Its Over ....

It's all over for Tracy Mcgrady a.k.a my favourite player. It has been a terrible season for him so far, averaging career lows in almost everything. Since he is having such a poor season this season and also not a very good one before this, I have to be fair and write proper things about him. I can't ignore the fact that he is my favourite player, but still ....


2007-08 season: In past seasons, McGrady missed time with injuries but played like an All-Star when healthy; that wasn't the case this time. It was the first season in which his frailty seemed a part of his on-court persona, too -- most notably when he visibly ran out of gas in Game 2 of the Utah series. In addition to missing his usual 16 games with injuries, McGrady saw alarming drops in his scoring, assist rates and shooting percentages when he took the court.

In a hilarious turn of events, he finished eighth in the MVP voting anyway. McGrady got two fourth-place votes and 13 fifth-place votes thanks to the sanity-altering effect of his team's 22-game winning streak late in the season.

C'mon people, let's try to do some critical thinking before filling out those ballots. The win streak was great, but McGrady actually had his worst stretch of the season then, shooting only 40.9 percent in March and a ghastly 23.4 percent on 3s. As mentioned above, he also missed a big chunk of time and didn't play terribly well the rest of the year. But in basketball's weird credit-the-team's-most-prominent-player-with-everything media culture he somehow became an MVP candidate anyway.

For the year he ranked third among shooting guards in usage rate, but only 56th --seventh from the bottom -- in TS%. McGrady's career-low 68.4 percent mark from the line was the fourth-worst at his position and an embarrassment for a player who shoots so well from midrange. He also slumped to 29.2 percent on 3-pointers, and considering he took nearly five a game, this was a huge problem.

McGrady once again shot well on long 2s, hitting 42.9 percent even though most of them were off the dribble with a man in his face, and drew a fairly high rate of free throws on his forays inside the arc. When he penetrated he was a good distributor too, ranking third among shooting guards in pure point rating.

Taken together, all that suggests he might want to forget about 3-pointers for a while and concentrate on beating opponents from midrange or with his considerable (and vastly underappreciated) passing skills. McGrady hasn't shot above 34 percent on 3-pointers since his 2002-03 season in Orlando, and he's investing far too many possessions in a shot that he makes so inconsistently.

Scouting report: McGrady rarely guards the opponent's best perimeter player and tends to ration his efforts at that end, but when energized he can be a very strong defensive player. Because of his length he can get a finger on shots that few wing players come close to -- he got a piece of Travis Outlaw's jumper in one game, for instance, and that's a shot nobody blocks. He also rebounds well.

Offensively, McGrady could use some more help from the other four guys. His usage rate was insanely high for such a low-percentage scorer, and that was partly because so few of his teammates could create a shot -- especially after Yao Ming went out. Teams were running double-teams at him even when he was 20 feet from the hoop, and too often he'd find a wide-open teammate who couldn't convert.

McGrady is an incredibly dangerous midrange shooter because he elevates so well on his J. At 6-8, he just rises above his defender and gets a clean look even if he has no separation. Additionally, he's a fantastic passer and rarely turns the ball over, so he can find the open man against double-teams. Rick Adelman had him doing a lot more free-throw area isolations in which he could rise up for a jumper or see the double coming and pass, and that seemed to be a sweet spot for him.

McGrady has dealt with back problems his entire time in Houston, and those knock him out of the lineup for 10-15 games every season. Besides the injuries, McGrady's free-throw shooting is a less-discussed but grating weakness. It probably doesn't help that he stands well beyond the free-throw line for his attempts because it seems difficult to ensure he's shooting from the same distance every time. Players who toe up to the line know they're shooting exactly 15 feet, but how can McGrady develop a consistent stroke if he's not always in the same spot?

2008-09 outlook: The additions of Brent Barry, Ron Artest and the return of Yao Ming should combine to heavily alter how McGrady needs to play this season. Look for his usage rate to go down and his percentages to go up because he'll have fewer situations in which he needs to force a jumper late in the clock and more in which he's shooting an open kick-out from somebody else.

Nonetheless, the Rockets have to be concerned with the decline in McGrady's output last season. He's still as dangerous a scorer as there is in the game when he gets rolling, but given how badly he slumped last year, his history of back problems and the fact he turns 30 in May, one has to wonder if he'll ever be an All-Star caliber player for a full season again.


But still, T-mac used to be ranked as one of the best basketball players in the modern era. As far as T-mac is concern(Peter Yii's line), he has to improve. For me, one of T-Mac's few weaknesses are his low determination and dedication to the game. I love him when he was at Orlando. I love when he is at Houston. I just love T-Mac.

T-Mac did say this on his blog,

"As some of you may have heard, my season has come to an end. My knee hasn’t been right all year, and we can’t seem to get the pain to go away. We’ve tried just playing through it, taking back-to-backs off, and extended periods of rest, but none of it has really been effective in limiting the discomfort and allowing me to just go out there and play. I’ve met with numerous doctors and gotten a number of opinions, and unfortunately I will be undergoing microfracture surgery on my left knee immediately. Microfracture surgery is a serious procedure, but I’m confident that I will be able to return next season with the same strength and explosiveness you are all used to seeing from me.

It has been extremely frustrating dealing with the knee injury this season. It’s been tough on me both physically and mentally and while we’ve come to this conclusion after much deliberation, we truly feel this is best for both me and the Rockets in the long term. As I’ve said before and will say again, I have the best fans in the world. Thank you for all your continued support through the good times and the bad."

Before I end my article, let us all pray hard for T-Mac to play like how he used to. And just for some extra information, I spent 2 hours on this article alone. I also used a very very thick Oxford dictionary to guide me through this.

A new article about Kevin Garnett, Amare Stoudermire and Manu Ginobili will be written soon. It's about their injury.

-Edwin Bak-

Kobe vs LeBron

The Debate Continues.

The Debate of Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. I read an article once that Kobe is a better player than LeBron. Kobe can make more miracle plays than LeBron and so on. Kobe is also a better jump shooter and things like that. It even says that Kobe is better than the great Micheal Jordan.

Well, I honestly think that LeBron is a much better player than Kobe in almost everyway. Once of the biggest factors that influenced my decision is because of how good is LeBron compared to Kobe at the defensive end. LeBron is averaging 1.9 steals and 1.2 blocks per game compared to Kobe's 1.3 steals and 0.4 blocks per game. LeBron is averaging a career high amount of blocks. This 1.3 blocks per game is also better than Kobe in every single season Kobe played. LeBron has this defensive attitude. He is more like a Power Forward combined with a Small Forward. Being able to block, steal and rebound so much, is really impressive. For Kobe, well, he is never famous for how he plays at the defensive end.

LeBron is much better than Kobe because of some characteristics and ability that LeBron has and Kobe doesn't. When you compare Ruud Van Nistelrooy and Thiery Henry, people say Ruud is more of a power and aggressive player and Henry is more of a creative and skillful player, so the difference isn't so obvious. The weird thing is, LeBron has both power and flair while Kobe doesn't. LeBron's power enables him to achieve more blocks and rebounds compared to Kobe. His skillfulness allows him to do some miracle circus lay-ups and dunks too, while with his creativity, LeBron is passing like a point guard. In terms of determination, I think the two are both equally impressive. LeBron is more to the defensive end while Kobe is more to the offensive part of the field. LeBron has this very high determination to do something impossible whenever he does a mistake, just like MJ. Besides that, whenever the Lakers looses badly, Kobe play realy realy bad, but whenver The Cavs looses, LeBron still averages some fine stats.

LeBron has this reputation of being the sole leader of the team. Well, Kobe has Gasol. LeBron has the ability to scare opponents off with the way he plays. The way Kobe plays is just purely good, which can't really frighten people off. This ability is indirectly very important. In the past few seasons, people can say that no matter how good LeBron plays, his team still falter. This season instead, LeBron at a very high level and unexpectedly as well as his team. Another disadvantage for Kobe is that he is a selfish and arrogant player. Kobe's stats usually hangs around 4-5 assists. Just 4-5 assists! Kobe only assist whenever he wants to improve his stats and this only happens when the media and so on criticises the way he plays.

Many have still argued that Kobe is still a much better and complete player than LeBron. The only reason to this is Kobe's jump shooting and free throws. Well, both Kobe and LeBron are averaging career high shooting percentage and even so, LeBron's shooting percentage is still better than Kobe. Not only that, LeBron's free throw shooting this season is the best in his career. Still, many have complained that LeBron has the inability to shoot jumpers. Now, this is not LeBrons fault. It seems like after doing some research, I found out that players only begin to have this ability as they grow older. For example Micheal Jordan. MJ, during the late 80's to early 90's is more of a dunker than a jump shooter. He enjoys driving in so much until he can come up with so many superb dunks. As the years gone by, Mj turned to more of a jump shooter and this can obviously be seen. Another few examples are Tracy McGrady and Vince Carter. When T-Mac was at Orlando, he was so famous for his aggressiveness and driving skills similar to James now but he was also so infamous for his terrible jump shooting. Few years later, when he joins the Houston Rockets, McGrady becomes one of the most famous jump shooters in todays game. So as Vinsanity. See the difference in him now compared to when he was at Toronto? Therefore, it is concluded that players start to have the ability to jump shoot at a certain age.

LeBron can be regarded as one of the best jump shooters at this age and the players that I mentioned above have all have their dunking abilities fading away. Do you think that LeBron is the type of player that will ever stop? Imagine combining his present dunking abilities and his future jump shooting skills? Lastly, it is about clutch plays which I think LeBron and Kobe is almost equally good.

As a conclusion, LeBron is more of a complete player. He's stats, the way he and his team play, is just amazing.

Micheal Jordan in the making.

Signing Out,
- Edwin Bak -

If Mo Williams isn't called up for the All-Stars, LeBron is MVP.

If Mo Williams isn't called up for the All-Stars, it obviously means LeBron is this season's MVP. Why? Simple. Four teams this season are categorised under a different category than others. These four teams are La Lakers, Boston Celtics, Orlando Magic and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Out of these four teams, only one of them are sending one player to the All-Star. Cleveland. If MVP stands for most valuable player, means if you take him out of the that team, the team will falter. Since Cleveland is only sending one representative to the All-Star, This means that the Cavaliers only have 1 All-Star calilber player. This also means that LeBron is far ahead the best player in the team and he is handling almost everything. Although this is not true, as long as the fans and the coaches think so, it should be good enough. The other players that are competing with LeBron for MVP are playing for teams that are sending at least one more other player to the All-Star. Actually, it is very obvious, Kobe has Gasol, D-How has Nelson and Lewis while Boston have three equally good players.

This proves that if you take, let say Kobe out of the Lakers, there is still Pau Gasol. Same goes to Superman and CP3. Therefore it is true that LeBron is the MVP for this season. Only one or two games are seperating the Big Four, and Cleveland which have only one All-Star calilber player in their team, are playing as well or maybe even better than teams with two to three All-Star calilber player. This means this 1 All-Star calilber player must be very very good. Not only is he valuable and handling things by himself, he is doing the most important thing of all, winning.

As a whole, LeBron is a far more deserving player to be MVP this season instead of any other player. Enough said. :P

Signing Out,
- Edwin Bak -

All Star Reserves

Well, in recent years, there have been players which are good enough for the All-Stars but still didn't make it there. When we select the All-Star Starters, we can understand it might be unfair due to fans voting for their favourite player or due to popularity, but for the reserves, its the coaches who votes for them and therefore it should be the best of the best of players to make it to the All-Star.

Rajon Rondo
Maybe the main reason this guy will not be in Phoenix is because of his inconsistency. Rondo is not even the top three best players in Boston, so how is he going to make it to the All-Star? In my opinion, Rondo is one of the league's best point guard. Rondo is considered by many as the underdog of the team, but when there are games when the Celtics need him, he usually wont let them down. Rondo is averaging 11.3 ppg, 8.2 assists, 5.1 rebounds and 2.1 steals per game which is rank 'All-Star' quality. Other than that, Rondo shooting is as good as any other player in the league(he even tops Kobe and LeBron in this). Many have agreed that Rondo is Boston's best player this season and many even considered him as a MVP candidate. The reason why Rondo is not called up is maybe because there are too many players from Boston. What is confirmed is that Rondo will make it to the All-Star in the next one or two seasons.

Mo Williams
Mo Williams is a very good player this season and is certainly worth it to give him a plane ticket to Phoenix. Mo Williams have been carrying the Cleveland Cavaliers whenever LeBron is on the bench. Mo is definitely Cleveland's 2nd best player. Mo's 3p and FT percentages has been one of the best in the league lately. Sadly, Williams' stats has not been promising enough to impress the fans and the coaches. 4.2 assists and 3.3 rebounds per game can be regarded as just an average level. In my opinion, Mo's performance has been very very good . . . . . . lately.

Vince Carter
In the past few seasons, Carter has not been how he used to be, a fantastic player. Carter has been playing at a level which many can forget him easily. Due to this, his popularity among fans has dropped drastically and this answers why he gets even lesser votes than Allen Iverson. Carter has been playing very well this season even better than his cousin Tracy McGrady. Vince has achieved two triple double so far this season and since the lost of Richard Jefferson and Jason Kidd, many expected him to play much poorer. Although Vince has been playing well, Devin Harris has been playing much better and having two players going to the All-Stars from a 23-27 team, its very weird.












Weill, there are great players which are All-Star caliber this season but due to harsh injuries given by god to them :p, they had a very unlucky season and therefore didn't make it to the All-Star. There are players here which are even MVP candidates in every season but not this one.

Gilbert Arenas
This guy is a very very good player. Since 2 seasons ago, Arenas never actually got back from injury and really stay fit. Its really funny to know how this guy actually received more than 600,000 votes which is surprisingly more than Derrick Rose, Jose Calderon, Joe Johnson and Oh my God, Jameer Nelson. Well, he did play 4 games and average over 19 points but come on now. I know he used to be one of the best three point shooters in the game, being famous for clutch and buzzer plays but hes not doing it this season. Don't get me wrong, Arenas can make it to the All-Stars in any other season when he is fit but when he isn't please don't vote for him. Even if he make it to the All-Star, he can't even play.

Carmelo Anthony
Carmelo has been playing good enough this season to make it to the All-Star. He is averaging 21.8 ppg and 7.1 rebounds which is great and not only that, the Denver Nuggets are having their best season in many years. Anthony stats is close to David West, but many people prefer West ahead of Anthony because Anthony was once injured this season. Many people got this wrong. We almost reach 50 games this season and Anthony has played 35 games which I think is more than enough to prove himself. Many people also think that Anthony stats isn't as good as previous of seasons but if u compare him to David West, I think this guy is much better. There are many deserving forwards in the West anyway this season. To name a few, Tim Duncan, Amare Stoudamire, Pau Gasol, Dirk Nowitzki, Ron Artest and David West. It should have been Tim Duncan and Dirk Nowitzki(starters) and Amare Stoudamire/Carmelo Anthony(reserves). Enough said.

Tracy McGrady
Well, what can you say about this guy. T-Mac is the player that received the second highest amount of votes that didn't make it to the All-Star(behind Yi Jianlian). Tracy McGrady can be said received his votes due to popularity, but if u ask me to decide either Allen Iverson or Tracy McGrady is having a better season, I think its Tracy McGrady. T-Mac is playing almost as well as Iverson although he has this terrible, I mean TERRIBLE injury. T-Mac, who is the top scorer for the team he plays for/ for the past 8 seasons is not even second top scorer in his team this season. T-Mac is averaging 16 points, 5.1 assists and 4 over rebounds which is so bad compared to his usual 6.5 rebounds and 5.5 assists. McGrady once did said that even if he is voted for the All-Stars, he won't even accept it because he knows he doesn't deserve a spot there. Will Tracy McGrady ever be the same player again?


Other valuable mentions : Ron Artest, Hedo Turkoglu, Deron Williams, Steve Nash.


-Signing out-
Edwin Bak