Not really much new here. http://ken-berger.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/11838893/18979876?source=rss_blogs_NBA CHICAGO -- Tracy McGrady returned to the Houston Rockets Tuesday night, and the fans cheered. T-Mac hit a 3-pointer, his only points during an eight-minute stint, and all was right in Rocket Land again. Right? No, not so much. McGrady's comeback is only part of a larger plan to increase his minutes and prove his worth to a team willing to take a chance on his once-breathtaking ability to score and benefit from his $23 million expiring contract at the same time. The Rockets were 14-10 this season without Yao Ming and McGrady, and now the only question is how long they'll have to keep up the charade until McGrady is in good enough condition to help another team. "The plan is to increase his minutes because they’re gonna trade him," said a person familiar with the Rockets' plans. "I know they are. It doesn’t do them any good to have him playing eight minutes a game on that contract. They’ll find somebody, and there are plenty of teams that are interested, in spite of the contract." In fact, there will be plenty of teams interested because of that contract. McGrady's $23 million salary comes with two built-in perks: It comes off the books on July 1, 2010, making it a vehicle for clearing cap space for the highly anticipated free-agent signing period, and it's 80 percent insurance-protected. The insurance provision already has kicked in, since McGrady missed 41 consecutive games during his recovery from microfracture knee surgery. The Rockets, or McGrady's new team, would receive 80 percent of his per-game salary for any games he misses the rest of this season. Any number of teams desperate for short-term scoring punch while they prepare for a 2010 spending spree would be obvious fits; the Bulls and Knicks are at the top of my list. The Heat reportedly also are intrigued by McGrady, and team president Pat Riley is said to be closely monitoring T-Mac's progress. On Wednesday, I brought all of this information to someone who is personally invested in McGrady's success -- Tim Grover, the renowned trainer at Attack Athletics on the West Side of Chicago. Grover famously trained Michael Jordan and has recently worked with such stars as Kobe Bryant, Gilbert Arenas, and McGrady. Grover wouldn't speculate on the Rockets' motives with regard to T-Mac, but said McGrady's debut Tuesday night was "long overdue." "I wasn’t down in Houston, and I don’t know what the situation was or why they felt they needed to hold him out this long," Grover said. "Obviously, they had their reasons. They must have found something they wanted to be cautious with. The end result is we're happy to have him back on the floor." Grover didn't merely help McGrady recover from microfracture surgery, which despite its name is a major procedure requiring months and months of rehab. He reinvented McGrady's body, which had no core strength when he got to Grover's gym. "We took care of every single issue that he ever had -- the knee, the back, everything that’s ever bothered him in the past," Grover said. "We realigned his body and balanced everything out and made it much stronger and got a lot of his explosiveness back. Now getting back mentally 100 percent is the challenge. And the only way to do that is go out there and compete against NBA players." At least McGrady is doing that now. Though in a perfect world, he won't be doing it in a Rockets jersey for much longer.
Can someone clarify what the rules are here? I thought the Rockets denied this stuff about missing 41 consecutive games when Wojnarowski mentioned it in his Yahoo piece.
No, Tim "Shamwow" Grover. Last night showed he was not ready to play on opening night as you had claimed.
I just hope Rockets can get enough value back from the trading. I believe a realistic trade would be TMac + Landry for Chris Bosh + Marcus Bank + another player(salary greater than 300K to qualify for the rule) provided that Chris Bosh is to sign/resign extension with us.
Grover may be a top-notch trainer but is he qualified to make medical evaluations regarding McGrady's knee? What's the point of asking him to speculate on this or the Rockets organization's motives for keeping McGrady out? What a terrible article. Oh sorry, "blog entry."
b/c it takes "a while" for you to get into any kind of shape even if he rehabbed extremely well. you can see his timing was way off, and the mental aspect like grover said can only be gained with playing in real games.
I believe what Mr. Berger was referencing, was the fact that Tracy McGrady can miss games one at a time, for the remainder of the contract, and the insurance will remit 80% payment.
Getting into game shape is fine tuning. He's not even close to that yet. He's still weak and rehabbing back from it all.
I call bluff on this article. Every time there is a Rockets TMac trade report or speculation, it's always been shot down or refuted by actions. I highly doubt TMacs going anywhere. There's NO VALUE to get from him anyways. The best value is his contract itself, no need to bring back longer term contract years. Another article just speculating to bid for more readers. Pathetic..just like Richard Justice.
I *thought* the Rockets merely denied that they were holding TMac out FOR the insurance. I didn't think the actual insurance bit was ever in question.. I don't know the specifics, but I do believe that it's correct in that the insurance policy kicked in after he missed X # of games in a row, and the Rockets were paid 80% of his salary for each game he didn't play after that.
It depends.. If you let the contract expire, the best you can hope for is a $7 million/year player... If you trade it, you can get one desirable player at $10 million/year and another dead contract to add to it to get enough within #3's contract. If the $10 million/year player is more desirable, then a trade will happen.
I could of told tmac he needed core strength 10 years ago. Who is training these multi-million dollar athletes?
The Rockets will only have the MLE to use in this upcoming free agency. Trading McGrady now is like using a $23M TE to acquire players. Use it or lose it.
So there was a financial incentive to hold him out until at least Nov 18th. I thought they denied that.
That sounds exactly like an infomercial. We have yet to see any of Grover's client return to elite status this season. Arenas is maybe 60-70% the player he used to be, and O'neal is playing solid but not spectacularly well. And we've all seen yesterday Mcgrady clearly still has trouble running up and down the court with the team.
