Who has the better supporting cast, Kobe or T-Mac?

[Bill Russell]

They are almost equal in their habilities... So which player has the best supporting cast, Kobe Bryant or Tracy McGrady?

[Jackal]

Bryant. As valuable as Yao is, Divac is a good passer. Odom has alot of overall skill & Butler is also there.

Houston has Yao & T-Mac. Not much of a supporting cast.

[PRoPuLsiOnDJ]

I think it's even. Kobe has a deeper team with him now. Basically it's a team made up of playmakers. Odom and Butler can drive to the basket ... Divac is a good passing center. Grant can play some hard-nosed D, but I don't know how he will fare with the elite PF's. That remains to be seen. However, the lakers are in desperate need of a good legit point guard.

The Rockets have some good players around too. Mo Taylor and Jim Jackson can score and of course they have Yao and TMac. They play great defense under Van Gundy. How far they will go depends on how TMac will mesh together with Yao. TMac can either make the team or break the team this year.

[Bill Russell]

How come nobody mentioned Juwan Howard yet? He might be the best 3rd player amongst the two teams... If he averages around 15 and 7 this season, that might be a helluva for the team's 3rd best player, IMO.

[fgrep15]

How come nobody mentioned Juwan Howard yet? He might be the best 3rd player amongst the two teams... If he averages around 15 and 7 this season, that might be a helluva for the team's 3rd best player, IMO.

Riiighht, Juwan Howard averaging 15 and 7 isn't anything special, he also plays no defense, and 7 rebounds ia garbage for a PF.

Juwan Howard is nothing special really.....

[EGarrett]

15 and 7 is excellent for the third best player on your team. Juwan averaged 17 and 7 last year.

And Juwan isn't a good defender because he can't jump over a piece of a paper. Yao will cover a lot of his weaknesses in regards to shotblocking. In my opinion he's a great role-player for Houston.

[Jackal]

If he averages around 15 and 7 this season, that might be a helluva for the team's 3rd best player, IMO.

Being the third option & knowing Howard, he'll never be able to do it.

[EGarrett]

He averaged 17 and 7 when he was Dallas' third option.

[Jackal]

How many years ago was that?

You have to take into account that he averaged that with Dallas. Dallas is known for their high scoring. Van Gundy isn't a run & gun coach, his game plan will have less shots compared to Dallas', I think it's impossible that Howard will get those numbers.

[John-John Joe]

How many years ago was that?

You have to take into account that he averaged that with Dallas. Dallas is known for their high scoring. Van Gundy isn't a run & gun coach, his game plan will have less shots compared to Dallas', I think it's impossible that Howard will get those numbers.

Exactly Jackal, it will be a totally different style of play so it's impossible to use his numbers under Nellie as a valid comparison. Under Van Ugly's offensive schemes? He'll be lucky to avg. 12-13 points per game....

[EGarrett]

How many years ago was that?

You have to take into account that he averaged that with Dallas. Dallas is known for their high scoring. Van Gundy isn't a run & gun coach, his game plan will have less shots compared to Dallas', I think it's impossible that Howard will get those numbers.

It was 2001. Juwan is 31 now. No spring chicken but not yet declining either. Regardless, it's not as though he'll suffer from loss of athleticism because he didn't have any to start with.

Van Gundy will probably slow things down, but if it wasn't for that I'd guess he'd contribute around 15 and 7. He always seems to do so.

[hmm]

.............................................

[50first]

i think tracy will fall under the supporting cast group and not yao. why else would vangundy bring in patrick ewing... vangundy also has a thing for big guys and post up postitions . i see the ultimate plan in houstan is to have tracy play second fiddle to yao like kobe played second to shaq in LA. hit em low hit em high.

[EGarrett]

i think tracy will fall under the supporting cast group and not yao. why else would vangundy bring in patrick ewing... vangundy also has a thing for big guys and post up postitions . i see the ultimate plan in houstan is to have tracy play second fiddle to yao like kobe played second to shaq in LA. hit em low hit em high.

T-Mac might be willing to do that though. He's had years of being "The Man," scoring 30 and winning nothing. He's said himself that now all he wants is wins.

Kobe had years of wins but having to defer to others and not getting to show the world what he could do. I'm sure that now all he wants is to be "The Man" and score 30.

The cool thing is that they've kind of switched positions in that respect this season. It'll be great to see how it shakes out.

[Chuck04]

Whichever way you look at it be it 15 and 7 or 12 and 7, it is an upgrade from what we had last year (Cato - 6 and ~7, and Mo Taylor 11.5 and 5)

[50first]

T-Mac might be willing to do that though. He's had years of being "The Man," scoring 30 and winning nothing. He's said himself that now all he wants is wins.

Kobe had years of wins but having to defer to others and not getting to show the world what he could do. I'm sure that now all he wants is to be "The Man" and score 30.

The cool thing is that they've kind of switched positions in that respect this season. It'll be great to see how it shakes out.

yeah im interested in what the turn outs are going to be. although houstan still needs some more key pieces... i wonder how much chemistry the lakers are going to have.

[kevC]

Whichever way you look at it be it 15 and 7 or 12 and 7, it is an upgrade from what we had last year (Cato - 6 and ~7, and Mo Taylor 11.5 and 5)

Except Cato is an excellent low post defender

[Sauru]

How come nobody mentioned Juwan Howard yet? He might be the best 3rd player amongst the two teams... If he averages around 15 and 7 this season, that might be a helluva for the team's 3rd best player, IMO.

first of all let me just say this, he is not the 3rd best player between the 2 teams. if you honestly consider him better than yao you are insane. secondly, i would take odom over howard any day but maybe thats just a personaly preference. infact, based on this up comeing season alone and not any future seasons, i would take divac wayyyyy before howard.

[kevC]

I think he meant the best 3rd player in each team...

[Bill Russell]

Yes KevC...

Lakers' 3 best players: Kobe, Odom, ? (could be Divac, Grant, Atkins, Butler... I think there's a huge dropoff after Odom... hardly anyone could score more than 10 ppg here, and there's ballhog Kobe right there, not that it would be a bad thing)

Houston's 3 best players: T-Mac, Yao and Howard... then there's Taylor, JJ, etc... IMO Howard is clearly the 3rd best Houston player...

Also, at this stage of their careers, I think Howard is much more effective than Divac...

[Matt]

^^^ I think that JJ is more valuable to to Houston than Howard. The guy hustles, plays hard D, scores and doesn't have an ego. Howard does nothing with the exception of scoring.

[air gordon]

i don't think one roster's talent sticks out more then the other... that yao dude is a big difference though

dotorg kev had it right... cato sucked it up on offense, but houston will miss the defense he provided

juwan's a pretty decent passer/ball handler at his position

[Boyk]

Lakers' 3 best players: Kobe, Odom, ? (could be Divac, Grant, Atkins, Butler... I think there's a huge dropoff after Odom... hardly anyone could score more than 10 ppg here, and there's ballhog Kobe right there, not that it would be a bad thing)

come on now Tales
Butler looked poised to be a star after his rookie year, and injury held him back last year, and at the end of last season he seemed to get a bit of consistency back. hes also a solid defender imo.
he was the steal in the trade imo.

[Arcane]

tmac simply coz he will actually use his supporting cast kobe wont do jack shit with them except get the ball off them and shoot

[Rens]

Butler is never going to be a star. He's shown his ceiling and why he dropped so far in his draft.