Very well said, TMac was a great, and I think that he can absolutely be a weapon when he comes back. Let the keyboard commandos just keep yapping and Tracy will do the talking when he's back. If he was as lazy as others always implied, he would have never been at the level he was at before. I'm going to blame Wayne Hall for a large part of what happened to TMac's health and I firmly believe, that like Agent 0, who is my favorite non-rocket, T-Mac will be back to form over time. He's not that old anyway people.
If you watch the game carefully most of Ariza's points were because of either defensive screwups or good dribble penetration by Brooks. Honestly, Brookes is better than Ariza in my opinion.
look i am not overreacting to some ppl all of a sudden getting on ariza's bandwagon after a couple of good games, but i would like to remember there are still some sane ppl in this world, but hey i know this comparison is going come up again.
its very depressing that after everything we have endured from tmac in the past, that some people want to still defend him................when he is not even playing. I can understand defending jermaine oneal, arenas and wade who went to the same trainer and are playing great for their teams now i can understand defending steve francis, mo taylor, moochie norris, heck even terence morris and kevin willis but tmac, cut me some frigging slack here buddy
5 bucks, the moment Ariza has a 10 point game, and is 25% from the field, with 4 turnovers or more. He will claim Ariza is the worst ever. I don't necessarily love Ariza (he intentionally fouled Rudy Fernandez last year) but all current Rockets are loved. he is nowhere near tmac, but defensively he is above average and a good role player. Personally i think he can build his confidence right now, and that will be one more scorer to go to, when we have a well established team, and by well established team, I mean a superstar on our team.
For his salary and specialty, 10ppg from Ariza sounds about right, Battier is averaging less then that the past 2 seasons, makes more money and had more open looks which was a result of him playing with Yao and T-mac who were constantly being doubled. Well, t-mac might have been an exaggeration. He intentionally fouled Rudy Fernandez; since I'm not a Blazers fan and Rudy is not wearing our colors (I know, it sucks), all i saw from that play was a player who didn't give up on a play and didn't want another team getting an easy basket.
The last month he played most teams stopped doubling him. But there were coaches that were just determined to keep doing it, and I almost found it embarassing. This is when I still felt sorry for TMac...
Lol i think they might have done it to discourage the Rockets from passing it to him and forcing the young players to make a play on their own. But it has to pretty demoralizing to T-Mac to go 1 for 12 for the night, and his team down by 15 pts with 30 seconds left in the game, and the Toronto Raptors have Jamario Moon and Anthony Parker glued to you
I would take MLE Ariza over $23M healthy TMAC any day of the week. TMAC was a No.1 star with no heart. Ariza is a No. 1 role player with a ring.
and how is that comparing the two. I doubt mcgrady can limit his game to a point where he is just a role player so he can play around superstars.
Ariza was the go to guy in High school who had to get better defensively to make it into the NBA, similar to Battier who used to be a scorer in High school but is now known exclusively as a defensive nightmare. And he didn't limit himself to being a role player, he matured and realized the only way he could remain in the NBA was to become a team player. If you join a team with Kobe, Gasol, Bynum and Odom and your name is not Lebron, Wade or Carmello, it will be to your benefit to stfu and play defense. Oh hahaha, after this contract season, T-Mac will have to be just a role player if he wants to play with a winner, unless he wants to be the 2010/2011 version of Iverson in Memphis. And personally, i think Iverson has it good, T-Mac will not
Ariza plays well (SO FAR) in the Adelman system whereas McGrady did not because Adelman's system doesn't cater to volume shooters. With that being said, I think it's kinda unfair to say Ariza's better than McGrady simply because he's a better fit. Did I just really defend Tracy McGrady??
the addition of tmac makes us a better team if he is to play at full strength, as long as they stick with the game plan though, that means no struggling to try to get shots up over another player. I am curious though, when tmac comes back, who will be on the bench? Battier?
I am hoping for a successful McGrady return so I can see a McGrady/Ariza duo out there. I think McGrady's game will open up Trevor's game tremendously and I suspect he will get Trevor a bunch, as in 6 to 8, wide open 3-point shots a game. And I like Ariza standing there at the 3 wide open. How about Battier, Landry, and Cook to Toronto for Chris Bosh at the deadline?
