If Tracy were to be traded, which I am not advocating, we wouldn't get scrubs for him. I think you are stuck in the Van Gundy twilight zone when you make statements like it would take 4-5 years to make the playoffs. Unless you think little of Adelman I don't see how you can make such a statement.
ok. even if we were, we wouldn't be close to a top 3-4 team w/ tracy. we're VERY close to the ring right now. just hope tracy and yao can stay healthy and others contribute like they should
Next season will be Tmac's season. I believe getting out of the first round will not be a problem at all.
Everyone says Kobe has to do too much by himself but if you look at the Rockets last season, MAC had the ball the majority of the time and had to create not only for himself but for everyone else. Yao was dominant early on but just wasn't the same post injury and he was terrible for the most part in the playoffs, letting Okur push him around like a rag doll. Yeah we all wish Mac was more mentally tough and took it to the rack more but he did that in all the home games in the playoffs, he just failed to show up in the road games except for the 1st half of game 3. I'll take Mac over any other swing man in the league besides a healthy Lebron or Wade (and only b/c they are younger and don't have the nagging back issue). Kobe is a selfish, self centered, ball hog- no thanks!
Can we stop talking about This Trade, please!! Move on, looking forward the season opener, while going vacation, OK?
You dont finish 4TH IN THE MVP RANKING , 2nd all NBA team and be called the 2nd best playmaker in the league behind steve nash according to gorge karl whilst being washedup. McGrady's Scoring will probaly increase this coming season due to the amount of shots he'll get off the ball, but expect he's assist and rebounding numbers to slightly di-crease.
He finished 6th in the MVP ranking. http://www.basketball-reference.com/awards/awards_2007.html Yao was 2nd team all-NBA while only playing 48 games, and honestly if he played 82 games he would have been a 1st team all-NBA shoo-in. Unless McGrady becomes more efficient in his scoring, he won't score more than he did last year. His usage rate was a career high last year and was 1st in the league, and this figures to drop with SF/James coming in and Yao hopefully playing a full season. I hope Adelman can make McGrady a better scorer.
and that was the yr off of a back injury, which is as bad of an injury as u can get. i just hope he'll put up a monster yr next yr so peeps on here can stop saying his game is "deteriorating".
tmac started every possession at the top of the key mostly so the defense can key on him. there is zero movement in JVG's offense and tmac rarely had any easy baskets outside of the 1-2 backcuts he gets a game. efficiency is helped if he takes easier shots (or has easier shots to take). JVG's offense was used to give yao space to dominate as shooters were spread the floor. tmac was the initiator. w/ adelman, tmac is a finisher, not the initiator => thus he should be MUCH more efficient. and yao should be 1st-team all-nba despite playing 48 games. who was first team??? amare?? that's a joke.
His back issues happened in December. You'd think that by the end of the year, he should have gotten his wind back and have played to his full potential? Well, his play at the end wasn't exactly great. His best months were January and February, coming right off the back injury. Clearly the back injury wasn't the main issue. You can hope he puts up a monster year next year. But the fact remains from 2002-2003, his absolute peak, he has been in a slow decline. "Deteriorating" may be too strong a word but it isn't exactly unwarranted.
again, have u seen how his back got sore every time he played a little hard? remember the dallas game afterward where he scored 45 pts?? remember that stretch where he struggled mightily still near the end of the season (and basically took ALL jumpers and didn't go to the rack at all). he might not have had back spasms, but soreness still occurs here and there and the soreness affects his play. and yes, his offensive peak is 02-03. but yes, ur word of deteriorating is too strong b/c deteriorating is not 2nd-team. deterorating is basically trash. so yes it's unwarranted. if tmac is deteriorating, next yr he'll fall of the map b/c i'm sure u can look up the word deteriorating.
First of all, you are totally and completely WRONG!!! So when Boston/LA in the 80s the superstars were always bring it! In '82, '85 and 87 Bird wasn't a superstar? In '84 Magic was tragic? Hmmm ... That's why the line comes sometimes it's just "your YEAR!" Dr J either ran into buzzsaws named Boston and LA until he finally got his ring in 1983 by sweeping the Lakers. Just like the James Bond movie title says "never say never again." In closing, I guess it's no big thing for a player to score 13 pts in 33 seconds! I mean any playground loser can do that right? Like the others here said, T-Mac gave his best effort perhaps not best performance but when he needed someone to help elevate the teams play or get a key rebound and prevent Utah from second and third chances no one answered. Remember Magic wouldn't be Magic without Worthy, Jamaal Wilkes and Byron Scott. T-Mac sets someone up with a key assist they have to knock down the shots in crunch time! BTW, LBJ, Kobe and Wade cannot do it all by themselves maybe on a few nights to a few weeks but, it takes a team to WIN consistently! Look at all the great teams of the past they had complimentary players that would hide their vulnerabilities and weaknesses.
Adelman has allready said he will put a great deal of emphasis on getting tracy alot easier shots off the ball. under gundy, that stagnant offense pretty much invited double teams on tracy. i think you will see tracy operate alot better without the ball. more cutting towards the bucket hence easier layups and shots in general.
YAO>>>>>>>>AMARE and it's not even close. Yao's interior defense is underrated as it gets. sure amare is flashy, but where is the substance?. since yao has been a rocket, we've been a top 3 interior defensive team every year. just last season we conceeded the least amount of interior points. not only yao blocks 2 shots a game, he changes many other shots. he's sheer presence is a huge factor On offense Amare relies on he's atheletic ability to get by he's opponents, but if you send collapse defense on him, he'll struggle mightly to to he's lack of low post skills. yao conversely will still tear you up if you play collapse D on him due to he's amazingly gifted low post skills. not to mention he is a very crafty passer who can spot a teammate under huge amount of pressure.
i truly believed tmac did try, but he just couldn't get his jumper to fall. ultimately, his performance was not up to my or rockets' fans' standards. but the thing is EVERYONE on here expected tmac to just take over EVERY game, dominate EVERY game, and win EVERY game by himself. that just won't happen. he played great 3.5 games out of 7. he dominated his part for 3.5 games. the other 3.5 was horrific. but that's why he needed yao to play GREAT 2-3 games also. he needed rafer/head/howard/battier to contribute to win ONE game for him. that's what lebron depended on in game 6 of the ECF. that's what dwade had in shaq and jwill in the game 7 of the ECF (notice both played the pistons b/c they were the only good east team). shaq and kobe had each other to dominate whenever one was off. whenever tmac was off, no one else came out to totally dominate and help the team get that game that tmac went missing. we need to be able to win a few games where tmac is average or subpar, esp. w/ his shooting. we can win some in the reg. season when we play weak teams, but we need that against playoff teams too. hopefully next yr, when tmac disappears in a game or 2 in the playoffs, we have yao to take over and deliver one win. or have francis + james + head + yao come together and pick up the slack and give the team that one win. i have always believed tmac => 2-3 wins in ANY series in the playoffs. i think next yr yao wil finally learn the pressure of the postseason and dominate. he'll give us that other 2 wins in every series. along w/ the role playrs.
