Official Tracy McGrady in Atlanta Hawks Uniform Thread

Why do you guy constantly let tinman do this... sigh...another waste of a thread

 

So do you think Mcgrady just gave up? That he never wanted to win? Or that he was just a loser destined to fail because he didn't have the right attitude?

Tracy had Carter when they were both potential talents, but had not yet materialized. Tracy had no one in Orlando because of injuries. And Tracy had no one, but Yao, in Houston. I loved Sura, JB, and crew, but they were old and injured as well. There may not be an excuse for everything, but there certainly is a reason and the reason we never went past the first round was NOT because of Tmac. Watch the playoff games against the Jazz and Mavs, you can only do so much you have to have others step up.

Yao and Tmac were an awesome duo, they could put up 60 points and at one point I think they averaged like 50 something, but where does the other 40-50 come from? Tmac? We had streaky, old, nonathletic shooters surrounding him.

If you want to question his leadership or his work ethic you have a case. We don't know how hard he worked at practice and we don't know how well his teammates responded to him, or if he was a leader at all. But to deny that he was a top player is asinine.

 

lol whatever, what is there to talk about Tmac in Atlanta anyways, They are a pretty irrelevant team, doubt adding Tmac will make them a contender

 

i wouldn't say atlanta is a contender...but if horford makes steps forward in his game, and joe johnson can stay healthy and really take over a series then they could upset the bulls or knicks and meet the Heat in the ECF..

 

The TOFs love bringing up that during Orlando, he "ALMOST" beat Detroit in the playoffs. That's great and dandy, Detroit was a great team, a potential championship team. That year they got swept by the Nets.

Almost doesn't count, but..

What about When they lost 1-3 to the Bucks and Hornets?

The Hornets? David Wesley and Baron Davis?

There was no ALMOST in a 1-3 lost series.

Best player in the league my ass.

 

McGrady was a top tier player, look at how much we paid him.
I think leadership and relationships with your teammates and coaches make a huge difference in a team's success.
Rudy T and Dream are life long friends. Mario Elie mentions when that Dream calmed everyone down when the Rockets were down to the Knicks.

I was guilty of over hyping Yao and Tmac also. Stamina and health are key to success in any sport. Yao could never play an entire game and Tracy had health issues before we got him. They put too much emphasis on these guys for production, that's why JVG got fired.

When Rick came, notice how spread out the offense was and how everyone got involved.

In Shaq's book, he mentioned how he chewed out Nick Andersen after he missed those free throws. Said in retrospect, that it wasn't a good move and that he didn't learn to be a leader til later.

I'm not saying Tmac didn't want to win, but I don't think his desire is as strong as Kobe or Lebron etc.
People here think Tmac has a perfect game. Even Michael Jordan didn't believe he was perfect, he added new moves, bulked up, became a better defensive player. LeBron went to Dream to improve his post game.

You think Tmac does that?

 

the season hasn't started. so no real game action talk.

 

So I come into the nba dish and yep, wouldn't ya know tinman has the last post in this thread.

 

I hate this thread. I think I'm going to start randomly posting the "Best Rack" and "Best Ass" images in here throughout the year.

 

Same o clutchfans.... Guys treat tmac like an old girlfriend. It's over they split but one is still talking about the other... Must want him back... Let it.go and move on...

 

YOU are saying to move on? how about you start with your name...tmac4life? lmao

 

Ya since this thread is so off we can discuss anything....How was your day sir?

 

Hiya, tinman!
Been a while...

Same-old, same-old, I take it?

Can I give you a fr'instance in this thing (since I've been polite enough to stay out of it this long...)?

Before Tracy McGrady (...or the Rockets, hard to tell sometimes...) lost game 6 of their first-round playoff series to the Utah Jazz again in 2008, the ultimate leader and professional and teammate and warrior Shane Battier gave a stirring pre-game speech right in front of the scorer's table (really "win-one-for-the-Gipper" stuff)...

...for all the good it eventually did (I think Luis Scola may have been the only one who listened to Battier, judging from his performance...Luis and Shane's "bromance" was legendary even in its infancy)...

...Battier didn't play himself in that game (literally, this time), but I always wondered, myself, about that awful dynamic among the Rockets that gave practically everyone else carte blanche, and left McGrady the sole reason for the team's eventual failure.

In all of this wrangling over how worthless Tracy McGrady actually was, it's fascinating to point out how distant the players were from each other.

Jonathan Feigan routinely reported a mostly professional and cordial locker room for the Rockets. Everybody liked each other and everybody got along well...nothing usually overtly disconcerting took place often (McGrady and Yao both lobbied to bring Dikembe Mutombo back to the team because he was a steady influence that year...I suppose it was just dumb luck that Deke could actually still contribute on the court...).

Feigan never suggested that anything was especially amiss between McGrady or any of his teammates relationship-wise. Damndest thing - McGrady actually found two or three guys on that team who didn't think he was the stuff you'd find at the bottom of a barrel of industrial waste.

I about fell out of my chair reading how highly Chuck Hayes (the Rockets' poster child for never-say-die attitude) thought of McGrady. I guess Chuck never got the memo that he was supposed to think that McGrady was some mutated form of the West Nile virus that the Rockets were stricken with and he should keep his distance.

But you're right, tinman. There was a distance between most of the Rockets and Tracy McGrady for the balance of his time here. I mentioned it myself on a number of occasions.

Their fates weren't tied together in any meaningful way, you do know that, right, tinman? I'm not picking on you...but there's a point coming....

Typical post-game interview from Shane Battier would suggest something that McGrady made the Rockets a better team...all of the players benefitted from playing with him, but something was missing...deftly side-stepping any culpability in any loss personally or for any of his other teammates, because everybody was prepared to flog McGrady anyway.

Michael Jordan punched Steve Kerr in the face once during practice. Magic Johnson hit players in the face with the basketball in practice if they weren't ready to receive a pass. Kobe Bryant wanted Kwame Brown off the Lakers so badly that he almost refused to go back into a game because of him. You could lay alot of that behavior at their competitive natures or selfishness or vanity.

But just as surely, you could lay that at them realizing that accountability was just as important as cameraderie. None of them were as concerned with getting along with one another as they were making sure that the guys they were playing with were going to do their jobs.

I wholly agree that there were things as a player McGrady himself could have done to improve individually, but if he was going to be an injury-prone player, it would not have mattered a great deal. he woukldn't have been on the court enough anyway.

Most players and coaches and reporters who spent any time with McGrady said that what McGrady truly lacked was an "edge". He was too nice a guy. Whenever McGrady played a bit angry, he gave people pause. Nobody wanted to deal with him on the court in those moments, because you couldn't stop him if his mind was made up to take things into his own hands. But McGrady did not often stoke those fires himself. It just didn't seem to be in his nature.

I guess that means he didn't care, or he didn't want to win.
Or he was a coward or a quitter or a team cancer or a jerk.

That's what gets served on the buffet table here, anyway, because that's what most of us will swallow.

Rick Adelman did the right thing, involving more players offensively when he arrived that season. Even that became an indictment of McGrady, rather than a need to hold to SOME standard for his teammates. Somehow, McGrady was keeping everybody else from being better players all that time.

The worst thing that could have happened to McGrady in 2008 was believing that, somehow, the players he was surrounded with (not the rookies) who hadn't changed were actually going to stand up under playoff pressure and help pull out a win. That God-forsaken 22-game win streak that saw consistent, game-to-game contributions from journeymen to NBDL call-ups may have given McGrady the false sense that, if he struggled (as he did from time to time offensively during that streak) the team could hold its own...it could find a way...it could win.

Wouldn't you know it...McGrady fights for all he's worth (which wasn't much, I suppose) in that game six to keep the Rockets close (faking injuries all the while, no small feat there!), and as soon as the rest of the team goes into the tank, McGrady does what he was always here to do - be the sole reason why they lost.

One thing I can say about McGrady is that he was at least consistent with that.

I guess, to try to answer your question, tinman, about whether or not McGrady could pull a team together, or even make himself a better player...

...I guess that's why they keep score. With one noticable exception.

Every loss the Rockets suffered under McGrady's brutal regime should get an asterisk by it...

...nobody's going to win with McGrady playing for them, so why should any of them be penalized with losing along with him?

 

Well, this might be the role McGrady would be happy with. Crawford was a chucker and McGrady could definitely do that. I'm assuming he can have a few streaky games.

Oh by the way on your signature, did you know that Olajuwon made it to the NBA Finals in his second season? Absolutely causing havok against the Lakers front line that included Kareem Abdul Jabar.

Just some knowledge for you.

 

Very good post.

Going back to your posts on team chemistry, it's not that everyone has to be buddies and go to the club together, It's about believing in one another. I believe that has to start with your best player. If your best player doesn't believe in his teammates and tries to do it all himself, then that's when things get bad.

Look at the 94 Rockets. If Dream didn't have any confidence in a rookie named Cassell, we wouldn't be talking about Clutch City. Dream was perfect in knowing when to take over or when to let your teammates take over.

nobody should be penalized for losing with McGrady, but without McGrady you get to see what type of players they are allowed more touches.

 

any new tmac videos?