I think you're a little off on this just as Magic was... Tmac and Yao aren't the greatest stars ever but they are both really good and better than alot of the star tandems on other teams. Their problem is that they have role players with bench player talent. When other teams take it to another gear the Rockets can't because they're playing as hard as they can. The suns can win most games just playing on one side of the ball, the Spurs, the Piston, the Warriors, and others can also win by playing terrible on one side of the ball. The rockets have to play at their best to win most games and have to get hot to beat the best teams. To a certain degree I think the tmac/yao tandem has worked too well, when they should have been losing to get better draft picks and improving they played hard and overacheived. Instead of being like the Jazz who played with Kirelenko, Boozer, and Okur injuries and ended up getting Deron Wiliams, the rockets played with yao and tmac injuries and got mid-range seedings. They ended up beeing at the bottom of the draft. Even when both were injured for significant time and they should have been the worst team in the league they won alot of meaningless games with tough defense and ended up with the 8th pick when they should have lost more with such a bad team and ended up with a much higher pick. A team of tmac/yao and another all-star like Brandon Roy we would be talking about the rockets as one of the best teams in the league, even with yao injured
I think that actually TMac is the one constantly having trouble "fitting" with people, is really difficult for a second or third option scorers to play alongside a first option that handles the ball for 10 seconds (at least) and only passes the ball for a shot, right, he will get plenty assists as he gives almost all of the posession last passes, but he fails to do what is needed at times to get others rolling, putting a guy like scola alone above the rim for an easy lyup won´t make him going, or having head shot a wide open three, they need to have the ball in their hands at times, and this is what TMac has failed many years to do, he has to share the stardom, as long as he thinks that he is the only option until is impossible for him to score, then he will fail. I will say again, the Rockets will go as far as they can develop Scola in these last games, is wise of Adelman to force possesions onto him cause this is what the Rockets will need.
LOL, how do I sig this post. I love how within 2 games people have gone from saying "McGrady doesn't shoot enough" to "McGrady is a ball hog." What kind of idiot makes the argument that getting open shots/layups DOESN'T get people going? Oh wait, the kind that has never played basketball in their life. Jesus. He is leading our team in assists - especially in the past month.. he has FAR and away been our best playmaker. Since March 6th McGrady has been averaging nearly double what our next leading playmaker has been averaging in that span as far as assists are concerned. He's been turning over the ball less while he's been doing it to boot.
i wish we had a good backup center. we could actually go somewhere. we are gettin raped in the low post. someone like kurt thomas would have helped A LOT.
Review my post i say many times that the rockets will never win a playoff series with TMAC taking 22+ shots per game, its easy to know why, the other team will figure oput how to stop one guy (see lebron last year finals). I played bascketball for three years and we all know that no team will win with offensives that conssits in 2 or 3 passes, that´s why inside out game is WAYYY more effective, because the defense needs to rotate a lot more off the screens. You will never win by playing an offense based on: Alston to TMac, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, shoot or pass to shoot. If you don´t believe me, review all Tmac teams in PO, the other team always end up adjusting to this kind of offense, you need ball movement.
To be fair, usually Tmac takes more shots when other rockets don't shot the ball well. Otherwise, he doesn't. For example, in the lakers game. Of course, when other rockets don't shoot the ball well, he is always doubled or tribled, and result in that he can't shoot well either.
I hate JVG everytime I think about this...he even mentioned something about this in the rox spurs broadcast, how he believes the league should do something about teams that rest their best players and tank at the end of the season...HEY JVG IF YOU KNEW HOW TO ****ING WORK THE SYSTEM YOU WOULD BE SITTING PRETTY RIGHT NOW WITH YAO TMAC AND BRANDON ROY...instead you got your meaningless win against the nuggets and your watching the rox instead of coaching....YOU ARE A DUMBASS
well....sorry if i reopened some old wounds... but yeah, regardless of what anyone thinks about our 2 stars or especially The Most Abhorred Captain, they haven't had enough talent around them to prove anything. I'm pretty sure this is the reason why Morey hasn't traded one of them yet. Really, they didn't make the second round starting a 6-6 PF out from the dleague, depending on street ballers to control the offense, and bringing a 6-2 SG who can't handle the ball off the bench. Obviously its our stars' faults. Teams always talk about building around stars, when the hell did they start building and is this as good as they can do in 4 years? Seriously, we've exhausted the dleague so much we're getting guys who had to go overseas because they couldn't make it there.
This combo has had plenty of opportunity to make to the next level. It's time TMac goes for whatever he can go for.
Did you saw last game? that was a great example of how we willl never win with mc grady as the only offensive option, during the end of the game (last 3 mins) he lost a ball that lead to the kings lead (a lead they hold to an end) missed 2 shots, and ballhogged a hole posession to end up giving the ball to chuck hayes for a contested hook shot. We just needed one point and he failed to give the ball back to scola on the last posession who was clearly uncovered under the rim.
Exactly when Tracy chokes at ends of games it's not just one possession it's back to back to back possessions. You know I will still give him the benefit of the doubt because playoffs is not here yet. Optomistically I am thinking that if he does this now and gets this crap out of his system by playoff time he can shine through learning now but then again he has been in the league and playoffs many years but there is always hope because it is not over till it's over.
rafer passed the ball to chuck and on the last possession it was also rafer that waited for and handed the ball to tmac while scola was open underneath
