You already told us several times how sad you were and I told you I'm sorry that happened to you. Let's talk about basketball again. Why do you keep telling me to get a life when I want to discuss basketball issues in a basketball forum? Isn't that why we are all here?
I totally agree, but your views may not jive with mine on what is fair game. So no use getting upset when others cross that imaginary line that you have drawn for yourself. DD
i really hope you are trying to be funny. because that comparison, whether it be about their situations or the players themselves, is just straight up ludicrous.
In this case I wanted to point it out to you rather imploringly than angrily that whenever dying relatives are involved it is flat out impious to attack a player like that. At least give him a break until he comes back and leave it all on the court. BTW I can't imagine anyone pretending to grieve when they lost somebody close to them. Tmac is by far not a bad person.
I am not saying he is a bad person, and each person's grief is entirely their own. However, whenever it is used as an excuse for poor performance it is reasonable to go and check the facts etc. Tmac may well have been very close to all of these people and that would be tragic, or he might have been close to some, or not really all that close to any of them. Either way, grief is a personal issue, to be sure.... My point is that when athletes blur the line about what is and isn't personal etc.....they can not whine when people pry too deeply etc... At least IMO. And all of this is not helped by the fact that TMac is one of the least believable athletes of all time, the guy is a walking exageration. Remember the cracked elbow....on the strain...lol... DD
IMHO it is a whole different thing that he went to Les and whined. His 9 ppl died some time ago. I can understand those who come out after this article and say Tmac is a cry baby. Nothing against that. But it stands in contrast to other articles and interviews in which Tmac sounded like he was indifferent what others were thinking about him. It is hard for us to evaluate all these articles. We all know Tmac's inclination to tell stories. One thing is for sure. We will have to wait and see if there is anything left in his tank.
I agree, but you keep saying he didn't play games for "secret personal reasons" when he told the media that it was because of the 9 family members/close friends he lost. There was no secret about that. Plus he had back issues (they made him lie down on a weird thing whenever he took a break during the game. There were many other times where his back gave out on him during the game. Also, its not as if he did something like Penny Hardaway did in Orlando for the All Star game: He ignored his doctors and the team and came back early only to play in the all star game because the fans voted him in. It ruined his career. Tmac was thinking about sitting out the all star game, and Barkley told him to play the all star game since it was in Houston and to use the basketball court as a haven to get away from things and to try and clear his mind. THe west squad even tried to make sure that he would get the all star game mvp and he almost did. Even they knew what he was going through, and they tried to cheer him up during the game. I'm here to talk basketball as well, but when you keep saying he skipped games for "secret personal reasons"...when he told everybody what was going on, that makes it hard to talk about basketball, because you made up stuff about Tmac off the court. and to add onto that, his back was hurt (didn't get fixed til the early part of 2007...when he met the back specialist in Waco). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Lj_Qe7mSEY So he didn't "skip" games for no reason...thats the main beef i had with your statements.
I did a little looking around on google and it looks like our pal TheBlackKnight fabricated this whole "9 deaths in 1 year" thing or he has very poor reading comprehension. I did, however, find a story on McGrady about 7 deaths in 7 years as well as other stories about a few deaths since then. It would appear that McGrady, unfortunately, has had around 9 members of his friends and family (notice it was not just family, TBK) pass away between 1997 and 2006. Again, very tough going for McGrady but a far cry from what TBK has been repeating for several pages now.
Sorry. I misunderstood you DD. I was not aware that you were arguing about potential games he missed because he didn't want to play. I still think Tmac is no slacker.
I remember to have read about this. One or two of those friends who died were childhood friends. He was devastated after that.
I do recall that there was conjecture about him missing games due to the Orlando court case about his baby with the lady there, but I don't know if it was true or not. DD
He didn't lose 9 family members. I already debunked that lie. Or maybe it was just the past 10 years of death that caught up with all at once in 2006. Yeah, that's it I know he had back issues. He missed games before the All Star break with back issues and within a few weeks after the All Star break he missed games with back issues again. His back was a problem so why risk it by playing in the All Star game if he really cared about the team? He also didn't have a coke problem like Len Bias so does that mean we pat him on the back for that too? Stop bringing up other players. We're talking about McGrady. So now it's ok because Barkley said so? The same Barkley that Tmac said about later "I only care about what Charles says when we are talking about calories in a cupcake." And? Actually, you might be right on this one. He never officially missed games for "personal reasons." He only officially said that personal reasons were affecting his play. Of course, I guess playing in the All Star game was the cure. I won't speculate on why he happened to have his worst back spasms and miss games at the same time he had his "personal problems" but was ship-shape for the All Star game. He also missed two games for a death in the family right after the All Star game but that was after the "personal reasons" he had been dealing with earlier. He never clarified what those "personal reasons" were. They were not deaths though from everything I can find.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/articl...NBA-star-in-Sarasota-court-over-child-support This was written on August, 16th. That happened during summer 07.
Not hating on T-Mac, but rather ESPN. McGrady has yet to play a game, but he's back? Back to what? How long until they come up with something else just as ridiculous? Don't look up because they probably already have.
I think all of the recent developments are positive news. As for T-mac's past failures and all the stuff about how many people he's lost or anything - it's the past. I don't care nor is it worth time speculating. T-mac has made mistakes and probably gets a bad rap from a lot of people/media. It's a combo - some of the criticism is fair, some of it's not. How much can be debated for years. How many threads have people spent debating about T-mac's past failures or semi-successes? This is it for the guy. He's done all the right things to be successful. He's gotten the necessary surgeries, he's taken his rehab seriously, and he's rebuilding his body to prevent future injury as gain back his explosiveness. It's all we could hope for through this point in time. So that, it's great. So far so good, and there's not much more to say.
Not to butt in BlackNight but I'm pretty sure the "secret personal reason" thing happened a few years back (sorry but I don't feel like searching the forums for the thread or googling it for you). I want to say that it was the 05-06 season . Tracy went through about 5 or 6 games with his mind obviously somewhere else during the games and it starting affecting the teams play. After about the 4th or 5th game, I remember Bill and I forget if it was Calvin or Clyde at the time, were very open about questioning Tracy's reasons for playing the way he was. I remember Bill sarcastically saying "if whatever it is is that bad, maybe he needs to take a break" About a week or two later, the news came out that Tracy, had once again fathered a child with a woman other than his then long time girlfriend and she pretty much had his nads in a vice to say the least. The baby's mama name is Pearl Vega just in case you want to google it. In fact, there was a HUGE thread back then with a poster (forgot his name) stating that his girl knew Tracy's then girlfriend really well and while everyone on the thread tried to guess what the problem could be, he told everyone about the situation and it turned out to be true. Look BlackNight, I admire your loyalty and all but we're not talking about John Stockton or Ray Allen or Rip Hamilton here, guys who gave their all on the court and are extremely private off of it. I definitely feel sorry for his (or anyone's) loss(es) (those deaths were years ago BTW, the way you make it sound, they happened this summer). Tracy has had various things happen to him over the years that have affected his play on the court and his standing in the locker room which has hurt his standing as the leader of the team. When you combine the drama with the me first attitude and all of the other factors, you can probably see why people, myself included are fed up and want our Rockets back. I know it's corny but like the old saying goes, It's not about the name on the back of the uniform.....it's all about the one on the front.
yeah no ****. yao has become pretty darn good since he came in the league. unlike some players. and unlike any of his size
It is anything but corny and you are right on this one. The question is: Can you forgive him once he delivers when he comes back? Can he regain the status in your eyes that he once held with inspired play?
