Good news is...

Von Wafer can be a playmaker. He penetrates with ease and if he works on court vision then we don't need an all star wing.

 

Point is you need star-power. This isn't Hooisers Dada. You said in your earlier post you don't need stars.

Yao is a star. Ron is not. Ron isn't an all-star, he's not a near-star. He's an over-rated defender that's a bit on tilt.

You want to talk efficiency when you talk about t-mac, but not when you talk about Ron Artest. It's such a double standard, it's getting to be you just make up whatever to try to rid T-mac off this team.

You have accused t-mac on not rehabbing correctly, when it's now known that first surgery simply failed. You accuse him of being a ball-stopper when compared to Ron Artest, T-mac look like Steve Nash. You call Corey Maggette and Ron Artest stars???? STARS?????

YOu say we need someone more durable than T-mac, and then suggest Corey Maggette - a guy who plays less games a season than T-mac.

What is going on man? You say the only way t-mac can contribute to this team is by leaving. You are just being an a$$ and you know it. You know that's not true. We all saw that t-mac really helped this team a lot in the second half of 2007-2008 season. We were a struggling .500 team and he came back and we won 22 in a row and almost took Utah down without Yao and Rafer!

And now you say he's basically a cancer. Why? What's your real motive here? What's the real story. You have moved on? Morey hasn't. He wouldn't be talking about t-mac's rehab and that it's going well if he didn't think there's a distinct possibility t-mac may be a rocket next year. So why can't you?

 

You know, I can't believe I'm going to offer this...
...but I've said before that I understand people's frustrations with Tracy McGrady. Including the esteemed DD.

And what's more, those frustrations have merit. And DD is entitled to them. The only problem I've had with any criticism of Tracy McGrady is in the context of isolating him from the team and circumstances.

You know why that happens? Because when a guy has McGrady's talent, there are times when the circumstances don't matter. He has the talent to overcome them from time to time on his own. So, when that doesn't happen often enough or at a high enough efficiency, well, that's nobody's fault but McGrady's.

Just like it's all on him when he scores 13 points in half a minute or something else that's mostly fluke-ish. But it IS those types of performances that make McGrady's ability so tantalizing...

...and magnify the anger against him when he doesn't go GOD-mode on demand. And especially when he ducks and runs for cover afterwards.

I like most everyone's insights here. Including DD's.

But we're all human, and most of the time our insights are tinged with our own biases. Nothing really sinister about it. Just people being people.

It's a stretch for me to think that DD, or anybody else here, have personal vendettas against other players. I just think that in the zeal to prove a point, sometimes perspective gets tossed out the window.

DD has been right about a lot of basketball-related aspects of McGrady's game that have hindered the Rockets. But I have always believed that that is not completely his fault.

What McGrady is, to me, is a soldier. He seems to be a guy who'll do what's asked of him. Most people are upset with him because McGrady isn't the type of leader he's supposed to be. Or ANY type of leader, for that matter.

DD has been right in saying that talent isn't the only way to measure a player. But I personally don't care if I have to force-feed my plans for the team to a player, if I'm a coach. As a coach, it's my job to find out what my players can and can't do well, and put them in positions to do that.

You know why you take the ball out of McGrady's hands? Because even though he's an excellent passer, what you need him to do for your team is SCORE. McGrady doesn't need to be the primary decision-maker. He needs to be the guy who finishes the play.

You want to increase McGrady's efficiency? Get him out of this "playmaker" or "facilitator" mindset offensively. All this is just mumbo-jumbo for team basketball anyway. Kobe Bryant doesn't "facilitate" for the Lakers any more than you or I do. When the team is struggling to score, he gets them over the hump. When the team is scoring, he focuses on team defense.

It's so simple, it really doesn't surprise me that it's such an easy concept to miss.

I would hope that all our guesswork and postulating would be in good fun...
...and that we could understand that different ideas doesn't mean wrong or bad or stupid ideas....

...but that would be making excuses for everything again....

 

Great point and a really good post IMO although I'm TOTALLY for trading McGrady because of the timing of his contract expiring and as soon as he's recovered and starts playing well so this team can acquire the player at the backup 5 and a veteran PG who can pass and create close to 8 assists if given the minutes on any given night.

I'm for the blockbuster deal with Golden State which would bring us Turiaf, Stephan Jackson and Maggette, the deal with New Orleans for Chandler, AND CP3 (trade whatever it takes except for Yao or Scola), and for definitely re-signing Artest.

 

Bottom line....I have NO, NONE, ZERO faith or hope that McGrady or Yao can or will stay injury free for a sustainable period of time so trade McGrady while he's working his butt off in a contract year that will set his family up for life (as if they're not already) and forget about all of his immense talent and focus on the fact. INJURED OFTEN.

 

...and despite what it sounds like most of the time, I'm not opposed to the Rockets moving McGrady, either.

This is one of those things in team sports and the era of free agency that happens. I have every confidence that, if Daryl Morey decides to move McGrady while the moving's good, I'm very confident he'll get something worthwhile for the Rockets.

Most of my arguments have been based on measuring McGrady outside of the team and the circumstances. He isn't a decent human being. He doesn't play a particularly effective brand of basketball. And I've personally noticed his mascara runs too much. I get all that. Really.

A good TEAM can, and quite often does, overcome a player or two struggling offensively. A good TEAM can, and often does, have everybody playing their best when it counts the most. A good TEAM finds ways to win.

The Rockets haven't won in the past. That's as much McGrady's fault and responsibility as anybody's, whether McGrady acknowledges it or not. Beating a horse that dead is just callow.

McGrady is not as good a basketball player as he can and should be. But he's never been as bad as he's been made out to be. And that has been all I've ever said.

And the only argument I've ever held onto is that you need to give your best players roles, just like you do for everybody else. There's this thinking that, if a guy is efficient or this good at a particular skill, well then the answer must be to run that approach into the ground. Phil Jackson's team routs Orlando in game 1 of the Finals...he practically gives the offense to Kobe Bryant in the second and third quarters...and he has the nerve to say afterwards that he thought Kobe shot the ball too much.

But Jackson knows that what Kobe does better than just about anybody else is score. So he only call on Kobe to do that when the Lakers struggle, or when the game is close towards the end.

I believe this about McGrady, just in case it matters to anybody.

He has (still) exceptional ability to play basketball. He hasn't been a model citizen or teammate at times. He hasn't made the plays that counted most, when the team has needed them the most. He's wanted to win. But he can't figure out how to do that.

McGrady is a very good player. You don't make All-NBA teams by being lazy or cowardly. But McGrady does lack the sense of when HE needs to score (his best skill) and when he needs to defer. Not having particularly solid teammates hasn't been good either. But none of that excuses McGrady from how the Rockets have done in the past. He's a good player. But he's not a leader (at least, not in the drag-everybody-with-me-to-the-finish-line sense).

It's a little like Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups in Denver. To a man, they all say that Carmelo Anthony is the best player on the team. But Chauncey Billups is their leader. The best player on your team doesn't HAVE to be the leader. We kept Dikembe Mutombo around for that as much as anything else. Hell, Jeff Van Gundy lead this team more than Yao or McGrady ever did.

Ron Artest said that the Rockets would follow McGrady's lead in effort and intensity. And he was right to hold McGrady accountable. He later said he understood that McGrady was frustrated because he was injured and couldn't play the way he wanted and the way everybody else needed him to.

I honestly don't have a preference with what happens with McGrady. If he stays, fine. If he goes, fine. If he finally figures out he needs to wear bright colors in the summer instead of dark colors, well, so much the better.

I won't believe, unfortunately, that he's been the only reason why the Rockets haven't won in the past. Nobody's stats or opinions will change that.
Because if you look at the TEAM and say that about any one player's stats from 2005 to 2007 were better than McGrady's, then that's what makes the argument ridiculous.

But moving McGrady now is what Morey will try to do, if what he can get is worth it.

And I'll still be here cheering the Rockets on, like always.

 

MrDowe00,

What if your best player is given a role and he doesn't like it or accept it?

Like say, move off the ball and play within the team game Tmac....which he responds with.."I need my touches"....

DD

 

Give Yao a legitimate pg to play with and then we can render our judgement on whether he is as good or as bad as we think he is. Plus maybe a little bit more legitimate officiating on him will help.

 

It is naive to assume YOFs will remain as Rox fan if Yao leaves.

 

AMEN. and say it again louder

 

Who has pictures or videos of our arena?

http://www.stadiumzone.net

will have a complete NBA section soon. When was the arena inaugurated?

 

amen, does the word not comming at a better time.

 

An actual direct response to ME?

From YOU?

My heart's a'twitter. And my sincerest apologies for the delay in answering.

I understand it to be a matter of who's running the asylum, DD. You know as well as I do that McGrady does seem to follow, rather than lead. Jeff Van Gundy practically said as much during his time here.

You could write a book on how many NBA players say things like that. Dwight Howard said that this postseason, and there's practically no reason at all for the Orlando Magic to purposely give Dwight Howard the ball more than 10 times a game. He's raw and unpolished, and he thinks he's a little bit better offensively than he really is. Look around the league and you'll find more than a few players griping about shots, or their role in the offense, or not getting enough minutes, or something else just as ridiculous.

Von Wafer pitched a hissy-fit in the middle of a playoff game and had to hit the showers early because of it.

Maybe you shouldn't have to rein in and control and harness a player with McGrady's talent. Maybe you shouldn't have to goad him or poke him or prod him or cajole him into playing a certain way for you. Maybe having to do any of that makes McGrady a lesser player in a lot of people's eyes.

Fair enough.

None of that changes the fact that you do it if it benefits the TEAM. If one coach asks McGrady to be the offense, and he does it while still finding time to be McGrady and pout and gripe and snivel, and another coach asks McGrady to get off the ball some and do some other things, and McGrady is still McGrady and pouts and gripes and snivels, what the heck difference does it make at the end of the day? McGrady's still snivelling and whining, but you get the results for the TEAM.

The Rockets didn't stay on that winning streak last season because McGrady chaffed all that much, DD. Winning does a lot to fix egos if winning is what you really want to do.

In a perfect world, or on a perfect team, everybody would get along great and not call each other names and do their jobs and keep their eyes on their own test papers. But since nobody's perfect, I don't like looking at anything with those types of glasses.

I think that this whole "McGrady hasn't done jack-squat to win" stuff has gotten to be bigger than it should, quite honestly.

Because "McGrady hasn't won", and "McGrady can't do this" and "McGrady can't do that" has been ringing in everybody's ears so long that we actually miss the whole point of fielding a TEAM in the first place.

If there's one thing that I do like about Ron Artest being here, it's that, personality-wise, he's on a level of sorts with McGrady. He won't defer to McGrady, and he won't accept McGrady getting discouraged and distant with the team. He'd challenge McGrady, and McGrady would respond because McGrady respects Artest in ways he hasn't any other teammate here, with the exception of Yao Ming.

Assuming, of course, that McGrady is still with the team.

Artest is a good player. Better than a lot of guys McGrady's had to rely on. A guy that doesn't need McGrady to be tough for him, or fire him up or anything else. If I were to gamble team chemistry on any one thing, it would be players holding themselves and one another accountable on both ends of the floor.

TEAMS win. And no player WINS without good teammates. You stick the whole basket in one guys hands too often (no matter WHO that guy is), the joke's on you when it falls through. Ask LeBron.

But again, you don't measure anybody in a vacuum, in my opinion, DD. Life doesn't work that way, and neither does pro basketball. You either look at the whole picture or put down the camera.

Rick Adelman found out what he needed to find out about McGrady when Yao went down last year. Not this year. That's why he pined away during the playoffs at those moments when he could have used McGrady. If McGrady was going to quit or tank, he should have done it the moment Yao broke his foot. And I'm sure you can find choice sound bites of McGrady being McGrady during that time. He's got less of a reason to change his tune now than you do.

Adelman has wanted to use McGrady differently since he got here. He's done a lot of the reshaping of the team for just that express purpose. Adelman's been handling egos like McGrady's longer than anybody here has been tired of dealing with them, and gotten a whole heck of a lot more out of them than most people would believe. But that's because Adelman's good at his job. He knows what he's doing.

And what you do with players is give them a role. Define it. Stay with it. And don't budge. The players will get the message. One way or another.

You answered your own question, you know that, DD? You've been answering it for along time now.

Or is this another one of those pokes at a "McGrady apologist" I'm still too new here to figure out...?

 

Fixed.