i don't even want to remotely compare the GOAT to a guy who never advanced out of the first round. but jordan, when he played w/ pippen and rodman during their heyday, all he focused on was primarily score. pippen had the ballhandling duties primarily and guarding the other team's best player. basically, his objective on the team was to score and finish teams off. and tmac had to do that ALL YEAR. tmac had to do everything AND score AND try to finish teams off. this is why adelman is HUGE. he'll make tmac's part on this team more "one-dimensional." be an attacker. be a finisher. do what u do best. you play better when your mindset is one. that's why getting francis/james is huge. they'll do the ballhandling duties primarily while tmac can focus on scoring.
I am fine with that. I just don't think T-Mac (or in your case "the GOAT") possesses the attributes of a "superstar". He's got to want the ball at the end of the game and be able to make the players around him better if he wants to be considered a player of that caliber. It is obvious that he thinks very highly of himself. When he was in the running for the MVP last year, he self-proclaimed himself as the "BIP" (Best Impact Player). He did not demonstrate that in the playoffs. He quit during one game and walked up the floor. When his shot was not going in from the outside, he did not attack. He failed to exploit mismatches. He gets too high when he has it going and too low on himself when he doesn't. Legends are born in the postseason. To me, McGrady is a very good player, but not a superstar. I am optimistic that Mike James, Stevie Francis and even Scola will take some pressure off him. Yao is the mentally tough leader on the team. Too bad he is not the playmaker.
Kobe proved he was not soft in the Playoffs, he did have shaq but being soft or hard has nothing to do with it.
tmac IS confident. he DOES want to take the last shot. ala game 2 v. dallas 2 yrs ago. he told JVG not to call a TO and let him create a shot for himself or his teammate. he took the last shot in game 5 of that same series and missed. and those are playoff games. so he has that mentality. now u just need to help him our DURING the games so he can FINISH games. and i don't get how u can say tmac is not mentally tough and yao is? i mean, yao let okur dictate where and how he took his shots and never put a hard foul on boozer.
