tracy's teammates know that he doesnt work. they know he's a primadonna. they know he's more interested in being a superstar than playing basketball. even the supposed "good guys" on our team are beginning to resent him enough that it's becoming a distraction. he is coddled and catered to, and gets preferential treatment that he frankly does not deserve. why? because the rockets are stuck with him, and they are trying to do whatever they can to show him they support him so that he tries. how sad is that? to have to cater to a grown man, to get him to actually give a halfway decent effort. its pathetic. if i were his teammate i would resent him too. honestly i'd ask him to stay home until he's ready to put in the work just like everyone else. if morey is building toward a shakeup in 2010 - then we're stuck with tracy for the rest of this season and all of next, which makes me want to puke.
Couldn't have said it better myself. Its not so much coddling at this point its just kissing his ass so they get a portion of their money's worth. The NBA has become pathetic.
Come on, you bash Mcgrady for his knee injury and recovery from surgery and you say you would consider Arenas for him. The same Arenas who has basically missed a year and a half and still has no plan on playing anytime soon over a knee surgery. The same Arenas who just signed a monster deal that locks him up for the next five or six years at over 100 million bucks. The same Arenas who said earlier this year that maybe this season it is better for the Wizards to suck it up, since he wasnt playing and the team was struggling so bad (paraphrasing). Iverson is no better. We all know about his practice rant. Then this year he skips out on the Pistons practice because it was on a holiday morning. Every other Piston showed up except him, despite him saying the team needed more practices with him there to incorporate him into the offense. Thats what makes listening to your reasoning so hard. You apparently are okay with what Arenas and Iverson have done this year but bash Tmac relentlessly. Then you spend weeks talking about how Mcgrady is a bum for not playing when doctors tell him too cuz he thinks he is hurting the team. And then in another recent thread you say the team should shut him down for awhile cuz he is hurting the team when he plays.
Sometimes players need a fresh start....Iverson would only be to get out of the large contract one year early, you know be a player in 2009 instead of 2010. Arenas is a bigger gamble, I would consider him but he would not be my first choice. My first choice regarding Tmac would be some young up and coming players like Outlaw or Aldridge or something similar...but I don't think you can get that. 1. McGrady is not a bum, he is just a wuss, who was too lazy to do the rehab to get in shape for the season. 2. They should shut him down, because his wussiness is hurting the overall team. All makes sense to me. DD
I almost forgot i was going to update this... http://boss.streamos.com/wmedia-live/nba/26585/500_nba-d-leagueflash_071102.asx To watch the last quarters of the Vipers game... so far Dorsey has gotten one rebound since I started watching
Morey for all the fan fare and praise, grossly mis judged the players on this team. To say the defense suffers when yao sits, yet he said he liked the 2nd unit when Yao sits. So let me understand, 1 minute you like for the team to play a 6'5 center that can't slide a penny under his feet when he jumps and now they're having trouble defending when yao sits? Did you not watch the playoffs when Deke sat down? I guess he didn't notice the parade to the basket when Deke was down vs Utah. All this just confirms the guy is too busy crunching numbers instead of looking at players. People have been too busy hanging on his johnson instead of talking about the lack of essential tools to help this team win a ring. Rafer,Head, Hayes shouldn't even be on the roster. I gave him props for getting Artest, although I thought it shouldve been done last yr, but he did it. All the manuvering to get dorsey or compile 2nd rd picks were wasted when they were given away. Even if they didn't get artest, guy like mo williams and jefferson were given away and they fit what adelman wants to do more than alston and shane. A guy like Ratliff was sitting there, as well as Anderson, yet he wasted money on another slow, non defense,old guard like barry when one of the most oft injured players on your team doesn't have a decent backup. I don't have any proof, but I'm said before that there is a power struggle between Adelman and Morey. Through history and performance, I hope Adelman wins out and morey quits. When Yao had to sit for a game, you could see adelman burning up cause he had to play chuck hayes at center. Show me another team that has a 6'5 backup center. I will say I'm a little surprised by how the team has played, but I'm not surprised by our weaknesses are being exposed by a lack of size,length, and quickness at certain positions. I think he's a good dude, but just like coaches who hold the huge playcalling sheet to their face vs looking at the players they have and how they're playing, that's what morey does. Get talent and let the coach figure out how to use his talent. Don't handcuff the talent though. Once again, see the sig.
i think you've got it a little wrong. i don't think tracy is a wuss. i don't think its a matter of him being scared or weak (which is how I interpret wuss, maybe you meant something different). the problem is that his desire to be popular, to be an entertainer, to be a superstar, to have all the attention often seems to override his desire to be a transcendant basketball player. i think he has coasted on his talent alone for so long that he doesn't even realize that he was supposed to be doing work to maintain his physical and mental edge over the past 10 years. he's been such a big deal for so long just for being tracy, that he never developed good habits to help his longevity as a basketball player. you see, tracy wants it to be all about him. when they win, its tracy. when they lose, its on tracy. when he plays well, tracy is god. when he plays poorly, what's wrong with tracy. when he plays well but has bad teammates its about how tracy had no help. tracy has his own (terrible) trainer. tracy has his own gym. tracy has his own court. tracy doesnt have the same rules as everyone else. tracy chooses when to sit out. tracy chooses what role he wants to play. tracy gets mad if he makes a good pass and doesnt get an assist. tracy gets mad if a teammate takes "his" rebounds. tracy has his own doctor(s). tracy has the same surgery as everyone else but its a 10x bigger deal. tracy tracy tracy. it seems that as long as he is relevant, in the press, and people are talking about him, that's what he wants. on the other hand, you have folks on this team who get by on hard work and intelligence. they cover for all of tracy's shortcomings on the defensive side, on the effort side, on the leadership side. they put in the work. they train with the team. they want to win. they put in the work to deserve to win. and you know what they get? they get to be dependent on a lazy man who expects to coast by on talent, expects everything handed to him, and does everything possible to put hiimself above the team. they are dependent on THAT guy to get any reward for the work they are putting in. after a while, human nature dictates that if THAT guy lets you down enough, you will work less. it is my belief that this is what we are seeing now. the "why should i bust my butt to when we're not going anywhere with that guy" attitude. the "if we're gonna lose anyway, and HE doesnt have to work, why should I work?" attitude. i don't know if cancer is the right word, because it implies so much more than what tracy is, and it's giving him credit for making my team dysfunctional, but i'm gonna go ahead and say that he's the most personable, likeable cancer i've ever seen in sports. and its a damn shame. my thoughts anyway.
Awesome Best two takes on the entire situation I've seen. Completely sums everything up. I'd rather lose and have a team I can root for.
you've got a team just like that. filled with quality people who cant seem to get it right. they are called the Texans
Neither of the trades in your sig, even if the other teams agreed to them (which I'm doubtful about), would address our defensive problems. And I think it's interesting that you continue to scapegoat Luther Head and Chuck Hayes, guys that are stuck on the far end of the rotation. Why not focus on the play of the guys that are actually in the regular rotation? Any time you put a team together, you have to give up something in some areas to improve other areas. That's true for every team that is confined to a certain payroll limit. It is too easy for a person on the outside to criticize the team where it chose to be weak and then put all the blame on neglecting that area if the team does not succeed. There's a critic for every sports team that does this. I've never been convinced by that type of argument. You choose to overlook the most obvious problem -- the Rockets have not once had McGrady, Battier, and Artest even close to 100%. I challenge you to come up with a 15-man roster that was realistically achievable for Daryl Morey that would not be affected by continual health problems of three major, multi-positional rotation players. Here's the deal: if the Rockets ever get even close to healthy for a stretch of games, and they still can't get to an elite level of play, then you can beat your chest. Until then, you have to judge the Rockets on their own terms. What did the Rockets expect out of each player in the offseason, and to what extent did they meet or fall short of those expectations? That's the question we should be asking. And on that basis, if you want to blame Morey for anything, it should be his decision to build around McGrady and Artest. Those are the players that are falling the furthest from meeting the Rockets expectations, in terms of health, games played, and doing what the coaches expect out of them. I just don't understand the attitude of some fans on this board to put the responsibility for the Rockets woes on fringe rotation players like Luther Head and Chuck Hayes, when the so called "stars" that earn the most money have played so poorly. There's just no sense in it.
eventually we have to consider that the reality of the situation might be that we will not have that luxury. you can sit there with a broken ferrari in the garage, and envision how fast it might go, and all the chicks you'd get, and all the races you'd win . . . but if it never leaves the garage thats all you have - your imagination. so i put this to you in a simpler way . . . do you keep trying to fix the broken ferrari in hopes that your duct tape and chewing gum holds it together when you really need it to work? or do you invest in something a little slower, less flashy, lower maintenance, that you can depend on?
After 4 straight years of breaking down, and now worse than ever before, you have to start looking seriously for the more dependable solution. But with only this year and next year left on T-Mac's contract, the Rockets have to weigh the options of trading him now, waiting to next season (where they can probably get a much sweeter deal), or waiting to the summer of 2010 to pick up a star (or two) with the money they free up.
If Morey failed at anything, it's to predict the amount of injuries this season. Arguably, the injuries are predictable, given that several of the players had surgeries planned in the offseason and the new guys Artest and Barry haven't exactly been iron men. Another thing may be to underestimate the importance of Mutombo. Both on court (Rockets interior D sucked bad without shotblocking when Yao sat this year) and in lockerroom. But generally, you can't disagree with brining Artest and Barry at a low cost. I don't think that, if he had signed or traded for someone other than these two, Battier and McGrady would be less injured than they are now. Maybe the alternative acquisition would be healthier than Artest has been... but Artest is not the only injured guy acquired by a team... Mike Miller is injured, and Brand got injured, re-signed Gilber Arenas is injured, and that doesn't even include all of the Clippers.
i think youre absolutely right. but i think theres an additional layer of complexity. assuming that the rockets are indeed chasing a championship and not just aiming to be a profitable/viable team, are you willing to essentially waste this year and next year (two years of Yao's career) just to be rid of tracy in the most effective way? are you willing to face all your players and say "well, its in the best interest of the rockets for us to just go through the motions for two years, with no new draft picks, so that we can be rid of tracy's albatross contract"? if i were any player on the rockets, and management told me that was their plan, i'd ask to be traded. nba careers are usually not long. i wouldnt want to waste mine for a guy like tracy.
