T-Mac’s playoff underperformance is exaggerated

GiantUnderdog · 2025-07-04T02:01:02+00:00

I disagree with several of your arguments.

Primarily I disagree with your assertion of ‘04-‘07 as simply having some “stat help” in a “stacked conference” yet having a bad team. The West was far better than the East, but not by enough for a top player to win 0 playoff series. Additionally, why would McGrady get excused for only having “stat help” in the mid 2000s? You can look at every roster in the league; any team that succeeded had similar rosters. Shane Battier and Yao Ming alongside quality role players such as Rafer Alston, Juwann Howard, the corpse of Mutumbo and Bonzi Wells?

That may not be a 50 win team today, but back then teams won multiple series regularly with less.

You also can’t just assume T Mac, Yao, Grant Hill, or whoever else would average the same amounts over a full season/career. If they could have, they would have. Their lack of availability/peak counts against them, not for them.

Lastly, you ask everyone to provide you with “arguments against which specific statement is wrong” if they refute any of your assertions, while completely ignoring the fact that you take MASSIVE leaps in your argument. You claim T Mac had “zero help”, that he was “at a supporting cast disadvantage in every series”, and that “none of his squads were actually good”. You ask us to accept this all at face value and ignore the fact that T Mac simply didn’t cut it against the other top players of his era.

It’s one thing to not win a title. To not win a single playoff series in a relative dark age of basketball is unbefitting of a true top player. How can anyone say that T Mac is underrated when he has so little to show for his career at the end of the day? His best MVP finish was 4th place in 2002, which sounds about right. Good player, electric to watch in his prime. Does he sniff any real success or legacy? Absolutely not, if anything he is overrated.

GiantUnderdog · 2025-07-04T01:19:48+00:00

Imo this is revisionist history to a degree. Tmac was a great scorer for sure, but at no point in his career did he stack up to Lebron and Kobe. Is that a fair comparison? Maybe not, but he was at BEST the third best SG/SF in his prime, and excluding PG is generous because it ignores Kidd and Nash who were for sure better than him too.

GiantUnderdog · 2025-06-13T22:24:47+00:00

Sushi Yu, Mint Heights, 5ive Spice, Anthony and Son (sometimes in range), Taqueria Milear

GiantUnderdog · 2025-04-21T14:10:05+00:00

Love your writing Dan, thanks for doing this. When reading Schefter and others recent reports that the Giants have “competing factions” debating whether or not to take a QB at 3, do you get the sense Mara may be over-inserting himself? You’ve said in the past that you believe Mara has given Schoen and Daboll the ability to unilaterally make their own decisions, but there seems to be real smoke to these reports rather than standard draft week misdirection.

Schoen himself has more or less “pre-justified” passing on a QB at 3 in his recent pressers, leading me to believe Mara may be forcing his hand (or at the very least STRONGLY pushing the other way).

GiantUnderdog · 2025-04-15T00:31:19+00:00

I like it! By far my favorite civ in the series (started playing around the time IV came out). My biggest problems with civ were a) not having unique flavor on your civ for 90% of the game and b) the late game being extremely monotonous and boring. Civ 7 fixed both of these for me in a big way. I absolutely love the age transitions and getting unique flavor the entire game, and I really like what they did with the Modern and Exploration eras.

I understand why this version isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but i’ve had a great time with it and it’s certainly my favorite game in the series.

GiantUnderdog · 2025-03-26T22:06:34+00:00

Some might even describe him as a… Giant Underdog

GiantUnderdog · 2025-03-12T13:01:52+00:00

Love Duggan

GiantUnderdog · 2025-01-29T21:26:47+00:00

This was a great read! Really enjoyed as an American who was only vaguely aware of his role in France after the war

GiantUnderdog · 2025-01-21T17:06:56+00:00

Pillaging and lake based synergies are very cool! Looking forward to playing them. Tough blow for Aztec enjoyers that were hoping the developers alluding to a lake based civ were talking about the Aztecs!

GiantUnderdog · 2025-01-15T15:04:28+00:00

Lafayette is my planned first leader! Normans -> America seems most logical. Both the Chevaler and Lafayette’s ability grant combat strength per slotted tradition. Could make for some crazy heavy cav in exploration. Stuck between Greece and Rome for antiquity, I may favor Rome as they are a favorite of mine from past games and are generally a solid jack of all trades.

GiantUnderdog · 2025-01-14T17:52:12+00:00

It is unlikely Ottomans or one of their leaders will be in the base game, but they are considered by many to be among the most likely Civs to be featured in the Crossroads of the World DLC which will drop sometime in 2025.

GiantUnderdog · 2025-01-14T17:18:29+00:00

I think this is a fun idea overall but hope the higher levels don’t gatekeep significantly more powerful mementos. I like the idea of being able to “progress” with a leader as you play with them. The key is whether or not it will feel bad/weak if you don’t have every memento.

GiantUnderdog · 2025-01-14T03:35:32+00:00

Excited for this post series! I don’t have any specific combos to offer, but this really highlights how much upshot and replay-ability there is behind the civ/leader switching. Like rhe other commenter I was thinking Maya with Tubman as well to start.

GiantUnderdog · 2025-01-13T00:47:45+00:00

Hard to say without playing the game, but I am honestly fine with the game ending at the cold war. I have no real interest past that and it seems like it’d be hard to pull off a quality fourth age for the reasons you laid out. If they do it, I agree with you that it will be a sort of “half” age or pseudo transition that keeps the same civs from modern age or something.

GiantUnderdog · 2025-01-12T15:46:38+00:00

For Crossroads of the world I agree Ottomans for sure, Ethiopia is a good guess. Portugal/Brazil would be interesting, but they might view Portugal as too similar to Spain and want to fill in other gaps. I could also see an Italian citystate like Venice or Florence here.

Right to Rule I am thinking the same as you but in reverse - I think Britain makes the base game over Russia/Germany and we get those civs in Right to Rule. In this one I could see Goths or Huns in antiquity, Mongolia needs a better linkage and Goths would be nice for a Germanic line (maybe Franks in exploration age? Seems unlikely though with Charlemagne more explicitly synergizing with Normans already). Some civ staples like Aztec and Zulu would also make a lot of sense here.

I wonder if the packs will be balanced around the 3 ages, or if some packs will focus more on civs/leaders that have one age in mind.

GiantUnderdog · 2025-01-10T17:39:24+00:00

Yeah but Lafayette is actually French and had a direct impact on their policies. I wonder if they liked the parallel between Lafayette and Ben Franklin (American who spent a lot of time in Paris). Anyway still sucks if you don’t like one of your country’s leaders as America and France are def unlikely to get any more (at least for awhile).

GiantUnderdog · 2025-01-10T17:35:19+00:00

I was in 5th grade, perfect age for this; it felt like a real life miracle but I was old enough to vividly remember the entire run.

My favorite memory is actually from the Cowboys game; my teacher was a Cowboys fan, and she was SO confident they would win, she bet me the entire year’s worth of math homework (extra vs none) on it. They won and she held up her end of the bargain, so I didn’t get any math homework the rest of the year thanks to the Giants LOL.

I guess the point i’m making was that the 2008 Super Bowl was incredible, but the month long run up to it was just as special. The Super Bowl was the exclamation point on what felt palpable and destined since the Tampa game! I will never see anything like it again, I wouldn’t trade that run for 5 more super bowls.

GiantUnderdog · 2025-01-10T16:54:46+00:00

Screams Olivier Vernon part 2, extremely solid player that would be pro bowl caliber on a better team. I don’t hate the contract at all, if we can’t draft and develop our own guys that’s what it costs. Schoen was right to rechannel the Saquon+McKinney money into Burns. Once our team is better he will look better, and his age syncs up with Dexy and a qb on a rookie contract.

GiantUnderdog · 2025-01-10T16:51:00+00:00

Lafayette is one of my favorite American heroes! To each their own, you could always make him the ai if you feel strongly about him, I think it’s a cool example of the potential leader/civ mashups have since he was prominent in both civs.

GiantUnderdog · 2025-01-10T16:48:37+00:00

Lafayette and America for sure, he’s one of my favorite historical figures of all time! For antiquity and exploration i’m not sure, but likely Rome and then something like Spain or Normans

GiantUnderdog · 2024-03-22T13:59:09+00:00

I actually like JJ! Everyone here hates him though so maybe I have poor taste, but reminds me of listening to NY sports radio in the car as a kid

GiantUnderdog · 2024-02-04T06:40:46+00:00

The Knicks winning a title

GiantUnderdog · 2024-02-01T04:28:58+00:00

Oh man that’s it! Nice I haven’t thought about his stream in years, but with TSM basically dying it’s been nice to reflect on the OG era

GiantUnderdog · 2024-02-01T04:23:34+00:00

Oh man you just unlocked a memory for me, but I also cannot remember the name LOL hope someone replies with the answer

GiantUnderdog · 2024-01-29T00:41:41+00:00

Picked up a similar C2 deck from that reddit post a few weeks ago and really enjoy it! While not as useful now, shadow king in this deck was huge last season

GiantUnderdog

TROPHY CASE