Exactly. i've been one of the most vocal tracy backers here. and i will continue to be one. i believe in tracy.
If McGrady continues to have back problems for the rest of his career, we will be ..... The Minnesota Timberwolves of Texas Starring Yao as KG
We have an Alan Houston in Houston, although not quite, but very close. Don't know how many years to recover..
This isn't exactly the worst case scenario, but it is close. We begin the season with championship aspirations, we are one quarter the way through the season, and we are playing the Spurs in SA without TMac and we don't know when he will be back. That's disappointing, unless we win.
We are probably a .5 team without Tmac. Rockets dropped 4 hard-fought road games. They can still compete.
Rox will never get through the 1st round playoffs without T-Mac, although we have a dominant Yao. We don't have as many good players except for Yao, T-Mac and Bonzi, Shane is good, if he shoot and get 10+ pts, he is the man. Luther still has a long way to go, but I believe in this guy. About T-Mac's back, we don't have any chice. we can't trade him, we can't count on him, all we can do is pray for him. I'm so worried that if we waste Yao's prime without a good and healthy T-mac, we can only wait for another big pick and rebuild this team.
Please don't say this kind of thing here unless you want to make the other Yao's fans look bad. This is a Houston Rockets fans site. Show some respect. If you really have the urge to say things like that, try the ESPN boards.
T-Mac is injured, so what? it isn't the last day of the world. Fairly speaking, this year Rox is better than that team last year. We need to fix the 4th quarter collapsing problem, not like last year, the team hopelessly went to the tank mode, don't say giving up so early. It's Yao's team, it's best chance to nurture the leadership from him. The team desperately needs help, I wish it will come from Bonzi or our bench players or some unexpected tradings, largely it depends on JVG, it is also very clear to him, no more excuses this year. For T-Mac, just let him rest long enough, if he can recover and adjust his shape at the time of the playoff, we are still able to make some noises in the west.
Send him to Shanghai for some acupunture treatment and R&R for a month. Guranteed he would come back as new Mac and Rockets win in 6 over Cleveland in the Finals.... we can pray can't we?
I have touted the idea of making McGrady a sixth man. Limit his minutes just about every night; it won't positively avoid back trouble but it increases the odds of keeping him on the court. He'd be a great sixth man: more than adequate defense and instant offense. Kind of crazy on the surface but it's better to have him making an impact in more games than fewer.
Obviously, you would have to include Howard's salary. It would be a salary dump for Seattle and they pick up expirings, picks, and a couple young players. Something like Juwan and another player (Head) for Rashard and Sura's expiring and a young player (Novak) for Watson. Then use the TE to take back another contract like Damien Wilkens. Sonics would be dropping their payroll be close to $10 million for 2007-08. This would allow them to pursue a premier free agent/free agents. Plus they would have a couple good, young shooters, on rookie scale contracts. Plus they tank out and get a top 6 to 8 pick in next year's deep draft. You've got to remember if we move Juwan in any deal for Rashard and Earl, we are taking back more salary by a long shot. Earl Watson is owed more money than Juwan is by himself. A deal like this would push us up north of $68 million in salary for 2006-07 alone, luxury tax territory, not to mention the subsequent years. So, I actually think that kind of deal would be thought about long and hard by our front office way more than it would be Seattle's front office. I think once we reach the trade deadline and Seattle is stinking it up and obviously going to miss the playoffs, and facing the possiblity of losing Rashard for nothing, that they would jump on a deal like this to dump and rebuild. They are going nowhere this year. If the draft were held today, they would have at worst the 7th pick. If they move Rashard, they can compete with Philly, Memphis, and Charlotte for ping pong balls. Add Oden or Durant to Ray Ray, Ridnour, Wilcox, Robert Swift, Luther Head, Collison, Ridnour, plus a premier free agent or two and all of a sudden you have a Bulls type team in the West with a bunch of young talented pieces that can either grown into something or be good assets for further trades and building their team complete. I think Seattle is a team that is ripe to be taken apart. New ownership, bad arena deal, and losing already. I wouldn't be surprised if they unloaded at the deadline.
But those games were against Western Conference teams. The Rockets play in the Western Conference. This does not bode well for them at all. Yes, they did play hard and Yao was superb but they dropped games against mid-level teams. This begs the question that if they can't compete against the Portlands & Golden States' in the West, how can they expect to prevail against the likes of Phoenix, Dallas and San Antonio? Now do I realize that they are missing Tmac and Kirk Snyder but even when Tmac was playing, they were still an offensively challenged team - one that struggled to put points on the board in the late stages of games. And the fact that Tmac's back is injured again has sent chills deep throughout the organization and fandom because everything was predicated upon having 2 bonafide star players on this roster. If Tmac's back condition proves to be chronic, then this team is done and they will have to undertake yet another rebuilding session (which could take years) and that's the worse case scenario no one wants to talk about.
Wow, just wrote yesterday, and see the hope today!!! There is no absolute scrub, and there is no permanent elite team, THIS IS NBA! I just can not wait the evolution, most important, JVG's evolution. For this game, from 0-5 JVG 4 He seems still emotional, like Popavich. How can you beat opponents if you can't control your mood? Yao 4+, great start for Rox. 5 fouls. Bonzi 5-, Spurs will have nightmare this season. Too quick for spurs' scrubs Head 4 Better ball handling and 2, although not many 3s. RA 3+ good crutch play. Jho, 4, good shooting, slow on D Battier 3+ good D and can be better on 3s. JL3 3+ good replacement for RA. Who said we are not an elite team? This is NBA, Impossible is possible, and vice verse.
i can tell you are a chinese fan due to your poor english (better than my chinese ) but this is clutchfans.com not yaofans.com...........sorry post............you should be banned from posting on here forever.
i dont understand why everyone is talking about trading Yao, just because he "deserves a ring". that is the stupidest thing i ever heard. you call urselves rocket fans? goodness.
Worst case scenario is that McGrady's career is pretty much over, he'll be limited to 20-40 games a year and wont be nearly as effective as he used to be in the games he is in. If that happens it puts us in a rough, rough spot. No team is gonna want seriously damaged goods with an enormous contract attached. This seems very unlikely to me though. Everyone knows Tracy's back will never get better, but with conditioning and a little luck he can be our solid number two guy for at least 2/3rds of a season. I think that what the reality of the situation is is that T-mac will continue to have back problems and will miss 10-20 games a season (hopefully less and not anymore) until he retires whenever. However, even with that as the case he is valuable to us. Cause when T-mac does play he's gonna give it his all, and watch out if we make the playoffs... thats when T-mac would really pay off. Meanwhile the Rockets seem to be starting to learn to get along without T-mac, its still rough but you can see Bonzi, Shane, Head, and Yao clicking more and more. I think Bonzi is gonna be our savior (who'd have ever thought that a month ago) when T-Mac is out. When Bonzi gets back to 100% the combo of Bonzi and Yao are gonna become quite respected around the league in T-mac's absence. The Rockets will survive, even if T-mac is out for the year. We can still make the playoffs and make some noise without him, though it'll be considerably harder, we do have a pretty good team right now and thats with or without Tracy. Furthermore, what ever happened to loyalty? Put some faith in Tracy people. Personally I say we keep T-mac no matter what unless things go way south and we could actually get a respectable trade for him (unlikely in a worst case scenario). It just doesnt seem right to throw a former superstar out on his ass cause of something he can't control. And I know this isn't the practical or business like approach that most want to take but I feel like the great T-mac deserves better. The Colts wouldn't disgard Manning if he went down for a season and it was looking like he'd never return at full strength even the following season. However, If Manning were to continue to try to get into shape and play then he would likely have a place on that roster, and as long as there is some hope that T-mac will get back to his former glory, or just be the extra oomph we need in the post season, we keep him for better or worse until his contract is up.
Why do people keep bringing up this trade. Why do people keep moaning about it. This was a great trade as Battier has been very good for this team. I'm betting Gay will never be a top tier player. The trade made sense then and still makes sense. This team can get into the playoffs without T-Mac, but they can be great with him. I think that is enough of an incentive to roll the dice and hope he is healthy. Battier is one of the reasons this team does so well defensively, and the defense is what keeps us in games. We would not be competitive with Gay instead of Battier... How you are still lamenting that trade is beyond me.
