with TMac back, the Houstons beat the Hawks and most every Rocket had a good game all around. This begs a question. Would the Rockets be as futile if Yao was injured for several weeks and TMac was left to lead the team himself?
Yes, they do. He carried them like no other player in franchise history. Best performer in postseason in each of 3 playoffs with Orlando.
No, Losing your primary playmaker who is also your best player is worse than losing a good big man. Look at how Phoenix has done without Amare, but they still have Nash....look at Miami without Shaq, but they still have Wade...sure they are not as good, but they are at least competitive. If Yao had gone out for these last 8 games instead of Tmac, the Rockets probably would have won at least 4 if not 5 of them. Tmac is the keystone to this team...he is batman...Yao is Robin. DD
I don't think so. The team was built around Yao a few years ago, until we got the chance for TMAC. Now that we have Tracy from the Orlando trade, the team is built around him. With him missing we are aweful, as we have seen. I think we could muster .500 with out Yao.
i think it kind of answers itself. without yao, we would still have a guy who could create shots for himself and others, that would get us a handful of wins right there. yao is what he is. a very good nba player who can't get wins all by himself. nothing wrong with that, but that's the situation. tracy is the MAN on this team. he is the rockets offense, not yao.
I agree that TMac carried the Magic to 3 first round appearances, however Shaq and Penny carried the franchise to more glory than TMac did, thus Shaq and Penny were the two players who carried the team like no other in franchise history.
'cause there were two of them and one of T-Mac? ummm... Kobe and Shaq? Duncan and Robinson? Stockton and Malone? What did Shaq and Penny do other than one run to the finals that was so historic?
No. And I can explain it simply as this: In the final minute of a close game, when TMac gets the ball, I, as a fan, would think "he's gonna do something great and win this game". On the other hand, if Yao gets the ball in the same situation, the first thing I would think of is "don't turn it over". TMac is a superstar, the only superstar we have. Yao is a good complementary player, but he will never be a No. 1 guy on a contending team.
I think he's responding to the "in franchise history" referring to Magic history. He's saying they had the best postseason in Magic history not in NBA history.
T-mac is the scorer, play-maker, rebounder and defender in our team. His substitute is Bowen who gives us nothing but hustle plays. Yao is the scorer and marginal rebounder in our team. His substitute is Deke who's a much better rebounder and defender. And most importantly T-mac is a much better basketball player than Yao. I would expect we won at least half of those games.
I don't think we'd lose as badly as we have been. But we'd lose about 50% of 'em. Dikembe still plays good defense. But he can't score. We'd miss Yao's 20+ points and 10+ rebounds. T-Mac would make up for some of that scoring, but not all.
I believe that the Rox would be probably be sitting at just a little .500 if Yao was out. TMac has too many dimensions that defenders have to prepare against. With Yao, all the other teams have to do is double team him and take him out of the game. Yao doesn't have the dominant presence to fight through the double team and throw some elbows to overly-aggressive defenders. That's what you have to do, you gotta give out some hard fouls otherwise defenders are not going to be afraid to be all up on you all night long. Yao needs to hurt some people...he needs to learn to hurt some people. TMac can penetrate, shoot, break down players, pass and defeat double teams. That's what makes him the best player on the team.
With McGrady ON the court last year, we had a +7.6ppg differential as compared to only +3.5 with Ming. Probably not a long bow to say that McGrady makes a bigger difference, and that with him we would have won AT LEAST half those games!
The Magic of the mid 1990's had not only two superstars, but a solid supporting cast. McGrady's Magic teams were, to say the least, IMO one of the worst lineups in history of the league to make the playoffs. The mere fact that they made the playoffs two or three times in the years he spent there was remarkable to say the least. When you have Darrel Armstrong and Tyrone Lue as two of your top talents, then you're in deep ****, I don't know what else to say. McGrady played like a man possessed in those Magic playoffs, for those who haven't seen his performances you should rent some video or something and watch it, it was truly some of the greatest individual performances in an entire series I have ever seen, and no I am not exaggerating since the guy had literally five players on him at all times, daring Armstrong to beat them. Anyways, the past is the past, and again I just don't see the point of bringing up this thread topic again (it was discussed about a couple of weeks ago, and some posters for whatever reason seemed to get defensive and felt compelled to take shots at T-Mac). No reason to bring this up again, this team needs not only both of them, but the supporting cast as well to win; basketball is a team sport.
I'd agree. I know this was only the Hawks and we should've beaten them with T-Mac and Yao on the floor with basically any other 6 guy rotation. I do agree with many here that this team plays uptight without T-Mac on the court. Not despite his greatness, or that he's not trying to do what JVG wants, but T-Mac sets foot on the court and plays. I've said it before but I think that's why Head's been so effective - he's probably a little overwhelmed to think too much - and the guy just plays. Yao's afraid of fouls and the rest of the roster plays like they're afraid of making mistakes. When he wasn't injured, Barry even seemed to be out of whack. T-Mac steps out on the court and knows Yao just standing there helps his game (though he doesn't need any help) and his game flows and isn't worried about mistakes. And it carries over to everyone. T-Mac's had plenty of games when he shoots 33% and made knucklehead mistakes and still managed to have a great game for anyone else, but he doesn't worry about it. JVG is JVG, and he's said this team relies on T-Mac far too much which is true. But T-Mac's the only guy that can reign JVG in if he chooses, and the players know that ultimately he's the floor general and is definitely not under anyone's command. Many here think T-Mac's biggest project is Stro, but I hope the time Alston and he have spent on the bench and in the training room will set some things straight. Again it's only the Hawks, but everyone got everyone going tonight. Going away from the gloom and doom.
A yao-less Rox team may still be above the 0.500 mark, at least for the regular season. but without Yao, the ROX have absolute no chance in the playoff. Dont even think about getting more than 2 W.
Rockets will be at bottom of west conference without Tmac, but still way below average in the conference without Yao. It's very easy to shut down one guy with zone defense. Tmac struggled in Orlando after zone is allowed. Last year Rockets lost to NO without Yao. Tmac is great, he's the best player on Rockets, but don't underestimate Yao's impact to Rockets just because we went 0-8. You have to realize that Rockets only played agsint one losing team without Tmac, most of them on the road, yet they were pretty much in every game with Yao on the court. That losing team is NO/KC with 6-7 record, not too bad either. Plus the players are not familiar playing with each other. So I don't think the team would win half of these games without Yao. Rockets is a two men team, without one star, the other one will suffer.
Tmac is obviously the MVP of this team. If there were some other forward/guard on the team who could generate offense (like a Ginobili or Billups) - then TMac's absence would not leave as glaring a hole and the team could probably stay competitive. Hopefully Luther Head can develop into this sort of viable third option on offense. Of course - the idea of Howard or Stromile logging major minutes at center is kind of scary too. Deke is a good backup - but I think his productivity would decrease a lot if he had to play 30+minutes a night.
