How would McHale fare in today's game?

[Timdawgg]

He would dominate completely. There has never been or will be someone with McHales footwork. He was a wizard with his post moves. Top Tier Defender to boot...UNSTOPPABLE.

[BASS_THUMPER]

a player like dwight howard would block every shot

great foot work but to slow and predictable

[33_Larry Legend_33]

a player like dwight howard would block every shot

great foot work but to slow and predictable

It is apparent you know very little to nothing about Kevin McHale...  If you did, you'd never use the word "predictable" to identify his low-post abilities. 

[GreenFaith1819]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DopFnYmYoWE&feature=related

Go to work, Big Man!

There'll never be another like him.

[CelticG1]

Charles Barkley, on NBATV's "Open Court", has remarked before about how Kevin McHale was the best PF he ever went up against.

Charles knows his stuff.

Doesn't really mean much to me at all.

Ron Artest said that Brandon Roy was the toughest guy he's ever had to guard..

Again I'll ask the question, what was McHales competition at power forward? As far as I can tell he didn't really go up against any greats. You can kind of make the argument that he went up against Barkely and Malone but they weren't really in the same era. If you wanted to, you could say KG went up against Barkley and for that matter he probably went up against a better Malone too.

All I'm saying is that I think the Power Forward field would have been a lot more competitive for Mchale if he entered the league in 98-99 (which the OP was referring to) than back when McHale actually played.

[GreenFaith1819]

CelticG1 - I never saw KM play in person, but according to what I've seen on TV, McHale would've had his way vs ANY PF in the 90's as well.

The bottom line is that most PFs (or centers) would NOT have been able to guard KM..he just had too many moves.

Outside of perhaps KG, TD or Hakeem who could guard or even begin to emulate KM's post moves in the 90's, 2000's or even today?

Look, I love KG, but guess who trained him when he was a young fella:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_dtm2rlV_E&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL18DCB06A84E63849

And thus, after checking out the vid below, you can gather that at least SOME of KG's post-moves were derived from the PostMaster Kevin McHale:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VQVYrtnYzs

Check out that 1st portion, vs DAL. You can't tell me that that move didn't have KM written all over it.

Someone in the thread earlier mentioned the PFs of the 80's that he went up against. That was a formidable group.

KM was a smart player, too....if you tried to exploit him in any way, he just compensated for it.

The incredible thing about him is that he spent the most time guarding HAKEEM in the 86 Finals - not Chief. Go check the vids out on youtube and see for yourself. They are too long to post here.

Yes, indeed - Kevin McHale would have his way with today's Bigs. No offense to them, because I like Pau, Marc, Dwight, DeAndre, etc - but they wouldn't know how to deal with all of the moves.

They'd be in the Paratrooper Club.

[colincb]

McHale would be the best PF in the league today if he was at his prime.  He's got the third highest FG% in the HOF behind only Gilmore and Jabbar, He was unstoppable with his inside moves and his fade-away and he was 6 times first or second team All Defense. Many thought he was the best player on the 1986 Cs which is arguably the best team of all-time and if you didn't see him before he was injured, you didn't see him at his best.  

McHale's career overlapped with Barkley for 9 years, Malone for 8 years, and Rodman for 7 years, all of HOF quality. In the new millennium, I only see Duncan, KG, and Dirk as PFs of HOF quality, so I don't see any reason why he wouldn't still be regarded as a top 50 player all-time as the NBA determined in 1996. I never saw anyone stop him and DH wouldn't either if he was forced to guard him one-on-one.

I go back almost 50 years following the NBA and he's one of the handful of top PFs, at their best, along with Barkley, Duncan, and KG of all-time.  Malone gets in that group because of longevity and sustained excellence too, but I'd take the others first.

[Celtics4ever]

Bob Petit was a good forward.

[CelticsFanNC]

  Players of today wouldn't know how to guard someone like McHale with such a full arsenal of low post moves and a great mid-range game because no one in today's game has that kind of well rounded skill set.  Defensively he was about as good as it gets at his position all-time.

  I honestly think that he'd eat these guys for lunch.  At the top of his game he was about as good as it gets at the PF spot.

[CelticG1]

Listen, I didn't watch McHale in his prime either. I saw his latter years where I always thought he sucked. I have seen video of him though and I think I have a pretty good grasp  of how good a player he was. I'm just saying that the competition at his position at the time was a lot weaker than it would have been if he entered the league in 98 99.

Maybe he would have been in the mix with KG, Duncan and Dirk but I don't think he'd be a clear cut Wilt Chamberlain  type dominance like some people think. Its 2 different eras Mchale would have been entering an era where 5 MVPs were handed out to 4 different players that played the same position as him.

[TitleMaster]

Would it really matter, whether or not McHale could completely dominate the paint during the '99 to '04 era, if he were paired up with Paul Pierce?

Realize, Pierce was the most underrated swingman of his era. I'd say that Paul and Kobe were virtually equal during the Shaq Diesel era, as Pierce singlehandedly dominated the Lakers, during periodic regular season games, which is how he got the nickname, The Truth, from Shaq to begin with.

Thus, pair up Pierce with McHale, add a few role players (not named Walter McCarty), and you have a championship contender, with the caveat that at least one of those role players has the Posey/Bowen touch.

[Inside-Out]

McHale post-injury was nothing like pre-injury.  The guy still can barely walk right.

As far as PF's of his era, I can't believe nobody remembers Moses Malone, McAdoo, Karl Malone, Barkley, Oakley, Rodman, Ralph Sampson, Mychal Thompson, Kevin Willis, Michael Cage, Roy Tarpley...solid competition comparable to today's PF's, though few names most folks around here have ever heard.

[BballTim]

Listen, I didn't watch McHale in his prime either. I saw his latter years where I always thought he sucked. I have seen video of him though and I think I have a pretty good grasp  of how good a player he was. I'm just saying that the competition at his position at the time was a lot weaker than it would have been if he entered the league in 98 99.

Maybe he would have been in the mix with KG, Duncan and Dirk but I don't think he'd be a clear cut Wilt Chamberlain  type dominance like some people think. Its 2 different eras Mchale would have been entering an era where 5 MVPs were handed out to 4 different players that played the same position as him.

  McHale was a low post player, so he was frequently guarded by opposing centers. He generally guarded the best offensive player out of the sf/pf/c group on the opposing team. Shaq, Kareem and Dwight Howard are the only players in nba history that have a higher career scoring total as well as a higher career fg%.

[CelticG1]

Listen, I didn't watch McHale in his prime either. I saw his latter years where I always thought he sucked. I have seen video of him though and I think I have a pretty good grasp  of how good a player he was. I'm just saying that the competition at his position at the time was a lot weaker than it would have been if he entered the league in 98 99.

Maybe he would have been in the mix with KG, Duncan and Dirk but I don't think he'd be a clear cut Wilt Chamberlain  type dominance like some people think. Its 2 different eras Mchale would have been entering an era where 5 MVPs were handed out to 4 different players that played the same position as him.

  McHale was a low post player, so he was frequently guarded by opposing centers. He generally guarded the best offensive player out of the sf/pf/c group on the opposing team. Shaq, Kareem and Dwight Howard are the only players in nba history that have a higher career scoring total as well as a higher career fg%.

Id be willing to bet that the nba in general had higher fg% back then and point differential was almost 20 which you nee to factor in as well.

Basically McHale was in a league of his own when it came to Power Forward in his era and I think part of the reason is because there weren't many others. It doesn't take away from him just saying I don't think in a different era that he would necessarily be looked at a the top dog at his position.

How much more dominant did Shaq look after some of the great centers started fading and it was just him? Doesn't take anything away

[Inside-Out]

Also keep in mind that McHale's peak was unfortunately very short.  He was 6th man behind Max for his first few years, started in the '84-'85 season, then was injured in the '87 finals.  So his peak as a starter was really only 3 years.

During that brief window, he was simply the best PF imaginable.  There was nothing he couldn't do.  Score low, mid-range, FT's, rebound, defend, block shots, run the floor, move the ball - he had it all.

So if we're talking about McHale at his peak during those 3 years, he was the best PF of all time, IMO.