Addition by subtraction (Tmac Apologists need not click)

Ok, loosing to the Wiz is tough. But did anyone notice that the Wiz almost beat the Cavs on Christmas Day? If not for a few lousy pro-Lebron calls, the Wiz walk out of Cleveland with a W.

TMac has been hurting, and his play has been inconsistent with the knee and all, but c'mon guys don't be silly. Marbury? C'mon.

 

We went through this last year if you think about it. T-Mac is staying here for better or worse, because whatever he gives us in a playoff series is more than anything else we could get in a trade for him

 

you're going too far if you want to trade him for marbury DD

 

I couldn't agree more, right now this team is built to win, so i could, morrey is willing to gamble on tmac, hoping he will come back from vacation sometime soon. Also, trading tmac won't help the rocket win a title, assuming you won't get equal value player that can take over games and help you in clutchs time. (only good reason of trading tmac is for salary dump...which won't help us win a title.) TRADING TMAC= NO TITLE

 

We are trying to win this season not prepare for next season.
People need to remember, if we get rid of T-mac, then Artest doesn't want to re-sign we are left with uncertainty.

 

ah, the trading becomes a little bearish for the moment.

 

Celtics lost three of four. They are trading Garnett for a salary dump.

 

Yes good post, keep in mind we want Artest back next season too.We have to stay competitive for this season to get Artest to stay. I think you hold on to McGrady and drop him in 2010 to get a 20 million dollar player in Free agency. I am hoping for a Wade...

at this point, we can still win. If we don't win the championship this year, it's fine. I can almost guarantee that this year and next year we will win 50plus games in the conference and maybe be a first round or second round exit with the current team and TMac as our primtime player. That should be enough to appease people for now.

2009 Free agents are NOT as good as 2010 free agents. TMac is worth little, don't let that backfire. If he's worth nothing by 2010, drop him like hes nothing.

 

Lowly Heat beats Cavs. Lebron's job in jeopardy.

 

You can almost guarantee we try to resign Artest in 2009 and drop Marbury (if we trade for him). These are your 2009 free agents: Kobe Bryant, Carlos Boozer, Allen Iverson, Ron Artest, Jason Kidd, Shawn Marion, Andre Miller, Lamar Odom and Rasheed Wallace

These are 2010: Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudemire, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Tyson Chandler, Manu Ginobili, Richard Jefferson, Joe Johnson, Tracy McGrady, Yao Ming, Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki and Michael Redd, LEBRON JAMES

Trading Tmac now for another expiring contract is just a battle of our patience and strategy.

 

I don't like the Marbury idea. I'd prefer a package of LaFrentz's insured contract, young prospects, picks and draft rights from Portland. Blazers hold 7 picks next draft However the young prospects I'm thinking of I doubt they hand over even for T-Mac.

The Rockets enquired about signing Pablo Prigioni (Scola's teammate on the Argentine national team and at TAU) at the beginning of the season. I don't think he's signed an extension with TAU yet. So he might be free for the Rockets to sign next season.

Arturas Karnisovas scouted a Cholet game in France in October. Most likely he was looking at Nando de Colo the current french league MVP:

http://www.lnbtv.net/UPLOAD/VIDEOS/NandoDeColoLNBtv.wmv

Maybe the Rockets are looking at cost effective international prospects at PG instead NBA vets contracted for the long term?

 

ABSOLUTELY AGREE 100% with everything in this post.

The dilemna with McGrady was Is He/Isnt He (lazy/unmotivated/not focused/not committed/whatever). Who still really knows. But off perceptions of these latest events and adding things up, its just leads to the conclusion that its now distracting the team.

Doesnt have to be any "bottom line" or anything to it. No putdowns of "McLady" and any feminizing of someone's name...its straight PRINCIPLE -
Its a group effort & everyone's in it, & dont make yourself the exception cuz if you do, no one likes that and you're a terd, period.

Working the Rockets brass to have nights off on certain games, maybe its necessary for his mental and physical health, but for some reason it didnt come across like a football coaching staff not allowing the QB to get sacked in practice to protect him for the games. Kinda seemed, well, like what a lazy guy would negotiate toward.

I actually think if he has real personal problems, they should lend at least a little bit of an ear or aid toward those issues...Solution to that is take time off, see some type of licensed therapist. Other thing, if they actually talked about personal issues and out of personal issues is a solution of having NO BACK TO BACK GAMES, makes him look like he leveraged his problems into somehow taking him off the court in March. Doesnt really add up.

Still some time until the trading deadline though

 

If that's true, that truly is scary for the rest of the league. Their GM is doing a masterful job at rebuilding that franchise. The Blazers' pipeline of talent and picks is unreal. Their future looks brighter than any other team, by far.

Prigioni will turn 33 during the next NBA season. Probably too old.

 

The Celtics won the NBA Championship last season. They have a real reason to believe.

The Rockets haven't been out of the 1st round in over a decade.

 

also like to add that it is so awesome TMac hatas can start their own threads saying, you apologists stay out, like the reverse is true. and then we'll get the "I'm not a hata; I'm a realist; you are just a stupid apologist. shut up and stay out of my bashing thread. um, [edit], strike that, I'm not "bashing",,,I'm being real, man."

this reminds me of a thread Clutch started after the 2-8 start in 1999.

"Trade Dream or Barkley NOW"

I think I was into the 10th post of my newbie career here and got in an argument with Clutch about that. I learned a lot about arguing with Clutch. He ignored me for 4 months after that. At least he had the guts to say trade one of the stars ... and he was proven right. If DD had half the guts Clutch does, he'd start a thread titled 'Trade Yao or TMac NOW".

I'd actually believe that more. If it wasn't for the Les money of keeping Yao, a ridiculous Yao trade deserves more attention that TMac for Marbury.

come on...

 

Ok.... but trading Tmac isn't the solution. When we were on our 4 game winning streak, Tmac was the Tmac we expected at the beginning of the season. When would score impressive victories over New Orleans or Dallas... generally when we have a good stretch of games where we are playing well on both ends, its because Tmac had a stretch of good games.

The moral of the story? We need Tmac to win a title. With Tmac's contract expiring in two years, it makes no sense to trade him. We might as well wait his contract out and make a decision next year when its a 20 million expiring or just let it expire and use the cap space to sign someone.

And really... Tmac has consistently has crappy starts to the season, but he'll always pull it together in January/February and start playing well. Coincidentally, thats when we start going on a run every season. Its a little too early to panic. We're playing like crap right now, but we're still 20-12 and we have the personnel to make things work. The correct move is to wait things out because we aren't going to make a magical move that will make us contenders.

The time to panic is in the offseason if we miss the playoffs or lose in the first round (presumably because Tmac had a crappy playoff series). And thats when you want to start thinking about either retooling by dealing Tmac to a team looking to compete in the Lebron sweepstakes, or deal our longer contracts for picks and prospects and rebuild... and maybe WE can get into the Lebron sweepstakes.

 

My goodness! Who comes up with the concept of bringing in a total cancer whose own teammates have hated his guts? All for the sake of trading an injured star that if he gets back to form could help this team get to a championship?

Look, T-Mac has major flaws, no doubt. But Yao, will never, ever, be able to lead a team as a first option. When 4th quarter rolls that guy is out of steam and very unclutch.

We might have to get rid of T-Mac after this season (maybe), but I don't see in any way or manner how this trade makes us better. Few players would make us better than a heatly t-mac in this team.

 

i agree. something tells me that tmac's last great performances of his career will come in the playoffs this year with a healthy rockets team.

and if we can get this prima donna to peak, then we have to go for it.

 

Like it or not, we're "stuck" with him. Let's not kid ourselves into thinking we live in a bubble. This exact same frustration and concern we're expressing -- the rest of the league notices this too. They see the exact same T-Mac that we do: the super-talented yet mentally fragile and injury prone player that we see. They know he's damaged goods too.

For this reason there's almost zero chance of us receiving equal value in return for T-Mac. I agree with Nikestrad that despite all of the setbacks we have seen enough of him to know "it" is still there, in some capacity. He can REALLY turn it on when he wants to and luckily has always played his heart out in the playoffs. I am confident he'll show up in the playoffs and if we do indeed have aspirations of advancing deep into the postseason, they aren't a possibility without him.

Look, this team is primed for a championship run with this group. Say whatever you want about our pitiful losses to the Grizzlies, Wizards or whoever -- we're still going to make the playoffs. Eventually, this team is going to "get it". It's just a work in progress. *IF* this strategy fails you have T-Mac coming off the books after next year giving us a wealth of options at next year's trade deadline and for 2010. Hanging onto T-Mac and going "all in" with this group is our best option barring any Kobe, Wade or whoever dream scenarios falling into our lap.

 

qft, even though I hate the size of your signature that has little to do with basketball.

work on that....ok