Chronicle DESTROYS McGrady

Fran saying what we all have known and now the other PLAYERS know it.....SEE AGENT...SEE !!!!

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Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay: Raptors 94, Rockets 73
I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
Watchin' the tide roll away, ooh
I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time.

Mark it down.

It was Jan. 2, 2009, 1:16 left in the third quarter, when there was a seismic shift in the Rockets' world, when the tectonic plates opened up and swallowed an era.

The official play-by-play sheet simply says: Jamario Moon slam dunk.

Anybody who was watching at the Air Canada Centre or on TV knows it was the precise moment that Tracy McGrady quit on the Rockets.

Yao Ming knows it. You could read it all over his scowling face as he sat on the bench through the final embarrassing minutes of horrid game.

Rick Adelman knows it. You could read it between the lines of his post-game comments when he said he would not talk about any individual performances.

Ron Artest knows it. You could tell that a week ago when Artest dragged his sore and ballooning right ankle onto the court to gut out an overtime win against the Jazz when McGrady made himself a late scratch during the post parade.

Leslie Alexander knows it and Daryl Morey knows it and every one of McGrady's teammates knows it.

One could hope that Dikembe Mutombo was back in Houston watching and will arrive in Atlanta with his leadership in the form of a big stick.

Truth be told, it wouldn't make a difference, wouldn't matter. It would only elicit a few more whimpering excuses from McGrady and more disappointment down the line.

Oh, it was so much more than just 2-for-9 shooting and 4 points in 27 minutes. It was aimless shuffling around the court on offense and defense. It was standing five feet behind the 3-point line, feet rooted to one spot, and simply playing pitch and catch with the ball.

It was Moon driving in from the right side of the basket and seeing McGrady stop running, practically hold the door open and offering to carry Moon's books home from school as he went by for a dunk that would have been more contested in the pre-game layup line.

"McGrady could have made some kind of effort," said veteran play-by-play man Bill Worrell.

"You don't just give somebody an open dunk," said color commentator Matt Bullard.

For crying out loud, these guys are paid employees of the team and they had the guts and integrity to say out loud what everybody sitting at home and falling off their sofas knows.

It was the body language from the opening minutes of the game to the bitter, pathetic end that screamed out loud that McGrady would rather have been any other place on the planet than on that court with that team.

It is a waste of time and effort to go back over all of his empty promises and contradictions from the start of training camp or over his four-plus seasons in Houston.

Just say this: He is an extraordinary talent - T-Mac - who is capable of taking your breath away. Yet as a competitor - Tiny Tim-mac - he can be blown away in a gentle breeze.

This is not the first time that McGrady has revealed himself, having bailed out on the Raptors as an up-and-coming phenom and quit - flat-out admitting publicly that he didn't try - on the Magic to get himself traded out of Orlando.

Thus, it was only a matter of when it would happen to the Rockets. They paid him a sultan's fortune. They coddled him. They praised him. They made every excuse and accommodation for him.

After the Utah fiasco, he promised Morey and Adelman that he would increase his energy level and play hard. The general manager and head coach put their own egos aside and agreed to an unprecedented - and preposterous - notion that he would only have to play one game in back-to-back sets.

Then McGrady went out on Friday night (he's already planning to sit Saturday in Atlanta) and half-stepped it against the Raptors, never getting himself into the game, never finding a rhythm and, ultimately, walking out the back door on them.

This was more than just the latest in a sickly string of games where he's scored 12, 4, 11, 15, 7 and 4 points (8.8 avg.) and shot 20-63 (.317). It was the night when the Rockets organization - everyone from front office to the last player on the end of the bench - had their darkest fears about T-Mac confirmed.

Oh, the Rockets likely won't trade him away. They have themselves boxed in with his huge contract and his deteriorating body.

What they need to do at this point is move on without him. Turn the page on the McGrady Era. The team belongs now to Yao and Ron-Ron - a couple of guys who never shortchange you on effort - and a supporting cast that is pretty damn good.

If McGrady wants to rehab his sore left knee or run off to a retreat and get his chakras back in balance, let him. If he wants to return to the club somewhere down the road in a few weeks or few months and contribute a few - or a few dozen - big buckets in a playoff game, well, they'll be appreciated. But they won't be expected.

Because with 1:16 left in the third quarter on a Friday night in Toronto, Jamario Moon's red-carpet-escort dunk slammed home a point that some of the Rockets had begun to suspect. They can never truly count on T-Mac again. Ever.

Quitting is the stain that won't wash out.

 

Misleading... how can they destroy something that already destroyed itself earlier tonight?
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Feigen destroys McLady too.

McGrady mopes, then he and the Rockets surrender

Now, who says Tracy McGrady isn't a leader?

He quit on Friday. The Rockets followed.

There was a lot of surrender, albeit in different forms, wherever you looked. In their own ways, Ron Artest and Yao Ming gave in, too. But McGrady's quit came in the form of a lack of effort and that impacts everyone.

Everything looks worse when the shots don't go in and it did not help that Luther Head, Carl Landry, Aaron Brooks and Brent Barry went a combined 3-of-26.

They, however, are not the problem. They can make things better or worse, but with the Rockets, problems and solutions, success and failure begin with Yao, Artest and especially McGrady.

Artest quit on the Rockets' offense. He was completely out of control, running his own offense while everyone else had to stop and watch. His only way to succeed was to catch and shoot 3s. Other than that, he missed all four of his shots inside the 3-point arc and had six turnovers in 24 minutes.

This has become a frequent occurrence, but even if he did abandon the plan again, he did play hard. He played as if he cared, and was furious to be taken out of the game with the fourth quarter still to be played, even though the Rockets trailed by 19 and were a few hours away from playing the Hawks.

Yao could not make shots. He missed 7 of 12 attempts, and many of the misses were layups. He did not come close to stopping Andrea Bargnani, who made 8 of 12 shots for his 19 points. But mostly, Yao just missed. He still must learn to battle through bad nights rather than let them get worse. But he does that because he cares so deeply. And if he sometimes moves slowly, he does move. At least physically, he gives what he's got.

McGrady didn't.

I actually thought in the past two games since the Saturday night off against the Jazz, McGrady moved more and better than he had been. He was aggressive. He played with energy, even defensively. He missed shots, but that can be excused if they are good shots. It happens.

On Friday, however, he started with another poor shooting game and quit. That is inexcusable. He moped around the floor most of the night. In the third quarter, he stood at the top of the 3-point arc (when he got that far) and just moved the ball, abdicating any responsibility in the Rockets' offense.

He said later that he grew frustrated that he did not get enough shots to get in a rhythm. He said the spacing was bad. He said there was poor execution.

Perhaps that was his way of taking responsibility for his poor play - he let others' mistakes frustrate him. That is sort of like the celebrity apology, "If someone was offended, I apologize."

Even if we accept that explanation, as excuses go, it's pathetic.

If the spacing is bad, play hard. If you are not getting enough shots, play hard. If the execution is poor, play hard.

That was the deal. McGrady would play only one game in back-to-backs to keep his sore knee from getting worse, but when he played, he would play hard. On Friday, he didn't. Others followed his lead.

It is a long season, however. He can lead the other way, too. He can tell Rick Adelman that he wants to play Saturday in Atlanta. He can demand, request, plead for playing time against the Hawks, and then play hard. He might not play well. He might not even play long. But he can play hard.

His teammates would notice. There's no doubt they noticed on Friday, and they followed his lead.

They gave up on Friday's game. It remains to be seen if they will give up on the season.

 

Now Tmac will hold the Rockets hostage until his contract is up.

 

McGrady for Salmons + Miller.

The Kings save the amount of the last year of Salmons' contract ($5.8 million) for the 2010 sweepstakes. They also free up the logjam at the wing positions with Martin, Garcia, Salmons and Greene. They are going nowhere anyways. Why not get Miller out of the way of Hawes and Salmons out of the way of Martin and Garcia while saving money for 2010?

They don't even have to play McGrady. They can either let his contract expire next season or use him for another trade.

 

When Feigen criticizes it is SERIOUS !!! He has been hinting at it for weeks and I even had a thread about him getting it from both ends at the Chronicle.....

Anyone that pays attention would have been able to figure it out......I for one am glad it is out in the open.....now let's see how Morey and Adelman handle it.

DD

 

Yeap, you can almost sence that something rather than nothing will happen.

 

Pathetic

Glad to see people telling it like it is

 

Artest or Yao needs to call him out. I wonder which one of them has the balls too! Whichever one does, is the real leader of the team.

 

It should be Yao, but I suspect it will be Ron.....heck, I don't care WHO does it, but one of them should.

DD

 

there is alot of fallacy in this whole play hard rant. There are people on this team trying as hard as they can and still sucking. These guys are lost, with or without Tmac, they have looked lost for quite some time now, with or without Tmac, I'm not going to point any fingers (Rick Adelman)but this was rarely an issue wth JVG.

 

Wow, Chronicle just opened the Pandora Box. I hope they know what they are doing

 

I would probably do that if it's the only one to do.

I get this feeling though he will belong to Detroit no matter what.

 

I don't think that will happen. Yao isn't the type of person to do that and Artest probably feels he is too new to the team.

 

This is 100% wrong.

Under JVG without Tmac the team was putrid......and lost......now the difference is that Tmac is on the floor but not really there, it is like reverse magic.

DD

 

jeopardE, tmac_1...get going. You've got your work cut out for you if you plan on spinning this. Accuse the Chronicle of LIES or something! Go! Go!

 

I remember Blinebury writing a column stating that JVG was the only leader on that team. When anything went wrong, JVG was always the one to put him foot down and set things right. Now that he's gone, there's no foundation to this team.

 

They probably feel like the Chronicle just told them there is no Santa Claus.



DD

 

I think you are misunderstanding my point.

Under RA:

team is lost, with or without Tmac. period.

under JVG:

(when Tmac was playing)not so much.