ya thats wat tmacs been doing since he got that fat ass contract. relaxing his ****ing talent away. its time to get that talent back and shove it down the opposing teams centers throat, or whoever wants to block his dunk
Wow Tracy gets paid 21 million and he has confidence problems? He really is the most mentally soft player in the league then.
I dont know about you, but assuming T-Mac DOES have a shred of self-respect, that's a LOT of money weighing on the back of your conscience when you're not meeting expectations!
you mean the MISSED dunk .. and no matter how lazy T-Mac is.. If i was his teammate.. I will never laugh on court after seeing that.. esp when a guy is struggling.. no sympathy n al.. plain decency..
I agree with the OP that Artest may be a big part of the chemistry problems here. This clip of him laughing (not just a chuckle) is very unprofessional. Remember how tight our team was last year? What has changed? Since he's been here, Ron has been mediocre at best, yet he refuses to run the offense, jacks up bad three-point shots (1-10 against NY?!), and then calls out his teammates by name to the media. It is well known that both T-Mac and Yao are subject to dips in confidence that can affect their performance. Having a me-first cancer (yes, I think Artest is the real problem) in the locker room may well affect their performance adversely.
As I said in the other thread, there's nothing particularly wrong or unusual about teammates laughing after a missed dunk. You expect that to happen. My only concern is that the team just isn't serious about winning games -- they just don't care enough to focus and do what they need to do every night to win. They don't bring it on a consistent basis, just in spurts here and there. This is the case with pretty much every player not named Luis Scola. Sometimes it works well because they wake up late in the game and remember they're supposed to play defense; other times like last night, it blows up in their faces. Even Yao, who used to be the rock of consistency for this team, has drifted into occasional nonchalance. I think the theories that the dunk ruined T-Mac's confidence are nonsense ... vintage T-Mac would routinely start games shooting 1-7 or 1-8 and finish with a 10-22 line en route to about 28 points. It wasn't even that the offense was bad -- they did get to the foul line a lot and did finish with 112 points. The team simply didn't focus and the Bucks, with Skiles screaming in their faces, ran away with it. The missed dunk was, in the grand scheme of things, nothing more than a footnote. I don't know what Adelman isn't doing that he needs to start doing to get this team back to the correct mindset, but he'd better do it soon. I don't buy the theory that a trade would be the answer either. This is not a talent problem. This team has enough talent to win. They just can't figure out how to bring it consistently. Unless you're bringing in a player who will be a motivating leader for this squad, it's pointless.
I think Ron has checked out, he knows he is gone, and doesn't care.....and it is infecting the team. Which is exactly what I said before we got him, that a team that was so weak in leadership would become infected by this chemistry killer. Sometimes it sucks being right. DD
it's amazing that you assume to know what the inside scoop is, and then your boastful about it. artest is fine, he just hates lack of effort and primadonnas. tracy was trying to showboat, and got stuffed. it seems as if t-mac has alienated himself from the team. he is dogging it, and demands the offense runs through him. he is not the teams best player and doesn't realize it yet. as far as the missed dunk, i don't think some of you guys get the culture. you laugh at that stuff, missed dunks, goofy plays, its part of basketball. NBA players are alpha males, if you can't take the ribbing that comes with it, you shouldn't be playing pro ball. hopefully it wakes up tmac and he falls in line with his diminished abilities. a 15/7/7 guy who works within the offense would help this team more that a 30/7/7 guy who hogs the ball and slows down the team.
BKG, I don't know I am right, that is just what it looks like to me, as an observer of the team, which is why I said "I think". There is no trust on the team, too much "I can do it" and not enough "We can do it".... And Ron has disrupted a team that has always had great chemistry, he is a bull in a china shop on and off the floor. To me, it looks like he knows he is gone after this year anyway and is just saying "Screw it" and trying to get his own. DD
that doesn't seem like an observation, but perhaps i am reading it wrong. every article written before artest came here said the same thing, artest demands hard work and accountability. t-mac is the teams big baby, and it seems that artest doesn't like it. if the whole "chemistry" thing means that everyone should kiss mcgrady's azz and stroke his ego so we lose in the first round, then i don't call that chemistry, i call it a failure. i would rather get rid of t-mac ( i thinka trade is impossible cause everyone knows he is a 21 million dollar hasbeen) and move on. our team is good enough with wafer starting and running the offense adleman wants.
Quick question DD, is trading away Ron who plays with maximum heart and effort and getting your so called missing piece ie.Point Guard, going to make T-Mac play any harder or with heart. I personally would trade T-Mac before I would even think of trading away a player like Artest for a bag of overpriced peanuts in a guy like Hinrich. T-Mac is the problem not Artest. The rockets will not even sniff at a championship with T-Mac at the helm (he doesn't have a champions attitude period). It looks as if the rockets need to go in a different direction. If I were management I would be so so tired of this.
You can see in the vid when Tmac is running back while he's pounding his chest in the "my fault" gesture that he's looking back to the Rockets bench, willing to bet he saw Artest laughing.
Sometimes it makes me wonder if the Rockets are serious about winning games muchless another championship. T-Wacks poor effort is just horrible and then he think its funny??? Then we have others laughing at a horrible performance and losing to a Bucks team?? It upsets me sometimes to see these guys out there laughing and not taking the game serious and having no leader to put ppl in places
