If Yao had not gotten injured back in december, what kind of Tmac would we be looking at? Would the rockets have a better record even with a subpar Tmac averaging under 20 points? Would Tmac eventually snap out of it? It doesnt matter anymore but perhaps that was a blessing in disguise, I mean it wasnt until Yao went down that Tmac finally snapped out of his (can I call it a depression?) All I know is that Yao's injury cost him the MVP but other than that he is back on his dominant track and got a hell of a lot of rest. What do you guys think? If this question has been asked feel free to lock.
Could they win 60 games if T-mac would have continued to play as bad as he was offensively at the start of the season, even with 6 assists per game?
You have to realize the fact that TMAC didn't really play last year. When you go out 8-9 months, you'll have some rust. As the above poster said, we woulda easily had 60 wins if Yao wasn't injured.
AGREE!!! where is that old poll at about is tmac gonna turn it on during the playoffs??? HE admited to it, that he waits till playoffs are near to start playin HARD!! in my opinion thats smart
T-Mac was playing in a similar way for a while even after Yao got back in March. He wasn't playing poorly at all; he was just an inefficient individual scorer, mainly because he realized he didn't need to kill himself trying to get 30 or even 25 a night for them to win the vast majority of their games at that point. In December, though, he was even starting to pick it up in some games before he got injured for that little seven-game stretch. He was probably lacking some confidence in his back early in the season, but he got that within a few games after seeing the Waco Wizard. So that had nothing to do with Yao. So yes, we would have won even more games... and if McGrady hadn't missed the 11 games he missed this year, we might have won 60 games even WITH Yao getting injured... and that would have just been ridiculous. McGrady would probably be a lock for MVP.
We would have 60 wins and open the first round against Denver, then Phoenix. I actually prefer our current Utah, then Dallas situation.
Tmac coasted all year so what... even in that 32 game strech I still think he didnt go 100% he did get the rest of the guys going... believing they were better then they could be... just ride Tmac's coat tails.. it was a lucky season... Tmac coming back when Yao went down... then Yao coming back when the team started to slump.... if Tmac wanted to coast... who cares he has played in the NBA long enough to know what you need to do to help win... 52 games in the End its the Playoffs that count anyways...
the spurs didnt even win 60 games this year and i dont think we are quite on their level yet. 60 wins is a hard plateau.
i think the whole game plan got modified because of yao's injury. there are several reasons why tmac looked very poorly at offense at the beginning of the season:1. back problem. i don't think the back got good treatment during summer, he got another back spasms very soon after he started to play hard. 2. whole game plan is around yao. no much support for tmac's offensive game and with that bad back his ability to score all by himself is weakened. if yao didn't get injured, then he would be a strong candidate for mvp, no doubt. and tmac would totally lose his confidence and become a roll player. but would rox get even better record? i don't know. would rox go deep in playoffs? i don't think so. this is not traditional center time. when yao got injured, jvg had to adjust his game plan. and tmac's back was finally taken care of by that waco doctor. and there was no pressure on tmac anymore. if he played well, great; if not, yao was missing so what would you expect? those 3 factors finally made tmac regain his offensive game.
I agree. 60 wins. McGrady was already getting his groove on before he injured his back in the Wizards game. He would have gotten his groove back in no time at all. Never had any worries about it.
