I think some of you guys are a little hard on T-Mac. There are times where he only cared about himself. Hell, there's times when he doesn't really give $&!t. But T-Mac has done a lot for the Rockets. Health has kept him down and will continue to keep him down. During the playoffs, T-mac has been a man among boys. Do you remember all the passes he made to Head and others and they couldn't hit wide open shots? That's not his fault. Other great players have great role players. The Rockets haven't been so luck but till the end of last year and this year. The only great player that didn't have much and made it to the finals is Lebron James. Also, T-mac does spend time with his teammates. He just doesn't sign autographs and things of that nature.
EXACTLY! AntiRealist wants to do revisionist history to make it like the Magic won that trade. The Magic got NOTHING out of the TMac trade except for more trades to get rid of the wastes they realized they had in the ISO 3.
Like dude said, it's not his fault teammates don't hit wide open shots. T-Mac goes out there and leaves it all on the floor. He has ALWAYS shown trust to his teammates time and time again. Sometimes he trusts them to a fault. Take Kobe for example... why is he viewed as a leader!? He throws his teammates under the bus and has thrown tantrums in public. Even Curt Schilling, who admitted to knowing nothing about basketball, wondered how such a guy can be a leader. Nevertheless, he is considered a leader. Want to know why..... because his teammates knock down open shots in the playoffs. If his teammates brick a few, he (tries to) takeover the game and shuns his teammates off, leaving them to just stand on the court.
The Magic were 2-1 against (world champion) Boston, 2-2 against Detroit (who they lost in the playoffs to), 3-1 against Cleveland, and won their division. They are 8-3 right now and (drum roll...) leading their division. Spin it however you want, but they are one of the better teams out east.
Definitely both got better...they were smart not trading that pick away like they talked about... I didn't know it how it was like when a trade went down...looked interesting
Yeah but they also don't have the schedule that the Rockets had to play this year. Not only that, have you seen any of their games this year? They didn't look too great in a lot of those wins. They are struggling in their own right. So i'm not trying to take away from their record but it's not like they had a schedule that the Rockets have had this year.
Forgive me for not quoting the post, but I was replying to someone asking what made Orlando an eastern powerhouse. The Rockets schedule has nothing to do with their status.
2004-05: Houston 51-31 Orlando 36-46 2005-06: Houston 34-48 Orlando 36-46 2006-07: Houston 52-30 Orlando 40-42 2007-08: Houston 55-27 Orlando 52-30 If that trade was so much better for Orlando, why have we had a better record than them 3 out of the past 4 years, despite Orlando being in the weaksauce Eastern Conference? And what happened to Weisbrod again?
I am not very knowledgeable on that last season tmac was in Orlando... did he play all season? The comment Weisbrod made about "We could have gotten last place in the league without him" made me think of Wade and the Heat. Sounds like there was just a lot of friction between the new GM and coach and their star.
They already had Howard when they made the trade. The trade did not produce Howard, and there is no rebuilding without him. Weisbrod destroyed all trade negotiating power they had with TMac. He ended up resigning as one of the worst GMs in the NBA. Since they got nothing in return for Cuttino (only 1/2 yr after the trade), and basically nothing for Francis, there is no difference between that trade and just letting TMac opt-out...if what you are saying is that was a good trade simply for salary reasons. They also picked up Turkoglu when they still had the Francis, Cato, and Mobley contracts, so they didn't need to purge salary to get him. That trade didn't really end up any differently than TMac just opting out or waiving him.
Weisbrod blew it. He went public bashing TMac to save face. By going public about not getting along with his star player, Weisbrod really ruined his own trade power. They shut down TMac in March so as to lose as many games as possible to get Howard or Okafur. There were many articles since then from Orlando Sentinel wondering what the pairing of TMac with Howard would have been like, including last year during our winning streak.
I don't think you understood what heyp was trying to say. What we have after the trade is a gimpy Tmac what they have after the trade is NOTHING If they were just trying to get from under his contract they could have just let him walk. The rockets won that trade. Should we do a 'where are they now' of the guys that got sent to the Magic. Stevie's is a year away from retirement. Cato is...where is Cato? Mobley is the only one worth anything and last year he spent most of the season coming off the bench for the laughing stock of the NBA. You could say we have moved laterally but we would have taken a few steps back if we would have never made the trade. The Orlando Magic's recent success has nothing to do with Tracy Mcgrady, i hear they have some decent player by the name of Dwight Howard there now. Heard of him?
Bottom line is that we are a championship contender, and Tmac is the centerpiece of it, while Orlando is a pretender in the east with non of the players from that trade on their team.
Orlando became better because they totally tanked and got a No.1 pick in 2004. There is little to do their trade of TMac. And don't forget this "insightful" GM is doing scout job now.
Wow, when things seem down people will dig into any little thing to add to the piling on. I remember when the trade was made, John Weisbrod was insulted and talked about as an idiot for taking on driblle happy steve and cutinoe in return for superstar t-mac. Now everyone is down on Mac and you wanna say we should have lknown all along. Personally I would do this trade 10 of 10 times even with T-Mac's injury frustrations (and I was one who was pissed when stevie and cat were traded). T-Mac and the Rockets will be fine!
