http://www.nba.com/features/player_rankings.html 9. Tracy McGrady, Houston PPG RPG APG SPG BPG FG% FT% 23.4 5.4 6.2 1.1 0.6 .441 .683 # Last Week's Rank - 15 When his back doesn't act up, T-Mac is capable of carrying the load in Houston. He's dropped 37, 28 and 25 points in his past three games -- all Rockets wins.
Our boy Tracy has been playing out of his mind since Yao has been gone. He looks like the T-mac we all knew and loved from the 2004 season. If he keeps it up I think he is worthy of MVP talk, possibly even landing in the top 3 with Nash and Kobe at the end of the year.
1. Nash 2. McGrady 3. Arenas Where would the Rockets be without T-Mac??? He has had a true MVP performance, when you lose another MVP in Yao, and then T-Mac steps up back to young Tmac and dominates and carries the team on the way to the #3 record in all of basketball without Yao. He is doing it all, scoring a ton, coming up with huge clutch performances (san antonio), getting his teammates involved and is leading the team by example. Plus if he hadn't beein injured and not playing like himself early in the season, he would probably be at 28-30 ppg, 6 rpg, 6 apg. Even if he doesn't win the MVP, he has clearly re-established himself as one of the top 3-5 players in the league, and a dominant force.
How good has McGrady been this month? I'll compare his numbers with some of the other great wing players in the game. All boxscore stats are per 40 minutes, and GS is a per minute player rating stat. By the numbers, only Wade has been better amongst high scoring perimeter players. McGrady is scoring more per minute than anyone else, and his efficiency isn't too bad either. It's amazing that he's scoring so much and getting so many assists, while his turnovers are very low. It looks like he's finally snapped out of his high-turnover funk once the old ball came back. Looking at the numbers, he shoots a lot of threes despite not having a great percentage, and he doesn't capitalize as much as the others from the free throw line. He doesn't get many of them because he shoots so many jumpers (FTA% estimates the trips the foul line as a percentage of total scoring attempts), and when he gets there he only shoots 70%. If he could cut down the three point attempts, get himself to the free throw line more, and concentrate on making his free throws he'd be even better. Code: [B] [COLOR=DarkSlateBlue]Offense [/COLOR] [COLOR=DarkGreen]Rebounding[/COLOR] [COLOR=DarkRed]Defense[/COLOR] Player Min GS [COLOR=DarkSlateBlue]PTS TS% AS TO[/COLOR] [COLOR=DarkGreen]OR TR[/COLOR] [COLOR=DarkRed]ST BK PF[/COLOR][/B] Arenas 42.0 19.1 26.2 54.1% 5.9 2.8 1.2 5.1 2.0 0.2 2.6 Bryant 39.2 20.8 28.4 58.5% 6.3 3.8 1.1 6.2 0.9 0.5 2.6 Carter 36.4 19.2 27.5 56.8% 5.9 3.2 1.6 5.6 0.9 0.6 3.9 Hamilton 39.9 15.9 23.9 54.2% 4.5 2.1 1.2 4.0 0.7 0.5 3.6 Iverson 43.4 17.4 24.4 54.9% 6.8 3.6 0.1 2.7 1.5 0.2 0.9 James 43.1 17.9 24.9 53.9% 5.4 3.4 1.0 6.5 1.9 0.4 1.7 McGrady 37.3 23.2 31.5 54.6% 7.4 2.6 0.7 6.2 1.3 0.5 2.1 Wade 40.6 25.2 30.1 58.0% 7.8 3.5 1.3 5.9 2.5 1.0 2.6 [B]Shooting Statistics Player TS% FG% 2FG% 3FG% eFG% FT% FGA 3A FTA FTA%[/B] Arenas 54.1% 40.6% 43.8% 34.4% 46.4% 85.8% 20.6 7.0 8.3 15.1% Bryant 58.5% 46.0% 49.5% 32.0% 49.2% 87.0% 19.8 3.9 10.3 18.6% Carter 56.8% 48.7% 54.2% 31.8% 52.6% 75.3% 21.1 5.2 7.0 12.7% Hamilton 54.2% 46.7% 48.0% 33.3% 48.2% 80.2% 19.0 1.6 7.0 13.9% Iverson 54.9% 44.6% 45.5% 39.0% 47.4% 84.2% 18.8 2.7 7.9 15.6% James 53.9% 47.0% 51.7% 29.7% 50.2% 67.0% 19.8 4.2 7.6 14.4% McGrady 54.6% 46.5% 52.0% 32.1% 50.9% 70.2% 25.2 7.0 8.4 12.8% Wade 58.0% 47.3% 49.5% 25.0% 48.5% 80.7% 20.2 1.8 13.0 22.1%
As much as I love Tracy, I would actually like to see Arenas get MVP and stick it up coach K's a** for not picking him in USA Basketball team!!! and plus I like Arenas! but I love Tmac!!!! if Yao was still playing then he would've been a top MVP candidate but we wouldn't woken up the real Tmac that we all see today! like they say everything happens for a reason!! and for Rockets its a good reason!!!!
You and I think alike. Let Gilbert win the MVP and let the Rockets beat the Wizards in the Finals. With the Pacers out of contention, that is my NBA dream Finals. I've got my dream Super Bowl already.
why is dirk not #1? he's the best player on a team tied for the best record and he has less talent around him than nash and he has the best combo of things like PER, +/-, roland ratings, net production (from 82games.com) of anyone. it's like in the past we used to look for reasons not to give someone an mvp if they already had one, now we'll look for any reason to give it to nash. it's like it's just assumed he should win it again despite, again, not being the best player in the league or deserving it. i just don't get the fascination, other than the fact phoenix scores a lot. would anyone think he was the mvp if he played for any other team? if he played on boring ol' houston and put up 18/10 would anyone pay that much attention? no, but the style of the play gets him so many bonus points it's crazy. oh well. and good to see tmac recognized. he's been phenomenal since yao went down and with his shot coming back, has looked pretty close to the old tracy and is making our offense much better than most anyone thought it would be w/o yao around.
durvasa: I'm not sure even Wade has necessarily been better than McGrady. Wade is averaging over 3 more minutes per game, producing slightly less scoring on a lower eFG%, rebounds less, and even though their assist numbers are virtually identical, McGrady's A/TO ratio is significantly better. Plus Dwayne Wade isn't nearly the defender McGrady is. T-Mac has flat out been the best wingman in the NBA this month, period.
Wade's per minute numbers are arguably better than McGrady's (by the GS player rating formula I used, they are; I imagine his PER would be better as well). That he's played 3 more minutes per game shouldn't be held against him; in fact, he should probably get some extra credit for that. As for defense, I don't quite agree with your assessment. McGrady is a good defender, but like Wade he's rarely matched up against potent offensive players. Wade averaged nearly twice as many steals and twice as many blocks than McGrady. That should count for something. Further, McGrady has had a few really terrible performances this month; while Wade has been more consistent. Both have been really, really good, but I give Wade a slight edge. Like I said, if McGrady would cut down on all the three and capitalize more from the free throw line, he'd be much better.
durvasa, player's team record and the competition strength need to be weighed in when evaluting MVP candidates, although I am not sure how much weight you should assign to for either category. I think if you do factor in these two, McGrady would be way ahead of Wade, who is more or less like a McGrady of '03-'04 in Orlando.
Perhaps. I was only comparing how impressive their individual numbers were. If the players switched roles, and Houston got Wade while Miami got McGrady -- which team would be better off (relative to where they are now)?
Can Mcgrady win player of the month? if we win tonight, Rockets are 10-4 for January (McGrady) Suns are 15-1 (Nash) Mavs are 13-1 (1 game tonight) (Dirk) Wiz are 10-4 (1 game tonight) (Arenas) Those seem to be the top teams with legit candidates I think we have had some quality wins as well as our strength of schedule has been the toughest....tough call i hope he gets it!
