It seems that every time that T-Mac messes up, just for one season, he is treated negatively. But when Yao has messups, or other teammembers on the Rockets have slip-ups, you just give them a pat on the back and say good luck next time. Yet when T-Mac slips up, the entire forums goes on a T-Mac killing spree. Lol. Why the negativity?
One guy has a history of quitting, whining, leaving town when the pressure mounts, diagnosing his own injuries...I could go on forever. The other guy is known as a tireless worker, a perfectionist and a man who would play with two broken legs if he was allowed to. He is also called a great team mate and a fantastic human being. Effort does count for something in my book.
don't say "all" myself and others here cut him slack............ I don't hate on yao nor tmac...........
Effort counts, but to say T-Mac hasn't given a tremendous effort is ridiculous. You can hate on the fact that he has amazing natural abilities and doesn't milk them for all they are worth, but he is still one of only 3-4 other players who annually give you approx. 23/6/5, and for the last 2 seasons he has led the team to terrific records with Yao down to injury. He has played through all types of injuries, ignoring the pain to give his team a chance to win (which really fu*ked his knee up back in December). Most of your gripes about T-Mac are from his Orlando days (him leaving town when pressure mounted is completely false...he didn't demand a trade, and he didn't want to leave because pressure was mounting...his relationship with the owner got so bad that, along with rebuilding, it was just smart to get rid of Mac). Except for occasionally saying something stupid which has absolutely no impact on the quality of basketball we see in Rockets games, he has been a terrific player, teammate and warrior for this team.
there is so much negativity on this board with regards to t-mac because the last thing quite a few of them want to see is this team advance past the first round with this "loser" leading the way and no yao ... against the same team that eliminated us last year. how horrible would that be for them? that's some turning your world upside down stuff right there.
Great thread. Fact is many here wants Yao to be THE Leader of this team and not TMac. Forget the numbers, the win/loss record with and without TMac. Forget that Yao was the main reason we lost game 7 last year to Jazz. Forget that as good a guy as Yao is, he is also still all talk. Forget that TMac gets all the hate here for the losses but no credit for the wins. But non can deny that TMac has carried us in the regular season and he has consistently showed up in the post seasons despite all his injuries. Contrary to what the haters say, TMac has consistently delivered for our team. Whether that was enough or not, is another story. As someone said, you can't make chicken soup out of chicken sh it.
Well, I've watched Houston basketball for two consecutive years now. I haven't been interested in basketball until then. So, I haven't paid attention to McGrady as much as I should have been. Statistically, its not his fault. But yeah, he does seem to give in a lot, but i was just guessing because of his history of injuries that, that's what has been slowing him down. Rather than just mental fatigue.
What in the holy HELL do you have on McGrady to accuse him of being a bad teammate or human being? I could give you a lecture on how ridiculously baseless all the hackneyed claims about him lacking heart or whining or not being tough are, but I know you have your mind made up on that, so I'd be wasting my time. Just answer the above question.
are you describing kobe? kobe quit 2 yrs ago in game 7 on his teammates and phil kobe whined this past offseason and wanted out when the pressure mounted and his legacy as a 1-and-out without shaq kept getting worse
tmac has done more than anybody in this L arguably in terms of giving back to the community after our very own dikembe. everybody tmac has played with has said tmac is a great teammate. but hey, tmac has his myths to dissolve and these are a few of them.
Tracy McGrady is Pompous arse who is at times self centered just like most other professional atheletes. Most people already have a grudge with highly paid players so its not anything out of the ordinary to me. Yao gets a pass because he works really hard but there are plenty of stars who don't work as hard as Tmac. The difference between is that he hasn't made the people who dislike him happy enough to forget about it. Shaq for example is probably the laziest player in the NBA but everyone loves him because he has won championships. Amare Stoudemire is terrible at best on D but people love him because he is a living highlight that has advance far in the playoffs. If and when Tracy McGrady produces tangible results in the playoffs, all will be forgiven.
the primary thing is fans have been burned by tmac. a significant portion of this board were brought here by tmac's scoring titles, dunks on sportscenter or his miracle 13 in 35. many of them are young fans with very little experience with sports or the NBA they came onboard with the impression that NBA titles are issued by the Nike or Adidas corporation along with your max contract and shoex commercials and it was only a matter of time before they could wear their tmac 1 jerseys around school gloating about houston's chip. when that didn't happen, and then the following year didn't happen, then the following year didn't happen, then tmac said "it's on me" and it didnt happen they were very bitter. meanwhile their friends were coming to school in his wade jersey talking about NBA championship, and beating them on NBA 2k7 using his team on the rockets in short they've been burned by tmac. they believed in him (and by that I mean they declared to all their friends that tmac would win them a chip and waited patiently an entire year or two) and he didn't so they're like women scorned. now every little thing tmac does is a drama event. the reason why yao doesn't get the same criticism? honestly I think it has to do with all the pro-yao articles that chinese guys post. when you're reading articles about how this dude has no life and sits at home crying about his team it's hard to be too hard on him. now does he care MORE than tmac? I'm not their mother so I really dont know they both probably care a ton. I cant offhand think of an all-star who's played more hurt and meant more to his team than tmac the past 3 years. but chinese news articles all read like some horatio alger novel with the struggle and the heart and all so you'd pretty much feel like a jackass QQing about how yao doesn't care on clutchfans after reading those articles. tmac however is fair game... it's pretty easy to slam a guy on a BBS knowing that there's a built in contingent who's parrot every criticism no matter how outrageous or how slight the complaint
I forgot to mention the expectation level. People expect Tracy McGrady to play much better than he is playing now. His 24-8-8 stat line is not enough. He was another one of those guys, in his early career, cursed to be compared to Jordan. Much like Kobe, Lebron, Vince Carter, Harold Miner, etc. some have come close but many fall short. Yao Ming was supposed to be a bust. He was supposed to be Shawn Bradley but he exceeded all expectations. People like unexpected surprises. Its like when someone tells you you're getting $10 and they end up giving you $100, you're always happy. But if someone tells you you're getting $1,000 and and it ends up being $100, you don't like it so much.
Yao always gives a 110%, it's all about effort, you gotta trust your teammates, it takes 5ive (notice how I said 5ive and not five. Clever, I know.) Did I leave any cliches out? But thanks for the update, we're all much wiser now with your in depth and cutting edge analysis. Basically, Yao **** don't stink and T-Mac is Satan on crack. Gotcha!
The Tmac complainers are the loudest, so it appears that "everyone" complains about Tmac which simply isn't true. The sad reality is that there are a lot of "new" rockets fans out there who came to this site because of Yao. These new fans got into arguments with other fans on the trivial subject of who the leader of this team was. Those "new" fans developed a grudge against Tmac and they are the ones who wish for him to fail and who complain the most loudly on this bbs. There is another small subset of Rockets fans who became basketball fans during the dream years and these fans think that you MUST have a dominant center to win - they think everything revolves around Hakeem/Centers and that your leader must be a center like Dream was, so this group of people are more critical of team leaders who are guards/forwards. Hence, Tmac criticism. There are also RFIDs on this board (Rocket Fans In Disguise). They have the term "rocket" or something similar in their user name and these trolls are usually from another city or china and they act like Rockets fans and then bash every chance they get - this way they seem more credible, by acting like fans, but in reality they are just rocket haters.
