Round 3, Pick 2: Tracy McGrady, SG/SF, Houston Rockets

What image do you remember the most of Tracy McGrady? Do you have the image of T-Mac as the slasher and ferocious dunker like the picture of him dunking on Shawn Bradley or do you remember the image of him being wheeled out on a stretcher? Fantasy owners of T-Mac last year were crippled by the 35 games missed due to back spasms.

How can you replace 24.4 points, 6.5 boards and 4.8 assists per game?

It should not be a surprise this year to see T-Mac drop into the 2nd round or, in the Dropping Dimes Draft Blog, the 3rd round because of the injury risk factor. Is drafting T-Mac a smart gamble or is it going to hurt like a Jackass prank? Should you take a safer player available like Mike Bibby? Let’s take out the calculators and do some risk analysis! 

Like Alvin’s analysis article on Player Combinations of this draft’s first two rounds, let’s look at the totals the players project to accumulate at the end of the upcoming season based upon their averages from last season:

Tracy McGrady
24.4 points, 6.5 rebounds, 4.8 assists, 1.3 steals, 0.9 blocks, and 1.6 threes made.

Mike Bibby
21.1 points, 2.9 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 1.0 steals, 0.1 blocks, and 2.3 threes made.

Let’s assume that Bibby will play at least 80 games this year. His accumulated totals (Eg. 21.1 points x 80 = 1768) will be:

Points - 1768, Boards - 232, Assists - 432, Steals - 80, Blocks - 8, Threes Made - 184

Now let’s divide the totals accumulated by Bibby by T-Mac’s averages to see how many approximate games it would take to equal Bibby’s output. (Eg. 1768 ÷ 24.4 = 72 games):

Points - 72 games, Boards - 35 games, Assists - 90 games, Steals - 61 games, Blocks - 8 games, Threes Made - 115 games

As you can see by the analysis T-Mac will not be able to catch Bibby in Assists and Threes Made because there is only 82 games in the season. Bibby is a PG, so you expect him to have an edge over T-Mac in assists. However if you look at the big picture T-Mac’s average of 4.8 assists are better than Kobe’s 4.5 assist in the SG spot and second only to Lebron’s 6.6 assists in the SF spot. T-Mac’s game is not seting up the perimeter and to jack up threes. He is a slasher and creates opportunites off the dribble.

The biggest advantage that T-Mac has over Bibby is in the hustle stats: blocks, rebounding and steals. T-Mac would start to double Bibby’s block totals after the 18th game played.  T-Mac would double Bibby’s rebounding totals if he plays 70 games. 61 games is the mark that T-Mac would surpass Bibby’s steals number.

Points are the closest category that Bibby and T-Mac match up. T-Mac has played over 72 games in 5 out of the 9 seasons. There have been reports that T-Mac has been working out hard in the off season and his back is close to 100%. Let’s cross our fingers.

Bottom Line:

Huh, 1st round talent available in the 3rd round? Wow, the injury risk factor really plunged T-Mac’s stock.  As you can see by the analysis, McGrady can easily outperform Bibby in the hustle and rebounding categories if he can stay healthy. If he plays 70+ games then the gamble will have paid off considering he was available in the early 3rd round!

Team Outlook:

Dirk, Billups, and T-Mac, are you kidding me? T-Mac adds to the teams’ hustle stats with steals and blocks from the SG/SF spot. The assists average from T-Mac helps solidify one my team’s strength. The big IF is that I need T-Mac to stay healthy!

Other Team Members

1.2. Dirk Nowitzki, PF, Dallas Mavericks
2.11. Chauncey Billups, PG, Detroit Pistons