Ok, thats fine...dont agree with me. Try and convince people that an assist is an inaccurate measurement of shot creation.
Wow...I don't think I've ever felt so much frustration while not being a part of a discussion. Just reading put me in a sour mood. Hockey Assist: A good thing. If you replace TMac with a player that is less offensive savvy (let's say Hayes), guess what? No open shots. Ball just goes around, and the shot clock winds down as a shot has to be forced up. The "good" is not rewarded for making the pass out of the double-team. It's only rewarded if the pass leads to an ASSIST that leads to a bucket. Anything else is rated as a bad (TO) or not rated (his play from the double team had no impact on the play). No one is taking away from the assist maker, but the pass to the open player wouldn't exist if the double on an offensively threatening player didn't happen. Instead the assistor would be passing to a covered player. So let's not give TOO much credit to the "easy" pass in comparison to the guy with two people on him. The assist person is usually open with a guy running at him, so he passes to that defenders man since he knows the defender can't switch directions. Not exactly a hard pass. People saying this is being shown as a tmac "good" game. Wrong it's a measurement, maybe not super accurate, but a general measurement of the impact of his plays on the team. For those saying he isn't earning 20 mill, 1.) I'm sure if we try hard enough we can list many many 10 mil players that REALLY suck if you guys want to sub in those 10 mil players instead and 2.) I'm sure many of us get overpaid, that's not the issue here *in this thread*. To those saying, what if tmac missed open shots vs. role players. This thread is in relation to TMac plays. Tmac misses on open shots are rated neutral. If he broke it down for...Battier, he'd rate shane's open misses as neurtal. I can't recall all the other r****ded things I've read in this whole thread but geez guys. The point of this thread is simple. For at least ONE game, all the hate on TMac was unfounded. If someone else wants to break down every other game, then we can see what the truth is. I don't see that happening.
No, hater, no one has a problem with someone else getting an assist for the play. People that played or that at least understand the game of basketball can understand who creates shots. That you don't get it...after it has been explained to you 20 times...proves that you don't understand the game. Sorry, but it's true. You like to debate and criticize, but you have absolutely no idea how the game is really played. Sorry, but it's true.
I totally agree with you, its clear to see that T-mac was a factor in those type of assists. That extra pass just shows on either the good chemistry or good coaching. Its not giving T-mac all the credit. But it reflects that he made the right choice basketball wise. If it was Chuck Hayes making that pass i gurantee you that the second pass will result in a contested shot. What happens if Yao kicks it out to the top and then the person at the top passes it to the corner for a three? Even an idiot can tell that 3 was manufactured by Yao. Same with a double team on Bonzi. If we had to analyse everything based on your logic. Most of our players would be getting pretty poor grades. In fact I broke down Kobe's game the same day this game was on, and he had a infinitely worse ratio then T-mac yet still scored 39. This was based on your logic by the way ( No hockey pass assists as good, missed lay up as neutral).
who isn't? But the dude is shooting around 44% this year which is his career average and not that bad for a shooting guard. When we factor in his assists and rebounds, this guy is great for his position. I mean Yao's FG isnt that good for his position either. The difference with TMac and Yao is, Yao's rebounds, assists and TOs though isn't that great for a center. So if one of the two who has an off shooting night (for their respective position), I would say TMac would be less of a liability than Yao.
ok wekko, how about this. Lets use your Yao as an example. He rarely gets assists because its not the first guy he passes that takes the shot, so does that mean his impact on a game is just 1.5 assists per game that he averages in his career? Or better yet, if you count a miss as a negative, regardless of what type of shot it was, considering Yao's 50% FG average, does he perform below par every single game? You do see that you are being irrational and is blinded by your hate for TMac? Just because someone categorically refuted with clear facts the anti-Tmac propaganda that all of you like to spew??? i.e. he takes bad shots all the time, he doesn't drive to the basket, he is a ballhog, he is lazy on the defensive. OP has clearly refuted all of it in a very unbias way. Y ou can try to poke here and there to find some flaws, but the fact is, TMac plays well night in and night out. But someone will take his shooting percent and make a mountain out of a molehill. Even then the fact is his FG% is 44% this year! Which though not very good, is not horrible either for his position and when you factor in all his asssists and rebounds, he is doing great! But just by listening to all the TMac haters, it would seem like he is averaging 30% shooting!
LMAO! Great thread, until most of the sincere posters spent 60% of the posts responding to wekko. The post I quoted pretty much defines troll, IMHO. Especially when they keep repeating their point ad nauseum in one thread. Blake, great work, a very interesting read. I applaud the hockey assist especially, and note that Dream had 4,000,000 of the years of the championships.
Great Job Blake. But i do have 1 thing to say, a layup, contested or not, if it does not results in a made basket or a foul, i see it as a bad shot. Its good that Tmac drives and try to score instead of pulling up for a jumper, but a missed layup, one of the highest percentage shots you could get in a bball game, its bad no matter how you look at it. Even if its a bad call by the ref, but you should be making those layups if the contact made between players can be termed as acceptable by the ref. In terms of hockey assist, i look at it a good play. Even if its not passed out from a double team, say, Tmac was dribbling the ball, hayes's defender leave hayes and double team Yao, Tmac pass to the free hayes, which in turn pass it to a free battier, where battier's defender rotate over to hayes. And Battier made the shot. Its a good play by Tmac where he passed to the open man and resulted a made shot. And Blake, to please someone like wekko, "try" to insert more bad plays to Tmac, for haters like him, he just want to see Tmac plays badly. Again, great job.
Nope, his impact his greater than his stats would imply. His pass would lead to someone else's eventual assist. Without his initial pass, there would be no eventual basket. But if we're talking about immediate shot creation, the credit goes to the passer who gets the assist. If you want to praise hockey assists, thats fine. But to try to use it as a stat is too shortsighted. Theres too many variables that get overlooked. The most glaring is when the shot is missed, a hockey assist is still credited to Yao/Tmac. If thats the criteria you use, then yes. But I never said that should be a criteria. How can someone refute with clear facts that he is lazy on defense? How many times have you seen him jog leisurely up the court? I never said he takes bad shots all the time. I never said he's a ballhog. I never said he doesnt drive to the basket. You think i hate tmac b/c you put words in my mouth. The fact is, tmac DOESNT play well night in and night out. When he's playing well, he's one of the best players in the league. I didnt say anything about his fg%. When you factor in his assists, you also have to factor in the fact that he's dominating the ball. When this happens, adelman's motion offense comes to a stop and we play gundyball. if the ultimate goal is to become at adelman's motion offense, tmac shouldnt be dominating the ball. Sure, we may win against lesser teams, but overall, gundyball has a detrimental impact on the team. Tmac haters hate tmac for one simple reason. He has so much potential, but only uses a fraction of it. Can you imagine if he had kobe or jordan's mentality? Its conceivable he would be mentioned during GOAT talks. We know he can penetrate and create. And when this happens, we're almost unstoppable. But instead, he's known for pulling up for 18 ft contested fadeaways.
I repeat my point ad nauseum b/c its a valid point but people dont recognize it. I'll shut up about it if people agree that I'm right or convince me that I'm wrong.
If you want to count hockey assists, what about this scenario: Hayes pulls down a defensive rebound at the basket. Hands the ball to tmac. Tmac throws the ball downcourt to a streaking AB who gets a layup. In this instance, Hayes would be credited with a "hockey assist". And thats giving him TOO much credit in this instance since Hayes' job is to immediately give the ball to a guard/sf after getting a defensive rebound. He doesnt look for the outlet pass, so he didnt see Brooks. In no way was he trying to set up AB through tmac. But by your logic, Hayes still earns a hockey assist.
I disagree about T-Mac's missed layups. When T-Mac penetrates, only good things happen. Either he converts, gets fouled, or gets an and 1. Even if he misses, he has drawn so much atention by the time he's in the paint that it opens up offensive rebound opportunities for our bigs, especially Yao. And even if we don't get the offensive rebound, since it was a close in shot, there is less chance for a long rebound and a fast break opportunity going the other way. If T-Mac went 0-20, but all 20 attempts were from aggressive drives into the paint, I wouldn't be mad at him.....hmmmmm well, maybe a little, but the point is he puts so much more pressure on the defense when he penetrates. He's long, athletic, can finish with either hand, has good vision while driving and has the ability to make some sick "how the heck did he get that much mustard on that from that position" passes. When he takes stationary chucks from long range, he flushes all those advantages down the toilet.
And by your logic, someone who does nothing but swing a pass to the open guy gets all the credit for creating that shot, even though what really created it is the double team drawn. It's not about "assists" or "hockey assists". You look at each play, and you judge who was more instrumental in creating the shot. Sometimes it's the assistant, sometimes it's the "hockey" assistant. Sometimes it's someone else. Sometimes credit should be split evenly among multiple players. If Yao or Chuck sets a fantastic pick that gets a shooter open, shouldn't they also get some credit for that? Yes ... but it's not registered in the boxscore. You can't just dogmatically say the only players who created the shot is the assistant and the scorer. Basketball isn't a 2-man game.
I agree with that. But No one IN THIS THREAD said the player who passes the ball to the assist guy AUTOMATICALLY gets a "hockey assist". The context used to score a hockey assist was if the player was DOUBLE TEAMED. That would mean Stromile Swift now playing with Jason Kidd might get 3 additional assists a game just feeding Kidd the ball. But we all know that guy doesnt 'create' diddle. Now if Swift initiated offense in the low post and received a double team, then passed it to Kidd who taps it for Richard Jefferson for a layup, you HAVE to give the knucklehead credit for getting a better shot. Blake CLEARLY stated McGrady just dumping the ball in to Yao doesnt count as anything. McGrady passing it to Battier who dumps it into Yao doubly doesnt count as anything. If McGrady was double teamed in the left wing and found an open Battier who found a more wide open Yao, MCGRADY 'facilitated' that sequence of events. Barkley was a master at that until they changed the rules. He'd get the ball and just plain hold onto it for 18 seconds, until the defense reacted to him with an extra defender. Then he'd pass it out to another player for the assist or toward a better shot. Now is a great offensive system? No its not, thats anti Adelman ball. But it still counts as a positive on court contribution whatever system its in. People in here are being objective with their criteria. They're just not using your objective criteria.
This is the only reply to my following question I saw (maybe I missed someelse's). And your answer is not convincing to me at all. If you count a indirect assist as good, you must count all those indirect bad impact as I mentioned above. I don't see any yet. And the reality is, when you watch games on TV, the play showed on TV more often than not will not cover all the players, especially they will not cover all the players without the ball. You can't even do a solid analysis for those plays. And even for the minutes captured on screen, no analysis was done. So the analysis can not be called purely objective though it has good vale.
