C'mon, relax JeopardE, that was funny, at least, I thought it was. Yes, I read, the article, and yes it is very interesting. But TMac has the win in the playoffs before anyone is going to shut up about "gutless, heartless, etc," that's the burden of the superstar. Remember, Payton Manning was gutless too...then he won a Super Bowl. And the NY media has been eviscerating Eli Manning, but what if they end up in the Super Bowl??? I've never believed that McGrady is gutless or any crap like that. Watching him in the playoffs is amazing, frankly. His teammates have ALWAYS let him down. I mean, he dragged a bunch of scrubs to the playoffs in Orlando, and in Houston every year they've been in the playoffs, he's the only guy that's shown up with any degree of consistency at all. The guy left it all out on the floor last year in game 7, but the only thing people remember is a missed jumpshot, and ultimately, the loss. Which is a damn shame, if you ask me.
Excuse me for snapping. I hate T-Mac trade threads more than anyone (just look at the CF forum and see who started the "enough" thread). It was blatantly obvious that he didn't bother to actually read before making that comment. Of course those labels are never going to go away until he wins in the playoffs. That's reality. But the point of the article is that Kobe gets more respect largely because he has been on better teams, not because he is a superior player. Frankly as amazing as 81 points and the 40ppg average over a month wouldn't mean much to most people if you were to subtract those championship years with Shaq & co. All you'd be left with is a superstar player who has amazing ability but can't carry his team past the first round, i.e. T-Mac. The writer though worries that T-Mac's best days are long behind him and that we may never see what could have been. I'm not so worried about that -- I think that perception is skewed by his latest injuries, and that there's still plenty of basketball to be played. I think their differences in personality also contribute to the perception. Particularly with the way they react to adversity. T-Mac is generally reviled (by fans and foes alike) for being more open about his feelings and sometimes wearing emotions on a sleeve, and it doesn't help that he consistently has more personal issues than Kobe. Kobe for his own part has had a major incident or two (particularly the Colorado situation), but reacts to adversity very differently -- he tends to internalize everything, disconnect from media and try to turn it into motivation. I don't think one can definitively claim that one personality is superior to the other -- they are just different, but those things skew perceptions. For all the popularity Kobe enjoys today, he suffered hate and criticism to an even greater extent back when the Colorado incident occurred. Which brings me back to the original subject. Many people like to dismiss statistics and mathematical evaluation because either they don't understand it (and are too lazy to try to do so), or otherwise like to keep their preconceived notions and opinions and naturally resist anything that challenges them. Statistics are a way to reintroduce some form of unbiased logic and reasoning into a subjective sports world. They're almost never perfect, usually have valid criticisms/caveats that the user should know about, must be used correctly lest they become invalid, and can always be improved upon. Nevertheless they still serve that purpose -- because, in the end, they'll always be superior to mere opinion. Opinions vary from one end of the spectrum to another, and it's natural for most people to assume one just because it happens to be the most popular at the moment (exempli gratia: see the threads that were floating around here after the draft last year). The few that really want to *know*, learn to look beyond popular opinion, see facts/numbers and draw logical inferences.
I agree 100% with everything you've said. I think you hit the nail on the head with their differences in personality. McGrady is open, to a fault, actually (at least that is what many people believe around here) and Kobe is not. Thus Kobe is mentally "stronger." Whatever. I also don't think McGrady's best days are behind him. I think he has really evolved over the last couple of years from just a scoring machine, to a more complete basketball player. How many rings would Shaq and Mac have? At least as many as Kobe-Shaq IMO. You're right about statistics, in that they are unbiased and 99.9% of people don't understand them. But people always will cling to their perceptions. The only way to change those perceptions is a deep playoff run. Can it happen this year? Well, things are looking up lately!!
Can anyone enlighten me with what "Wins Produced" means? The author gave us the formula for "Win Score" but none for "Wins Produced."
I don't see the formula on there, but my understanding of the statistic is that it's meant to calculate what proportion of game wins the player was responsible for over the course of the season - i.e. in 06-07 T-Mac was responsible for approximately 10 wins while the rest of his teammates combined to produce 44 wins. The total of the two numbers isn't necessarily the actual number of wins the team had, but it should be very close barring a couple of flukes.
Never mind, there's a full, very detailed page explaining it here: http://www.wagesofwins.com/CalculatingWinsProduced.html
Unfortunately there's no way to scientifically incorporate heart, mental toughness, and killer instinct into a Kobe vs TMac analysis. These are all categories in which Kobe is head and shoulders above TMac.
I'm sorry, the writer's logic is simply flawed. I won't beat a dead horse over health and mental abilities that others have, the huge problem with the writer's assumption is that it completely doesn't take into account trends. I for one, think the 32PPG TMac was pretty damn good, better than Kobe even. Having said that, whether TMac was good back then does not reflect how good he is today. And today, Kobe is plain better. It's the same that you could make the argument that Amare used to be better than Yao 3 years ago. Well that's history. He isn't any more.
OK by skimming through the thing, it seems that the WP48 number is a number relative to the average player at the same position (SG in this case). That's a good reflection on a player's productivity. At first, I thought it was the proportion of wins the player gets for his team. If that was the case, it wouldn't be a meaningful number to compare the two players because if your teammates suck, you naturally get a higher percentage with the amount of team wins. BTW, for those who talk about Kobe's heart: Heart is overrated. Result is everything. That said, the current Kobe is clearly better than the current T-Mac. It could be the injuries, like the author said.
Kobe > Tmac although I like Tmac better Kobe has the will to win and you know the effort he will put out....Tmac is willing to share the ball more but as of late Kobe has picked up this new 'passing' thing I hated on Tmac this season but I will be glad to see him back and helping us on the courts. Kobe and Tmac have differing games...I'd more compare Tmac and Gerald Wallace. Tmac skills > Wallace skills....Wallace heart > Tmac tmac should be shooting at least 10 FT a game thats my 2 cents
That's what I thought initially too ... it makes the stat even more impressive though seeing that the total team wins calculated are generally very close to actual wins (average differential in 06-07 of 2.5).
They did a rather good job predicting 07-08 Rockets. They were right on how Francis and MJ would not provide much more help. Rising Rockets?
i enjoyed this article, even though it is obviously written by a tmac fan. it is true that tmac's teams have been less than stellar, but this year there really are no excuses. i think the rockets are stacked.
