles for more jumpshots and has a harder time getting to the basket.
super post, someone should sign this person as a member of this board so we get more "expert" feels about tmac's game. Instead of reading tons of "is tmac a point-forward" craps. I think this really exposed the reason why alston is no longer needed and why adelman and morey prefer SF and MJ at PG than Alston. Alston can bring the ball up to half court, but that's about it. he can't penetrate, he can't create for others. he pull up to half court and pass the ball to either Yao or tmac to create rooms for other, then he stood there and jack up 3s, Just go back and watch alston play against full court press or half court press. he gets trap and render uselss.
Also, don't forget the rules have changed some since his Orlando Days. Back then, zones weren't allowed. It's a lot easier to get to the rim in those days cuz basically after you break off the initial defender, everybody else were still out of position. But people would say that the handcheck rule would somewhat cancel that out BUT the handcheck rule really is an advantage of an Aaron Brooks than to a McGrady. As the initial poster mentioned, McGrady is not really speedy but crafty. So the rule change HURTS both Yao AND McGrady to a certain extent.
Not quite. Stats don't reflect on how big influence Darrell had on Magic's game, especially on the defensive end. And the truth is, they were overachieving by reaching the playoffs for 3 consecutive years. Doc Rivers' brilliant idea to replace him with Tyronn Lue prior to 03-04 season proved that as Magic completely collapsed.
His reply... Rafer brings the ball up the court, but it is always right to T-Mac 30ft straight away so T-Mac can run the offense (99% of the time a pick and roll at top of key). In Orlando, Armstrong could run the offense while T-Mac sat on the wing oir going backdoor. There is a reason T-Mac didn't lead the team in assists 2 out of the 3 years Armstrong played with him.
Agree and disagree. To the extent that you're blaming this on Rafer's inadequacies I disagree. Defensively, Armstrong is definitely better than Rafer. Offensively, they're the same player...which is blah for both. Rafer is equally capable fo bringing the ball up and passing it to Tracy wherever. The few things Rafer did do exceptionally well were bring the ball up the court and initiate the offense. He certainly isn't a playmaker, but he did initiate the offense successfully, to the degree that there really was no backup PG to take Rafer out because the offense became stagnated when JVG tried to play Luther at point, or JLIII or V-Span, or anyone other than Rafer or T-Mac. Point being, any number of true PG's coudl have done what Darrell did in Orlando, Rafer included. The thing I agree on is that true, often all Rafer did was bring the ball up and pass to T-Mac on the wing. I will say that there were far more T-Mac post-ups on the Rockets than you're making it out. He continued to often get the ball posting up at 18-20 ft. or so, but he also often got it 30 ft. out on the wing. What's more, as has been mentioned, the Rockets have Yao, the Magic didn't. Tracy's post-up opportunities should have diminished. But in general, its hard to disagree that Tracy should be "handling" the ball less and put into scoring opportunities more frequently before actually getting the ball. I'm hoping where Adelman's offense will be an improvement over both the Magic and the Rockets (well how couldn't it be on that last one) is that it may get Tracy the ball in even more effective situations...coming off screens, on the way to the basket taking a high post pick from Yao, more give and go's, more movement overall leading to less double teams and more open shots, etc. One hopes it will do similar things for Yao (increasing the number of post-up opportunities close to the basket and reducing post up opportunities 18 feet away, but increasing face-up/jumpshot/passing opportunities 18 ft. from the basket and becoming a more effective pick and roll/pop player...and a better passer).
great post. look at the dunk v. the lakers on kwame. look at the dunk he did v. the pistons. those are WEEEAAAK dunks. if he has more confidence in his back, those would be SLAMS.
u also gotta remember there was mike miller there. there was pat garrity. that team was LOADED with shooters outside of his last yr there. alston is a HORRIFIC shooter that tmac has no spacing. even if u put a battier or a head, there is always alston out there chucking it a horrific rate. tmac had more space to operate in orlando in terms of how spread the floor was. here he has yao clogging the paint and then alston's bad shooting making it worse.
These are good points. Check out his 62 point performance on youtube...majority of his points came off of mid-range jumpers.
I don't think it was the point guard getting the ball to T-Mac in the right place. It was the offense run by JVG. Adelman's offense may open things up for T-Mac. He uses a lot of picks and screens to start the offense 15-18 feet from the bucket.
