The Maggette Fallacies

Our man Corey has been getting a little recognition of late, as will often happen when you average 28 points over the course of a month. It's nice to see an oft-maligned player get some credit. But much of this recent praise has been as wrongheaded as the criticism that preceded it... a year and a half into his Warriors tenure, most fans are still not seeing the guy with clear eyes. As such, it seems like a good time to identify and eradicate the ten most common misconceptions about Corey Maggette.

1) That he only recently became good. Corey Maggette didn't just get good in January... this is the third straight month that he's shot over .540 from the field. He didn't just get good this season, either; while his .640 TS% would represent a career-high, he's been over .580 in each of the four previous years and stands at .581 for his career (the 44th-best mark in league history). When you account for pace, you find that he's scored this often before, he's rebounded this well before, he's passed this well before (actually much better than this), and he's defended this well before. His current level of production is in keeping with what he did in his last five seasons with the Clippers. Corey Maggette is a good player, and has been for years... if you play him at his natural position (something that you'd think wouldn't be all that hard), he will help your team win games.

2) That his selfishness hurts your offensive rhythm. Offenses always profit from the presence of Corey Maggette. This season, we score 4.6 more points per 100 possessions with him on the floor than we do without him. Last season -- his least effective in six years, as he was injured and playing out of position -- we scored 1.1 more points per 100 possessions with him. The '07-'08 Clippers scored 4.8 more points per 100 possessions with him; the '06-'07 Clippers scored 4.4 more points per 100 possessions with him; the '05-'06 Clippers scored 7.4 more points per 100 possessions with him. Every offense he's ever played for, good or bad, has scored more points when he played, and more often than not, his presence has made a big difference, to the tune of four points per game or more. I don't know about you, but I measure "offensive rhythm" by how good a team is at scoring, y'know, basketball points. And Corey Maggette, both through scoring efficiently and pushing your opponent towards the penalty, always helps you score points.

3) That his defense is so bad that it negates his offense. Maggette is a poor defender, but not one of the worst in the league by any means. His career Defensive Rating of 108 is bad, but better than that of Monta, J-Rich, Jamal Crawford and Curry, to name a few. And in the last seven years, the crappiness of his defense has only outweighed the value of his offense once: last year, when Don Nelson made him play power forward. In every other season since 2003, Corey Maggette's plus-minus has been solidly in the black. His scoring helps more than his defense hurts.

4) That he only does one thing well. In fact, Corey Maggette is a very good rebounder for a small forward. This season, he's ninth in the league in rebounds per game by a SF, despite playing less than 30 minutes a night. And for his career, he's grabbed a higher percentage of available rebounds than, among others, Paul Pierce, Carmelo Anthony, Caron Butler, Ron Artest and Kevin Durant. Corey Maggette is not one-dimensional... he's two-dimensional. And when your two dimensions are scoring and rebounding, you're a pretty damn useful guy.

5) That he was part of the reason the Clippers sucked for so long. Friend, you might want to re-acquaint yourself with the horrific talent that Brand and Maggette were saddled with. Their three best teammates in '03-'04 were Quentin Richardson (who shot .398 from the field), Chris Wilcox and Marko Jaric. In '04-'05, their three best teammates were Bobby Simmons, Jaric and America's Sweetheart, Mikki Moore. In '05-'06, they added Sam Cassell and Cuttino Mobley, and Chris Kaman figured out how to play, and guess what? They made the playoffs! In '06-'07, Cassell got old and Kaman forgot how to play again, and they still pushed us to the final day of the regular season. In '07-'08, Mobley forgot how to play too, plus they lost Elton Brand for the season; the team was in such disarray that they used 20 different players without even making a midseason trade. These were dreadfully untalented and poorly constructed teams, and without Corey Maggette, they would've been far more dreadful than they were.

6) That he's never played for a winning team. In making the case that Corey Maggette is a loser, people will often point to the aforementioned '05-'06 Clippers; they were the one playoff entrant in his tenure there, and he missed over half the season. Does this suggest that Maggette was preventing them from winning? Not exactly. Those Clippers went 21-11 with Maggette and only 26-24 without him; their Maggette-less winning percentage wouldn't have gotten them into the playoffs that year. And even that understates how key his contributions were to that team. They outscored opponents by just 0.1 points per 48 minutes when he wasn't playing, but by 6.3 points per 48 when he was... a 41-41 team became a 58-24 team whenever Corey Maggette took the floor.

7) That he wouldn't be an asset in a playoff environment. Those '05-'06 Clippers advanced to the second round and took the Suns to seven. Maggette was banged-up, having missed seven of the last eight regular-season games with back spasms, and was only able to average 26.3 minutes a night in the Clippers' twelve postseason contests. But in those minutes, he slaughtered people, averaging 15.3 points on 10.2 shots and 7.3 rebounds; per 36 minutes, that equates to 22.6 points on fourteen shots and ten rebounds. Besides injured cap commodity Raja Bell, no current Warrior has a postseason resume as impressive as Corey Maggette's. And while that speaks partly to our youth and ineptitude, it also speaks partly to his performance... the one time he got the chance, he shined.

8) That he was one of the worst free-agent signings of 2008. Compared to the money given to Baron (five years, $65M), Brand (five years, $79.8M), Gilbert (six years, $111M), Bogut (five years, $72.5M) and even Monta (six years, $66M), Maggette's deal is looking like a bargain... even given his injuries, he's contributed more than any of these guys. The remaining years are the problem, of course; Maggette's deal is no better than mediocre. Still, it's worth keeping his contract in perspective. Many guys are doing far less for far more.

9) That he should never shoot a three. As ugly as his shot has looked since coming here, Maggette has been a semi-viable three-point shooter over the course of his career; with a .320 mark, he ranks only the slightest bit behind Baron, and his .384 showing in '07-'08 was better than either Baron or Jack has ever managed. It's not only understandable that he tries the occasional three, but smart... better a 23-footer than a 20-footer. The Oracle fans can think whatever they like. This guy knows what he's doing.

10) That he's selfish. Maggette is not only a well-liked teammate who's deeply involved in charity work, but a guy who has happily taken on 1) a bench role, 2) a severe cut in minutes, and 3) an impossibly difficult position change since arriving here. Corey Maggette is no more a power forward than Dwight Howard is a point guard; he's physically incapable of playing the position. And yet when Don Nelson asked him to, he did it, and grinned and bore the uncomprehending hatred of the fans when he couldn't pull it off. Corey Maggette has happily played center for this team when asked. He has re-introduced his three-point shot when asked to and shelved it when asked to. He has gotten smacked around by players who outweigh him by fifty pounds. He has played hurt. He has played through chaos and melodrama. He has pushed on, despite choruses of boos. And yet somehow, because his play is unattractive, he's regarded as a difficult guy.

Corey Maggette is a good, productive, winning player, an asset to any team with a brain... there's a reason why smart teams like the Spurs, Celtics and Jazz tried hard to sign him two years ago. This isn't to say that we shouldn't trade him -- his timeline doesn't mesh with the rest of the team's, and we should move him while he's healthy and his stock is high. But we should at least appreciate him, both for his contributions and his commitment, while he's here. The Warriors fanbase prides itself on its intelligence, but their coolness to Maggette suggests that they still have a lot to learn. There's more to offense than pretty passing; playing for a losing team does not necessarily make you a loser; scoring a lot of points really can help your team if you do it without expending a lot of shots. Corey Maggette has been both our best player and cheeriest soldier this season. And if you're really a smart Warriors fan, you should feel all warm and fuzzy about the guy.