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Quick D-Fense Of T-Mac

Jonathan Abrams story this week on Tracy McGrady implies McGrady, like George Gervin before him, was an effortless gunner who scored 30 and didn’t do much else. That’s not true at all.

McGrady was generally considered a very good, if somewhat uneven defender, between 2000-2008. He also averaged like 7-8 rebounds and 5-6 assists per game during this time span. Additionally, McGrady was singled out, like in this 2007 Bill Simmons column (scroll to the bottom), for being a great teammate on both ends of the floor and a great leader. Players and coaches generally seemed to like McGrady, and few players were spoken about as reverentially by their peers.

Obviously, McGrady’s rapid collapse as a player post-2008 and his 0-7 record in playoff series (before this season as a Spurs practice player for the practice players) is pretty damaging to his career evaluation. But he got legitimately injured and he never ‘choked’ in any of these series….In fact in 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2007 he memorably stepped his game up. Unlike, say, Kevin Garnett’s T-wolf tenure, McGrady did not shirk his duties as go-to playoff guy.

The unoriginal conclusion here is that McGrady is not some tragic-athlete-figure but a really, really good basketball player, probably one of the 60-70 greatest players of all-time. In the early 00’s, the best players were, in rough order, Shaq, Tim Duncan, Kobe, T-Mac, Iverson, Jason Kidd, and Garnett. Back then, few would question the assertion that Kobe and T-Mac were roughly equivalent in their greatness and that the Lakers would have been just as good with T-Mac. Perhaps that notion — that Kobe = T-Mac — was a little off, but the recent appraisals of T-Mac as having a disappointing career seem overly harsh.

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Lay off Doug Collins, Man

Alpha Web site Grantland.com has recently weighed in with both a podcast and column, by the readable Zach Lowe no less, puncturing needles through the dried out skin of Philadelphia 76er coach Doug Collins. It’s year three for Collins in Philly, it is gleefully announced, and Collins is burned out again.

Look, I know all about Doug Collins burn out. I was a fan of the Collins-coached Detroit Pistons, from 95-98. And allow me to conclude that Lowe, et. al are over thinking things: The Sixers are 23-35 because they were a .500 team last year whose best player is injured this year. That’s all. Continue reading “Lay off Doug Collins, Man”

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Was David Robinson Actually Underrated?

The received wisdom of David Robinson’s NBA career reads as the perils of being too book smart for a children’s playground game.

Robinson supposedly was an overly sensitive player who over thought matters on the court and couldn’t lead his team to the title. Even the most popular YouTube “highlight” clip of Robinson is “Olajuwon Dominates Robinson,” a syrupy six-minute montage of Hakeem Olajuwan carrying the Houston Rockets past Robinson’s San Antonio Spurs in the 1995 Western Conference Finals.

In his Book of Basketball, Bill Simmons rated Robinson the 28th greatest player of all-time behind peers such as John Stockton, Scottie Pippen, Kevin Garnett and Charles Barkley. Robinson even ranked behind Bill Walton, someone who played a total of 468 games, or 5 1/2 full seasons, his entire NBA career.

Simmons concluded that Robinson “failed to dominate the NBA despite having every conceivable tool you’d want for a center.”

Yet such sky-high expectations cloud Robinson’s very real accomplishment, namely that he got dog meat teams to win a preposterous number of regular season games. Continue reading “Was David Robinson Actually Underrated?”

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Glove means never having to say you’re sorry

We don’t even talk about Gary Payton in this episode. We do talk about the Bulls. Point guards (Fuck Rondo). All Star revisions. Royce White. Make fun of Bill Simmons. Solemnly eat snacks while we bid farewell to John before he leaves for Netsland. Vinny Del Negro makes his 2nd guest appearance. And you. we talk about you.

Over 2 hours of the hardest-corest of basketball talk can be found here:

https://shawnkempredemption.com/skr2013-feb.mp3

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The Resolution is Often Televised

We’re back in the now. After our origins in the 94-95 season, we’ve returned to the cold cold dark wet 2012-2013 NBA season. We have David fresh off a win to qualify for the Magic: The Gathering pro tour, John Shin’s new theme song, Matthew Blake taking a respite from eating by himself at taquerias and me with a cold. 2 long basketball heavy podcasts featuring your favorite beat-mocking of Bill Simmons, obscure name games, and more Kevin Duckworth than you’ll find anywhere else, for your listening.

 

Eastern Conference Preview featuring the music of Gil Scott-Heron…it sure is winter in America:

http://shawnkempredemption.com/skr12-13ECP.mp3

 

Now that we’re in the future-present, you can also listen (AND REVIEW) on the iTunes:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/shawn-kemp-redemption/id551761067