You have any quotes from Artest saying T-Mac doesnt work hard? We all know that T-Mac is probably the laziest player next to Darius Miles, but i give Artest props for potentially opening Pandora's box. If calling T-Mac out leads to mass destruction in the lockerroom, then so be it.
Who is the leader of this team? When you can't truely answer this it is a problem. The team wants T-Mac to lead but it seems he is incapable. When the Rockets get a leader things will come around. For those that say Deke can lead, you can't lead from the bench.
DaDa, remember the convo we had a few days ago? remember my thoughts that adelman will be gone? I stand behind those comments even moreso now. in fact, let me make a prediction: yao is very unhappy with rick & his staff. what else could be larger than the tmac issues? Doc said that Rick & TMac aren't seeing eye2eye on things...but not what we think. I'm not sure what that could be...other than tmac's offcourt drama with his wife/gf/etc. I don't know how rick could be in that mix, but hey, co-workers do fraternize/talk/whatever. Doc also said to keep all eyes on yao. that means the source will be yao. he's gonna break this open to the media and then what is inside will become outside. personally, I can't see yao being happy with rick's lax coaching and staff. yao's entire career has been with strong coaches, from CNT, to rudy, to jvg. now this read-and-react, play when ya want, soft coach is his and it can't be too comfy for yao. I doubt yao wants to cause waves, but I also think he feels that as the defacto leader of this team, he may have to do something. 1st things 1st though. he has to prove it on the court over the next week or two. then, he'll be in a better spot to command what he wants. shot in the dark? yes. but completely plausible, as well. I'm interested what Doc thinks about my thoughts...
it all makes all the sense in the world to me actually...granted everyone here knows how I feel about mcgrady's situation but if Yao is unhappy and tracy is unhappy then the coaching staff has to go. As much as I think Rick and his staff are a great staff if your two cornerstones of the team do not see eye to eye then you have to move on. Right now I dont see how the rockets could fire anyone on the coaching staff mid season especially considering despite all the injuries the team is 9 games above .500 Also you couldnt just hire another staff, who is out there? JVG? he is at espn and thibs is in boston. Rudy T is a possibility of course bringing him back would be a huge PR move for the rockets but can he still coach with his health? I think Rick and his staff stays and in the off season unless the rockets win the championship I see Morey and Les making a huge push to get Thibs as the new head coach
McGrady has been at odd swith Morey all season. *First up we had: Morey saying T-Mac's knee is fine, he just needs to strengthen it by playing. McGrady says the opposite. *It gets to the point McGrady wants a second opinon on how to deal with his knee: Rockets announce he will be out for 1 week. Dr. McGrady gives himself 3 weeks and follows on by telling the media that what the Rockets gave as a summary of Dr. James Andrews's prognosis was not true. *Morey & Adelman have a meeting with McGrady over his commitment. *A game or so passes and we learn that Morey's had two more meetings McGrady since. *Morey wants McGrady to sit. T-Mac decides he'll sit on one game of back to backs.
Morey is smart. I am positive he will not be one of the stupid gms that has been thinking the coaches are the problem. That is all I'm going to say.
I've considered that possibility, as well. but that doesn't explain Doc's statement of all eyes being on yao. what ur saying does make sense, in that morey is the penultimate insider and the rox are his fantasy team. he holds the gavel, for sure. it wouldn't, however, make sense for morey to come out and blast mac, though. it goes against basic business principles. buy low, sell high. yao, however, can come out and call for more discipline on the team. more dedication and commitment. more accountability. he can channel his inner van gundy without directly blasting rick. it could come across as a leadership statement, and if it doesn't work out this year, be one more reason to fire adelman. there are plenty already, including the handling of injuries/lineups and lack of leadership. either way, I see no way mac is moved right now. morey coming out and blasting him would seal that fate along with a zero return on investment. since Doc said that all that is inside will soon be outside, I think its safe to eliminate the possibility of morey v mac as the #1 problem. but hey, I've been wrong before. and so has darryl. good post, though.
There does seem to be too much smoke to say fiction. But I'm not willing to guess too much on second hand observations. I'll say that the Adelman/Tmac/injury situation is there for all to see, as worzel has summarized. Tracy probably feels a lack of respect when Adelman said he should play through the soreness. Adelman probably sees a lack of devotion. I doubt it's the case, but I think it's plausible Tmac has been dogging it on the court to prove his point. I think someone else (Hayesfan?) pointed out a previous Tmac halftime interview where he said 'we don't know if we're a half court or fast break team' which seems to point to another debate - the offensive identity. So I'd say there's at least Adelman/Tracy friction, not team friction. As to Doc's gossip, I'll assume 'all eyes on Yao' means he's caught in the middle - his teammate of a few years, and the 2nd year coach, the main authority figure. Yao seems like a guy who's loyal to a fault. Adelman admits they've spent most of the time practicing offense sets. Maybe Tmac & Yao believe he needs to focus on defense again.
Though this team is far from cool,I still vote #1,since I don't see turmoil apart from some journalists
if yao decides to speak out, we know he is ready to lead this team leadership-wise. until then, we wait as this team has no leaders. nobody listens to the coach at all.
here's how i see things. the problem is with morey/adelman against tmac, with yao caught in the middle. lemme speculate since everyone's doing it. there were teams asking for tmac in the offseason. morey would probably have considered it and brought it to adelman. adelman would probably have seriously considered the trade (especially if it were for some of the pistons players). but when they brought it to les, he probably thumbed it down (people here say les is a tmac fan). now tmac got a wind of it and got offended since he took that knee operation thinking he had the support of the org for the operation and going into the season not being 100%. he got pissed and decided to sit out the preseason and the first few games of the season too. but yao probably asked him to play because they were undermanned. tmac decides to play even though he's not 100%. unfortunately, he doesnt play good enough and asks for some time off from the GM/coach. but the coach/GM believes in the doctors (who've misdiagnosed in the past) rather than tmac. what we then have is a tug of war between tmac wanting to rest and adelman wanting him to play. tmac also starts to get pissed off with him and yao not getting enough touches. whereas before, it was rafer's job to just bring the ball up and dump it to yao or tmac, he has probably been greenlighted by adelman/morey (who both seem to be alston fans), to hold on to the ball longer, decide the plays (whether who should get the ball or to take the shot himself), etc. again, this doesnt sit well with tmac since he wants yao to get more touches or himself but you have rafer not going first to tmac or yao on the offensive end. that's why we see rafer being more vocal because he probably has RA/DM's confidence. tmac probably doesnt like alston hogging the ball too much because alston keeps missing shots. then i think francis was shipped off to MEM before the toronto game right? just to make cap space? i think that bugged Tmac a lot because he felt Stevie was loyal to the rockets and should have been given a chance to play especially when rafer was out. he felt the move showed that DM/RA doesnt care about them as individuals but thought of them as assets. it probably affected Yao too since stevie and yao are friends as well. Yao probably thought that it was adelman who did not want to play francis and was the main factor in shipping off stevie. now you have both yao and tmac really pissed off with adelman especially with his coaching skills. less touches for them. more responsibility for rafer.shipping out stevie. now ron's probably caught in the middle. the guy likes adelman, but he's smart enough to know that to win, you got to keep going to yao. that's why when his on the floor with yao, you see artest immediately feeding yao every single time if it were possible. now if doc rocket says to keep an eye out on yao, it might be that Yao would start criticizing RA soon. Either RA gets fired, or Yao would start asking for a trade. if the team doesnt start winning, im sure everything would come out in the open. how's that for a conspiracy theory?
like I said before, I'm curious as to what Doc thinks about my post. engr alex, that's a possibility i did NOT consider. if the big fella's ready to move on, it would be nuclear around here.
Doc, you around here anywhere? if so, I'm curious as to the timeframe for the "biggest issue" to come out. can u spill any crumbs on that?
not bad i totally forgot about Francis being traded and you are correct it did not make any sense that he didnt see the court for at least a few minutes during that stretch where every one was injured. Yao is/was probably upset he got traded again for the second time when he has shown loyalty to the rockets. Yao probably got more upset that they literally had to give up assets (2nd round pick, cash) and Steve and get nothing in return to help the team. It was just strictly a "get under the cap move" where they probably had other options to get under the cap if they would have waited a little bit longer. and anything to get the ball out of rafer's hand seriously anything
I took that Doc Rocket line to keep all eyes on Yao to mean that Yao was going to be the centerpiece of the offense. It came right before the Rockets told McGrady to take a hike for a couple of weeks.
