A Pro's Pro: McDyess Rertires

Agreed. I'd have to check numbers, but didn't Stackhouse have a better career than McDyess too?

 

In fairness, Garnett was a high school player coming out for the draft when that wasn't the norm. Taking him at No. 4 was seen then as a much riskier proposition than it is today (or at least before the NBA instituted the minimum age restriction).

 

McDyess is the kind of player you need on championship-level teams. A guy who understands what it takes to win and values a role as much as the team asking him to accept the role.

Having said that, it's cloudy in my memory, was he with the Pistons when they won a championship? If not, it's too bad he didn't get one.

 

I could be mixing him with someone else, but I seem to recally that after he was drafted, his mother gave the most tear-filled, joyous and incoherent interview in the history of drafts.

 

I'd really encourage you to reexamine the numbers. Sprewell averaged 18.3 points and 4.0 assists a game, but he also had high turnover numbers (2.7 a game) and low field-goal percentages (42.5%, 33.7% from three). He also put up those numbers in 38.6 minutes a game.

McDyess' prime was similar, though it was derailed by injuries eventually. But he was a substantially more efficient player (player efficiency rating of 17.2 compared to Sprewell's 15.1) and his per-minute statistics are clearly more impressive than Sprewell's.

McDyess only making one All-Star Game is reflective of the poor selection process, which allows top teams to often get three or four spots. He had at least three other seasons that merited All-Star consideration, but he was on a bad team. And the lockout wiped out the 1999 All-Star Game, to which McDyess would have been an easy pick. He averaged 21.2 points, 10.7 rebounds and 2.3 blocks a game that season.

Sprewell was also a lazy defender. McDyess was a great post defender who played in the era of the power forward. He battled with Tim Duncan, Chris Webber, Kevin Garnett, Rasheed Wallace and fading stars Karl Malone and Charles Barkley on a nightly basis.

Basketball-reference's win shares statistic is not perfect, but it credits McDyess with 69.8 win shares compared to Sprewell's 56.3, despite Sprewell playing more than 7,000 more minutes. McDyess was limited by his injuries and occasional bouts of foul trouble, but he was a better player when he was on the court than Sprewell.

I do think Wallace has a chance to pass both. He's in a great situation in Portland.

 

At the time, he was considered a reach at No. 5. In the last two weeks before the draft, he went from a top 15 borderline lottery pick to top 5.

 

McDyess had one of the smoothest jumpers for a big I have ever seen.

 

Garnett would have been the top pick had the draft happened five years later.

But at his peak, McDyess was at least in the same ballpark as Wallace and Jerry Stackhouse. All three had their best seasons in 2000-01, and Wallace never scored or rebounded with the same productivity as McDyess. The scoring was partly the fault of teammates: Wallace had plenty of good ones; McDyess had terrible ones.

Injuries are what makes McDyess look like a reach in hindsight.

 

Now I know I'm getting old. I was a kid when he got drafted and remember his draft day. Time flies. He had a great career. I hope he saved all of his pennies from his playing days.

 

Finally watched the Chris Herren documentary off the DVR last night. Said when he got to Denver, first thing that happened was McDyess (and Nick Van Exel, surprisingly enough) told him they knew he had problems and they weren't going to allow any of the drugs and drinking. Then they spent the entire season taking him out to dinner after games so he wouldn't be going to clubs with the rest of the guys. Herren said he stayed clean his whole rookie year until he got back home to Massachusetts after the season.

I thought it was one of the better character anecdotes I'd ever heard about a teammate.

 

Yeah, he also mentioned on Bill Simmons' podcast that George McCloud was a big part of that as well, but forgot to mention him during the documentary for whatever reason.

 

I love Nick the Quick, but that's stunning.