Cant argue with you there. But its a great quality by Landry to have...to not lose his cool and keep playing. The "technical" they called was pathetic also.. He gets slapped all over his arms and face, and throws an arm and gets called for a T. These refs need a bball thrown to their faces...
You my friend are completely and totally delusional if you don't think he's the best facilitator on the team. You name one player that can pass and draw a double team on this rockets team better than Tracy and I have been very hard on the guy, but Im an objective fan. Name one guy.
He played 5 freaking minutes and what else do you expect from a guy that hasn't played for almost a year. To grade 7 and 5 minutes during a game is a complete and total joke. Be objective.
I thought McGrady was ok on defense. Obviously he's not at Battier's level, but he does use his length pretty well. Carmelo is a decent defensive matchup for him, actually, as he doesn't move around a lot off the ball and he's susceptible to lengthy defenders around the basket (routinely gets his shot blocked more than more any other wing). Where McGrady struggles in half-court situations the most is chasing guys around screens.
Melo is a decent matchup for Tmac as he is not uber quick but more of a bully in getting to the basket. In the two sequences with him, Melo got by him easily, once finishing at the rim, the 2nd time Tracy bothered him a bit into missing the layup......so to me.....he looked......pretty slow footed. I am not sure if it is conditioning or lack of trust/confidence in his knee, but Tracy needs to get that explosiveness back, or his career will spiral downward fast. DD
I'm pretty sure its a mix of both. Ive had knee surgery before and I have an idea of what he's going through. Its tough getting back on the court. The only way you can get GAME ready is to play the games; although, i noticed he was jumping much higher against Detroit than he did all of last season. It kinda leads me to believe that the confidence in his knee is there, but its more conditioning and adapting to this new FAST PACED offense..something he has never played in his career. This is like T-Macs off-season practices, training camp and preseason games all in one. I think he's gonna need until January to be able to contribute in any way.
Bill Parcells used to say that it does not matter how good a player you have been through out your career you still have to show me you can still do it at some point. At this point I'm not sure TMac even understands the offense well enough to be the best facilitator on the team. Scola, Landry and Brooks will all demand double teams before TMac until TMac can prove to the other team that he still has it. Right now with the way the Rockets play it is not about one player facilitating the offense and until TMac can figure out what his role is in the offense then I would rather have Brooks or Lowery handling the ball much much much more than TMac. We will see in time what TMac can be on the Rockets but last night proved nothing for TMac.
What more do we have to evaluate him on? What is comical is people laughing about us picking apart his time on the court...... That is what fans do..... LOL- honestly... And no one is saying he is a finished product, the debate is whether he will get to where he and the team need him to be. SHEESH ! DD
First of all, it was a joke. Secondly, if you want to get technical and try to call someone out, at least make sure you read correctly. My fake play-by-play mentioned a pick/screen being set...twice: So there is no need to highlight that screens are still run in the motion offense. Rookies.....
The same way Tracy fan boys can see a 3 minute clip of after practice shoot round and claim he's ready to play. The fact is the team didn't play well when he was on the floor.
You can't say anything from those clips either. I agree. Just wait. Let's see. Give him one month of playing (and I mean playing over 20 mpg). We will see than
McGrady isn't ballstopping anymore and his passing ability and court vision are perfect for this offense. Eventually, he's going to have to learn that cutting a key part of this offense, but when he gets that down... We will have an enlightened and transformed T-Mac.
Thanks for posting Clutch. I was interesting to see the dialouge between Scola and McGrady on the Houston broadcast. On the Denver broadcast (NBA LP) you could see McGrady start smiling and laughing about halfway through the converstation. At the end it was pretty clear he was saying "oh, ok, I got you." In this clip it looks more heated than it was.
That's my concern, whenever he's not directly involved in the action he's not adding value. Also, he loves to stand around on offense, when the offense is predicated on movement. His help D is non existent.
