Harden and Clyde were better players then Tmac, coming from a big tmac fan. Tmac fell off from that "untouchable status" as soon as he joined us.
Whatever. Fine. I am not a Tmac fan. I am a Rockets fan. Either way, you're still dodging the evidence which shows you have an obsession for crucifying all things McGrady. I'm just asking you if you think you can get over it. The only reason I ask you is because YOU are the main poster who continually goes after anything related to Tracy McGrady. Anything. Again, I enjoy your posts because they give me reminders of the glory days, but the Tmac obsession is ridonkulous. If you can't move on, it's all good. I'm still going to read your posts. But, at the same time, I will respect TMac for the time he was here and, in my subjective opinion, played hard. It was obvious he played through tremendous back pain, and for that, I do give him props. I have cracked vertebrae from high school basketball, along with a torn acl, so playing through injuries deserves some recognition. Carry on, homie.
I don't get the reasoning for hating on T-mac, I get that we wanted him and Yao to lead us to a championship but the teams the Rockets faced in the playoffs were much more complete.T-mac averaged around 33 ppg against the Mavs in 05 but the Mavs were simply a much deeper team with Dirk, Terry, Howard, Finley. Same with the Jazz in 07-08. People harp on T-mac for the "Toronto game" but don't remember game 6 in 2008 against the Jazz when T-mac had 40 pts 10 rebs and 5 ast. on a bad shoulder and knee. Scola was the only other player in double figures with 15. While the Jazz had 7 guys in double figures! T-mac was not the reason for our playoffs failures, dude almost always raised his game in the playoffs we just did not have the pieces to compete with the Mavs in 05' and the Jazz in 07-08. You can criticize T-mac was being injury prone but not for his game.
Fact: The only time the Rockets made it past the first round during the McGrady era was when McGrady was not even playing. Let this one sink in. Fact: Spurs have been to Finals Six times. The only time they have lost an NBA Finals was when Tracy McGrady was on the Spurs. They were seconds away from clinching the title when basketball gods remembered who was on that team. Fact: Not 0-1, not 0-2, not 0-3.........but 0-7. Seven shots at passing the first round with different teams and FAILED every single time. Not NBA Finals, not conference finals...simply first round. One of the biggest LOSERS to ever play the in NBA.
You can't have it both ways dude. You can't say tmac was so awesome but we lost to more complete teams. If he was so awesome on weaker team, he would have taken a team to the finals like LeBron. You can't say they didn't have the right pieces with tmac when these pieces beat portland without him. And stop fudging stats like every tmac fan does, he averaged 30.7, NOT 33 against the mavericks!
More facts. Tmac fans exaggerate his playoff tenure with the rockets, he only played 3 playoffs and 20 games James harden has only played 17 games and he's already walked over tmac like he was a sidewalk. And tmac fans blame coaching and teammates Here are his coaches in his career Doc rivers Jvg Rick adelman Poor jvg got canned because mcgrady couldn't deliver
It's actually painful to watch McGrady as a Rocket games. Back then it bothered me that he took so many jump shots but it drives me crazy now when I see the footage. The guy took more pull up 18-20 footers in one game than the current Rockets TEAM does in ten games. So much wasted talent.
A lot of that is just reflective of the NBA at the time. I feel the same way watching young kobe and AI --- Much respect to dopamine for bringing up that game 6 vs the Jazz. The way he kept fighting despite his injury and ridiculous odds was enough for me. I wear my tmac jersey with pride
Not saying T-mac was on Lebron's level, only a handful of times has 1 player carried a bunch of role players deep in the playoffs, I can only recall A.I and Lebron. We had the better team when we beat Portland in 2009. We had a stronger bench and had a heathy (at the time) Yao, Artest, Brooks, Scola, Battier with Landry, Lowry, and Hayes on the bench. Portland had B. Roy, Aldridge, Batum, Steve Blake, Joel Bryzbilla, Rudy Fernandez. I'm a Rockets fan and personally I appreciate what T-mac did for us even though it wasn't up to par with our expectations. Harden is the man now and he is a more complete and efficient player than T-mac but to act like T-mac was stepped on dog**** is a bit asinine.
He had great talent (maybe on par with Kobe) but that's about it. Bad attitude, injury prone, lacked heart and effort.
I don't know who is 'better' between the two but note: James plays with Morey guys, you know, Pat, Dmo, Terrence, the newer aquisitions, Parsons, i can keep going. TMac played with, to put it kindly, not-Morey guys: Ryan Bowen, Jim Jackson, Skip, Juwan, ma boy CSpoon, Bob Sura, David Wesley, and the like. I don't know why were comparing the two (I think Harden's the more effective player), but if we are going to compare, let's give context.
For people who were trying to compare T-Mac to Maxwell, please realize that he should be held to a much higher standard than Mad Max as he was our franchise player and the highest paid player in the league.
He did play with Morey players. Morey started in may 2007, tmac left in 09 -10 season. Keep trying, I've heard every excuse in the book.
You don't know who's better? Let make easy for you. A bench or a car? You can choose the bench but it won't take you anywhere. The car is the best form of transportation to get you places. Tmac took the rockets nowhere. He's the bench. Harden is the mack truck the rockets need.
Maxwell would have broken McGrady in half if the two played each other in playoffs. McGrady had a tough time with the physical defense of Derek Fisher and Matt Harpring. Vernon would have taken it to another level.
