state of team after tracy mcgrady deal compared to now

When Tmac joined the Rockets he was already a multiple time all star with another team.

James Harden was well known off the bench in OKC, kinda of like Sam Cassell with the Rockets. The Rockets are his first opportunity to become an all star and set his legacy.

Another great thing about Harden, which was similar to when we got Ron Artest, was that he didn't bring any additional delusional player only fanbase to Clutchfans. It was just real Rockets fans recognizing a real player.

 

I would say 04-09.

 

Sure everyone was excited about 111, but after those two the roster was really bad, you were depending on Jon Barry, David Wesley, Juwon Howard...Reefer was actually the 3rd (or 4rth after Battier) best player LOLZ.
More importantly when we had Tmac-Yao almost every Western team was a contender...Jazz, San Antonio, Dallas, New Orleans, PHX, Portland were all very good teams who had superstars like Houston but had a good bench unlike Houston. Back then in the West having a superstar was almost par for the course for every team, "bottom" teams like Memphis still had Pau and Wolves still had KG.

Now, though we still have just 1 star the NBA is very open, really the only contenders are OKC and Miami. And we get capspace next year, and we already have "semi stars" like Lin, Asik and Parsons on the team. So I think there's more optimism now than before.

 

1. I couldn't care less about the fact that we won 22 games in a row if it doesn't translate to sustained post season success. Sorry, but I don't think in only short terms.

2. That winning streak was not just T-Mac. Yao was a huge part of it for more than half the streak and our role players were playing out of their minds. If the streak was entirely on T-Mac, we probably would not have gotten past the 2nd game after Yao went down.

 

I like this team way better. James Harden is 23 and already a better player with more accomplishments than T-Mac. We also have the youngest team in the NBA by far and we are in the playoff picture. I think that rarely happens. Our role players are better than the T-Mac and Yao years, and still have potential to turn into something big. Think what Lin and Asik could be after a few years of playing a full NBA season. On top of all this, we still have room for a max contract.

 

Harden has experience playing at the highest level of the playoffs, the NBA Finals.

Though he was not the best player on the team, going through that experience at a young age will help him as a leader of the new team.

McGrady did not meet our expectations as Rockets fans who have seen the very best, however James Harden's first season so far has far exceeded our expectations.

He's like Calvin Murphy, Vernon Maxwell and Clyde Drexler rolled into one.