[sirius radio-full court press] Kenny Smith says "TMAC not a great player"

kenny wishes he could be as bad ass as t-mac but unfortunatley until his back chills he is not a "great player" just due to the fact that he is not on the court.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQAxaGLxsIw

 

u rite, but with high pay and low efficience

Q：Do you know 76ers have something on the website where there is like 26 different arrows pointing to your body part where you have been injured, 26!



AI：I am a warrior, man.




Q:Well, we konw that. Do you feel there is a lack of warriors in the NBA game



Yeah.



Q:What's the reason for that?



I don't know. You can not play basketball if you are soft, and basketball players know what I am talking about. You don't see me playing the game dirty. I don't get into fights with dudes, stuff like that. Noboday puts their hands on me, I don't put my hands on nobody. Play hard don't mean playing dirty, like giving elbows, knockingpeople's teeth out, that's not playing hard. playing hard is like if the ball is right there, you are close, but if I dive, I can get it. that's playing hard, that's what I do every night. some guy see the ball on the ground, like, I am not messing my knees up, jumping on the ground for this ball, look, I'll do it the next play, maybe. next game, someday, but my legs hurt today.

QI have a question, when you look at the league right now, you think about your heart, does anybody compare, does anybody in the NBA that you can point to that you feel like is on your level in terms of heart, if who, know him. I wanna know who they are.

Lebron, TMac, Larry Hughes...

 

I hope and wish Kenny Smith gets booed by the Red Rowdies when the Rockets celebrate the 20 year reunion of the first Championship, that will be cool.

 

Hakeem made Kenny Smith an NBA player. Barkley makes Kenny Smith an analyst. Kenny Smith should know about not being great, because he never was good.

 

Well I'm not sure about your argument on passion and competative fire and all that but what Kenny Smith probably should have said is that Tmac is No Longer a great player. And there is most definitely evidence to support this statement and it's due to his past and current injury situation. My fear is that we may be seeing another Jeff Bagwell episode with Tmac. Tmac's point production has been on the decline for the past 5 years. He's gone from averaging 29 PPG to 19 PPG so far this year. He missed 35 games last year with a bad back and 5 games and counting this year. The big (unspoken) fear in Rocketland is that his condition has indeed become chronic which throws cold water on the Yao & Tmac "Big Two" philosophy upon which this team was built. Given all this, I cannot consider Tmac as one of the premier players in the league until he (once again) starts showing it on the court.

 

I would love to b**** slap Kenny. Maybe someone should ask Mario Ellie what he thinks about his hatin ass on his radio show on 610am.

 

When people defend Tmac they always mention the horrible Orlando team. There is no doubt in my mind that if you put Hakeem on that team that they would have winning record. That’s the difference between a great player and a good player.

There have been comments that Kenny Smith was not a good player. One person mentioned that if it wasn’t for Hakeem, Kenny would not have been in the NBA. That is a very good point, Hakeem made Kenny Smith into a better player. Who did TMac make better?

TMac has a .450 winning percentage. If Tmac were a coach, with that winning percentage, no one would want him. No one would say, oh he’s a great coach he just has bad players. Why does Tmac get a break for having a losing record?

 

Listening to Kenny and Charles is like listening to two chickenheads.


get your facts straight and then speak.

 

I really hope this doesn't happen. Kenny is just doing his job -- having opinions is part of that job. Kenny played hard and help contribute to those championships. We should celebrate that!

 

If people on here chastised Tracy for not being able to lead a team to a championship, I don't want to fathom what Juwan Howard can't do.

 

The biggest knock on T-Mac is not getting out of the first round. Once he does that (along with Yao) a lot of criticism (maybe not a lot, but definitely some) will be alleviated.

The thing other great players that haven't won a championship have over T-Mac is that they got out of the first round, and that's sad but true.

KG, AI, even LeBron somtimes, etc.

Hopefully that will change this season.

For saying T-Mac has no heart, do you think you know more than Iverson about T-Mac?

 

mbiker

What makes you think Hakeem would have taken that Orlando team to the playoff? You conveniently forget how Hakeem himself missed the playoff before going bonkers to elevate himself to the legendary status. By your account, Hakeem could not be considered as a "great player" in the early 90s. Hindsight is 20/20.

Of course, there are a lot of intangibles not quantifiable for any basketball player, and to certain extent these have direct correspondance with the results of the team. But I cannot believe there are people in this world who are willing to locate the responsibility of whole team into the realm of single individual as he is the "leader" of the pack. The result is as much product of luck as it skills and intangibles. Once you neglect the last year of T-Mac's tenure for being an anomaly, then you would get close to a 50% ball club. They aren't exactly great, especially in the Leastern Conference, but one could hardly qualify T-Mac for being a looser. And I am not going to bring up statistical evidence for T-Mac greatness because they are pretty much self-evident.

I know a lot these perceptions used to judge individual "greatness" are based on the heroics of Jordon, but if anything the career path of his "airness" demonstrate the need for good team-mates, and coach. From an individual player point of view, there is only "limit" to what you can achieve - this being NBA and the competition level is extremely high. You are constrained by the quality of your team-mate, environment within the camp, coach, and ultimately luck. Consequently, no individual can trascend the level of competition on a regular basis, and beat teams on his own. If anything, such an effort have back-clashes as Kobe found out to his cost.

 

Funny how that was your 81st post, but DAMN it's a good one.

 

I do think that one player can make a huge difference. Here are some examples:

Suns before Steve Nash 29-53
Suns after Steve Nash 62-20

Rockets before Hakeem Olajuwon 29 - 53
Rockets after Hakeem Olajuwon 48-34

Orlando before Shaq 21-61
Orlando after Shaq 41-41

Spurs before Duncan 20-62
Spurs after Duncan 56-26

Heat before Dwyane Wade 25-57
Heat after Dwyane Wade 42-40

Celtics before Larry Bird 29-53
Celtics after Larry Bird 61-21

Lakers before Magic Johnson 47-35
Lakers after Magic Johnson 60 -22