Empty the Bench

We’ll just get this out of the way up front: Gilbert Arenas and Tracy McGrady are fantastic basketball players in and of themselves. They are two of the best offensive talents in the NBA today. In the right situation, each could be a franchise cornerstone for a successful team.

Despite their considerable skills though, both franchises are winning more games without their fallen stars. The Houston Rockets and Washington Wizards appear to be better teams without their marquee names. And while it’s a harder argument to make in Houston, in Washington that fact is becoming obvious.

The Wizards completed a home-and-home sweep of the Boston Celtics on Monday, and in the process proved their recent success sans their chatty poster boy has been no fluke. Washington is now 17-11 with wins against Dallas, Portland, Cleveland, Toronto, and Atlanta in addition to the two Boston victories since Arenas left the rotation. They’re currently entrenched in the playoff picture as the East’s fourth seed and pushing Orlando for the best record in the Southeast division.

During this stretch a few things have become apparent. First, Antonio Daniels is not an ideal point, but he is a better distributor and defender than Arenas. Despite being limited by injury in several contests, Daniels is averaging 6.3 assists and attempting just 7.2 shots per game as a starter. He’s also hitting 52.0% of those FGs and 81.8% of his FTs while turning it over just 2 times a game in almost 36 minutes. Sure, Gilbert scored at a gaudy 28.5 points per clip last year, but compare the efficiency in just under 40 minutes per: 6.0 assists, 20.9 shot attempts, 41.8% FGs, 84.4% FTs and 3.2 TOs.

Gilbert Arenas Photo Credit: Mark Goldman/Icon SMI

Daniels is playing within himself and withing the system, not shaking off plays or freelancing, but taking advantage of Eddie Jordan’s relatively structured Princeton offense by finding the backdoor cutters and knocking down the open kick outs. Players like DeShawn Stevenson and Caron Butler are suddenly rediscovering their offensive games. With Arenas’ contract looming, it might time to admit that Gilbert’s 20 shots a game could be used to greater effect distributed amongst a number of players in a more balanced offense. A lot of players in the NBA could score like Gilbert if they took 20 shots a game.

Perhaps more importantly, Washington is a significantly better defensive team these days. Opposing point guards no longer penetrate at will. The Wizards can actually shut people down on key defensive stands, as they did against Boston the last few games. And while Arenas has proven time and again to be one of the best clutch scorers in the league, Caron Butler has emerged as a fantastic scorer down the stretch of tight games. Butler basically iced the game against Boston with explosive drives to the hoop that either produced baskets or put pressure on Boston’s front line and led to free throws, which Caron is among the NBA’s best at knocking down (Butler has hit 47 consecutive FTs as I write this).

Tracy McGrady Photo Credit: Aaron M. Sprecher/Icon SMI

Like Arenas, Tracy McGrady is one of the premier scorers in the league, but McGrady’s team has played better in his absence and his efficiency leaves a lot to be desired. T-Mac went down with a knee injury ten games ago, and the Rockets are 7-3 since with wins against Toronto, Orlando, the aforementioned Washington and a narrow loss in Boston. And while McGrady was scoring 22.8 points per this year, he had been doing it on 43.9% FGs and 70.5% FTs, both below Houston’s team averages- team averages he had been dragging down with 19.5 field goal attempts and 6.0 free throw attempts a night.

However, in Houston I’m less inclined to simply declare the Rockets a better team without the scorer. As presently constituted, Houston just doesn’t have the weapons to compete in the West without a strong perimeter scorer. I am, however, inclined to say that McGrady doesn’t fit in Houston, and that as a result his absence really doesn’t hurt them as much as one would think. And I am inclined to say that it’s time, in the words of Magic Johnson, to blow up the Rockets. As Magic put it:

“They’ve got to trade [Yao Ming or Tracy McGrady]; it’s not working out. We’ve seen it for all these years; they get eliminated from the first round. I thought they were going to play well together, but it’s not working. [Against Denver, when McGrady was out], the ball [was] moving more than it ever does watching a Houston game, and the same when Tracy McGrady was out. But the ball doesn’t move when they’re together. One of them has to go because it’s not working.”

It’s a rare occasion when I agree with Magic’s analysis, but he’s right here. I also thought that the slashing and dynamic outside game of McGrady on offense would perfectly complement the steady interior scoring of Yao, but it hasn’t been the case.

When both are on the floor for any given possession it seem like it’s either a T-mac or a Yao possession, but never both. There’s no cohesion between their styles on that end. And when in transition McGrady likes to run, but Yao can’t keep up. We’ve always known that Ming will never be a Dwight Howard type of center than can play in any sort of transition offense, but now it’s also clear that McGrady isn’t the type of scorer who can score efficiently in a slowed, half-court game.

It’s no coincidence that Yao Ming has been playing his best basketball of the season by far since McGrady went down. He’s been seeing the ball on every possession, been the focal point of the offense (as he should always be), and has responded with the best month of his season. Yao is averaging 25.3 points and 2.6 assists on 52.3% FGs in January, all the best numbers of any month this season by far.

Meanwhile, players like Bonzi Wells, Luthor Head and Shane Bettier are scoring more and with better efficiency than T-Mac recently. Houston misses McGrady, but not that much. Not enough to validate his contract or the 19.5 field goal attempts per game. McGrady is a perennial injury risk and has played in more playoff games than anybody else in the NBA without winning a single series, and on top of those problems it may be time to simply admit that he doesn’t fit with Yao Ming.

Houston is not a title contender right now, and moving McGrady makes sense if they can get somebody who does fit with Yao in return. And in Washington, it seems more and more obvious that Washington needs to let Arenas walk if he requests a max-type contract and spend that money on people who actually fit in with Butler, Jamison, Haywood and Jordan.