How do you people not realize you dont have to pay? You dont click the T-Mac page.. Just reclick the link on the 1st page of this thread when you sign up.
I'm glad he is putting in the work.I wish him good luck,although I have my doubts of him doing very well.
Sigh* Tmac is going to comeback and do great things.. and trick us into giving him more money and more time..
did you see the denver game where he got the triple double? on a fastbreak, he made a layup. if you replay that play closely, he BARELY made that layup. that missed dunk was inevitable.
pretty nice workout video thanks to the poster who got the youtube link it will be interesting to see how he actually comes back there was one part in the video where he is like jumping off of one leg and is like putting little to no weight on his other leg that looked weird but he is jumping off the leg he had the surgery on so thats good.
In my opinion, the missed dunk was the last piece of evidence that he and the Rockets needed to see... I mean, how many 6'8 basketball players at any level and under 40 years old can't dunk on a 10 foot rim?? Even Nique dunked a couple of years ago on a alley hoop in a celebrity game during All Star Weekend in Atlanta at age 45 I believe. Initially, doctors told him to play through the pain, and told him it would get better...and that was okay at first http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/m/mcgratr01/gamelog/2009/ He was shooting horribly, but he was getting to the line, and he did improve his free throw shooting and his spot up 3 point shooting. However, his defense was terrible due to the injury...remember Ray Allen running circles around him in one of his best offensive games of the season...Allen basically won the game for the Celtics that game. He played the 1st 15 games of the season, since Battier was not back, and he played very inconsistently on offense and consistently bad on defense because of his troublesome knee. Remember, he went 1/16 in 2 games vs. the Lakers and Clippers. That was between a 30 point and a 27 point outing...some days his knee was okay, other days it was probably killing him. Also, after the first couple of games, he stopped attacking the rim, and he basically became a spot up 3 point shooter and the only guy who could get the ball into Yao. Then after 15 games, Tmac shut it down for 2 weeks to try and strengthen his knee, while not having to play as well. The doctors continued to tell him to play through it, but it got worse. He came back 2 weeks later, and had 6 pretty good games, and we lost only one of those. He even had a triple double and was an assist away from a 2nd triple double. He still couldn't jump, and only went left when he drove, so that he wouldn't have to jump off his left knee. Then he came back and had 5 horrible games in a row, and we only win one of those games. He then tries the every other game plan along with Artest, but that backfires as well and doesn't help. Also the infamous "Toronto Game" where he apparently quits, happens. I think mentally, Tmac was shaken at that point. He had never performed that bad, even in 05-06, or even as a rookie, he was more consistent. He was used to being a top 5 player in the NBA, and he was the laughing stock of the city and the NBA at that point and his people began to wrongfully question his injury. He came back strong the next game in Philly, and played 42 minutes, but he still struggled with the knee, and we lost that game as well. The next game he plays is vs. the Thunder, and that game he was productive, but he and the Rockets knew the knee wasn't right, so they both agreed that he should train some more, and hope that the knee gets better. He came back, and once again he had a few good games when he came back. However, it was false hope...he still had no elevation when he was shooting, he still wasn't able to get by people, even with a pick n' roll he couldn't turn the corner, and he wasn't getting to the free throw line much either. He made a crucial layup for us vs. the Pistons, and he had that dunk over Tyrus Thomas (jumped off his right leg) and he had a nice block on a fast break layup by Randy Foye...however, that was just false hope for him, the Rockets and the fans. We also only go 3-4 in his last 7 games. Basically, every time he took a couple of weeks off and trained, his knee was okay for a couple of games, but then it went back to being horrible again...due to the fact that he needed microfracture surgery, not arthroscopic surgery. The doctor's kept saying play through it, even though it was horrible. Then the missed dunk happened in Milwakee, and thats when Tmac officially hit rock bottom as a basketball player...it happens. But it was just crazy to see that a slam dunk competitor, one of the best athletes the NBA had ever witnessed and one of the most talented scorer and playmaker the NBA had ever seen could come crashing down to getting hung on the rim on a open fast break dunk...he could not jump off his left knee at all. Until then, EVERYBODY questioned his injuries, even though Dwade told the Chronicle he went through the same exact thing, except he was much younger than Tmac. But he also had a knee and shoulder injury and said it was hard to rehab both of those at the same time and thus his rock bottom season as a team (15-67 record). Everybody called Tmac soft, said he didn't care, said he had no heart, he was a cancer (even though that was Artest), was selfish, wasn't talented, didn't do anything for the Rockets, etc. Yet, once people saw how bad his knee had become, they couldn't question it anymore... I think it was a blessing in disguise, because otherwise, he would just try to keep playing through it, and hurt the team, since he could not play defense or drive or shoot at a high level due to basically playing on 1 leg.
For what it's worth to anybody around here.... ...as much as the final decision for McGrady to have this microfracture surgery may grant him a few more productive seasons *and more than a few of them as a Houston rocket, no less)... ...it probably doesn't really matter to most people at this point how injured or hurting McGrady was. I'd like to believe that most wouldn't question whether or not McGrady was playing injured in an attempt to help the team out as best he could.... ..but the truth of the matter is that Tracy McGrady has garnered an lot of ill-will around here. I don't think he's done that with his teammates or with management (I think it's fair to say that everybody directly concerned would rather MGrady be healthy enough to play than prove he's tough or cares by playing hurt), but there are more than a few people who will see the worst in McGrady before they see the best. As fans, BlackKnight, it goes without saying that part of that "responsibility" is to voice your opinion however you see fit regarding players, coaches, management....even the halftime entertainment it it floats your boat. There were just as many people calling for Hakeem Olajuwon's head in the late '80s and early '90s as there are calling for McGrady's scalp. That's just the way it is. In my opinion, and particularly in this instance, the criticism of McGrady has been unwarranted. I believed from the very beginning that, if anything, McGrady wasn't ready play, and shouldn't have been allowed to choose himself when and under what circumstances he'd be allowed to play when he was clearly not 100%. I don't think this was anyone's fault, per se, but more than a few people mismanaged this horribly. McGrady will, once again, draw the heaviest fire for it, but there's more than enough bad stuff here to go around.... Just try not to be surprised when somebody tells you that McGrady still should have told the team that watched him struggle for almost three months about his decision to have a surgery first (that was always an option and, as it turns out, a necessity), and proves what kind of selfish hump he is....
i never fell off the t-mac bandwagon for even a second, and i hope he comes back strong and the whole fiasco will only be a way of us bringing him back cheap next year so we can have the assets to resign scola and lowry and hopefully we can mix a few trades and free agents enough so that we can maybe land a chris bosh. with yao and tmac, ariza ,battier ,brooks ,scola ,landry, andersen (unless battier or landry are used as trade assets) and another perhaps under the radar star. this team can be amazing.
That's awfully sweet of you to say, T FOR 3!!! But bandwagonning is a perogative of fans too.... You get to cheer when your team's winning. And you get to boo when they're losing. No fan has to, or should feel the need to, apologize for their feelings being hurt or their sensibilities being offended by McGrady's at-times tempermental behavior. And possibly the worst set of circumstances had to converge at just the right moment for all this to have come about..... If there's way (or even if there's any need) to set things right with people here in Houston for McGrady, the only place that can happen where it matters is on the court. And with winning..... Win, and everybody loves you no matter what (Vernon Maxwell). Lose, and people can't find the difference between Granville Waiters and Tracy McGrady.....
