Tracy Mcgrady and Yao Ming will forever be linked with each other. A tandem that was supposed to be as dominant as the Kobe Shaq era that unfortunately never panned out. But something has been obvious throughout the years. Of the two stars and the criticism it appears they have received only one of the Super Stars has been the consistent scapegoat target of the media....Tracy Mcgrady. I'm not a TOF, and have no favoritism towards either Yao or Tracy, but this question recently surfaced in my head. Why is it that Mcgrady has always been blamed for the Rockets failures while Yao Ming has been praised for everything he does and receives almost no blame or criticism from the Rocket fans and media. The media always use to say Mcgrady has never made it out of the first round, but did they forget that Yao Ming the focal part of this Rocket team had never made it as well ? More examples of what seems to be a negative vibe towards Mcgrady is his portrayal as he returns from injury. The media,fans, and organization have somehow turned his return into a negative tone while the return of Yao is always greeted with delight. Why is it that Mcgrady is used as a scapegoat for the city of Houston, and Yao Ming portrayed as a "golden boy". Both players were brought to this city to bring back a championship, and success to the city of Houston. Up to this point they have BOTH failed. Yet the player criticism seems to be undeniably bias. Is it fair that one of these stars be treated so differently from the other when both are similar in almost every aspect of their career ?
Tmac gets more blame because he has a longer history of losing. He's like KG before KG went to the finals when he was with the wolves. If you remember, he was called a perennial loser too. Winning has a strange way of making that reputation disappear, and unfortunately for Tmac it's unlikely that he'll be around to win with the rockets.
It's both their faults. They didn't mean to get injured but if your going to blame someone, blame them both. Yao is no less guilty than Tmac. He isn't of any help to his team on the bench either. Neither intentionally got hurt.
We know where this is headed. But it's both of their faults, none can stay healthy, ones out for a season and ones out of the line up every other game.
Tmac is fairly useless for this current team. He does not play hard enough to fit it with this gritty bunch. Yao is a huge question. He underwent major reconstructive foot surgery and you think Yao was slow before, I expect him to be nearly pedestral when he comes back. Z stated that it too him 2 years before he felt confortable post surgery. Two afters from after Yao comes back would place at him at 30-31 years of age. That age if fairly old for an injury prone player. IMO, Yao will be resigned not because of his future abilities, but because of marketing considerations. Fans should not count him to help us much in the near future. Given his history, you just can't.
I disagree with the posts above me and with u op. Before anything, don't think anyone would really blame either of them in terms of regular season accomplishments as when both are playing, we were relatively successful in the regular season. First, I don't like blaming anyone due to injury. Noone wants to get injured. Players are blamed not solely due to winning/loosing IMO, but rather the perceived personality of the player by fans/media. There are guys who are on loosing teams (eg arenas) buy does not receive nearly the blame from media as tmac. offcouse winning does improve one's image. Look at kobe a couple of years ago. He was always perceived as a selfish and bad teammate. The media/fans gave him a lot of hate as well. Even if he was winning. there are always kobe haters. the rox were never a bottom feeder team, but rather a mediocre team which never accomplished anything while never really failing either. so IMO the blame on tmac can not be viewed upon solely because of loosing in the postseason. Before last year, i feel that tmac opened his mouth too soon and did not deliver (the two utah series, as the mavs series we were kinda developing the team and the role players were not nearly as good). That is probably the reason why the media kind of concentrated on him rather than yao who on the other was relatively quite in terms of making promises regarding post season success. I feel that currently a lot of the fans/media tend to blame tmac was his performance/lack of performance last season which kind of disappointed a lot of people, including myself. Yes he was injured, or at least not 100%. But fans/media as a whole do not like to cheer for or support a player who puts ME before the team. I guess it is human nature to kind of look out for yourself, but it is really difficult as fans to root for a perceived 'selfish' person. You have to admit, the way tmac acted last year was really selfish. He did not care about how his team mates or the rox organisation felt. I guess after loosing the support of the fans, the media kind of just played of that and made the situation worse. Last year was THE year for the rox (well at least on paper). We really had a team which could of made a run at the finals if tmac concentrated on playing. I had no problems with him being injured, you can't control that. I would of rather last year that he did not play at the beginning of the season and fully recovered before coming back. That period of 1 game in, 1 game out really did it for me. So i guess what i am saying is that, it is not the actual winning/loosing that causes the blame (again winning helps) but rather the perceived personalities.
You can't blame either for their various injuries. You would have to be pretty cold to hate on Ralph Sampson for the Rockets not winning more in the mid '80s. So, lets take the injury part out of the equation and compare everything else. Star power and appeal: Yao has a billion followers in China, but his game isn't based on flash. His major qualities of hard work and strong fundamentals, don't get the attention that dunking over Bradley or scoring 13 in 35 gets you. His playing style garnered much more attention than Yao's, hence more blame. History: As someone else mentioned earlier, T-Mac's been around for longer and had the pedigree of success. He already had two scoring titles, and was the sought after piece with the Francis trade. Again more attention and bigger expectations on T-Mac. I personally thought he had the potential during the Orlando years to be better than Kobe, his length, ball handling skills, athleticism, and shooting touch. Media interaction: The cultural differences and Yao not speaking English as a second language may have helped him in this regard. Whenever the media talked with him, it was all about doing the right things to improve, etc. It wasn't dramatic, there were no major press conferences or interviews, it was straight forward. T-Mac on the other hand I don't have to get into. McGrady put himself out there on countless occasions, and when you don't deliver you get the blame. Image: Yao has never seemed like a malcontent. He hasn't been in the league for as long as Tracy, but his MO seems to be an oft-injured mentally strong player that puts in more then his fare share of hard work. One could say he wasn't aggressive enough on the court, but that started to change over the years when he started to demand the ball. Tracy on the other hand is about to be on his fourth team, leaving on acrimonious terms with the Magic and the Rockets. That kind of history follows you, and whatever happened last year with the injury, he handled it extremely poorly. Injuries are an unfortunate part of both of these players legacy, but after that the two stars diverge. Tracy's words, performance, lack of emotional intelligence, has left a much more bitter taste in my mouth than Yao has, by far. Tracy still has time to turn it around, but his Rocket tenure has been a roller coaster with more downs than ups, and I think the ride is about to end.
Why is there no option to blame the bad management and supporting cast at this time? You can´t expect two good players to win championships without a well built team.
Tracy gets more blame for one simple reason: He talks too damn much. It all boils down to that. In terms of hard work and so on, I've seen Yao out on the court barely jogging. Yeah, he's a big dude, but it's not like he's a hustler. But he talks much much less, he's always smiling and joking, so people like him. When t-mac opens his mouth to complain people get rubbed the wrong way. It has nothing to do with actual performance or injuries.
Neither one of them can keep on the court without getting injured. I put it on both of them. The poll choices are screaming: "YOF's click here" "TOF's click here"
As much as it's Tmac and Yao's fault, it was the 2005 refs, it was the poor role player support and management of minutes. I always believed we should of allowed Yao to sit out some back to back games, so he can be fresh during the playoffs.
Most of the people are going to vote McGrady, just because it is so easy to hate him, but so easy to not hate Yao. I voted McGrady JUST because of what happened last year. I wouldn't even vote Yao, because he showed true heart (case in point, the Lakers series)
I don't see why this is a difficult concept, Yao has always been direct and straight forward with the management and he puts 100% effort towards the team. Tracy is the opposite, he had a big ego and wouldn't fully listen to management and always rely on talent. Management had to find out about his surgery through the paper, instead of telling them directly. And the last few days where he had his interview he said he was not suppose to be playing because he is recovering and now he's asking for more minutes.
