Robert Horry =Greatest Super Hero of All Time. We have no heroes in the Tmac and Yao era. Heroes save the day, heroes are there when you need help. Robert Horry has never seen a first round exit EVER. Glory Horry
and yet carmelo and iverson have had games where they've dominated individual playoff games. the reason they lose is b/c of their lack of commitment to the defensive end, where outside of camby, none of the nuggets wanted to play that side of the ball. offense wasn't their problem. so again, stop making excuses. if you're good, you're good. no one is asking yao to rip through the playoffs. i'm asking about ONE FREAKIN' PLAYOFF GAME. JUST ONE.
yao is only a YEAR YOUNGER than tracy. he's entering his SEVENTH season. the tmac's criticisms started after the orlando-detroit series about his inability to win a first round series. we're talking about a guy that most likely only has 3-4 more great years left. and you're willing to give him another few years? if yao was 23/24 like lebron or chris paul, you have a point. i'll give yao some leeway too. but he's only one year younger than tracy and is basically a veteran now.
A few things: 1. McGrady peaked early 2. Yao has only played in three playoff series, its not fair to put him in the same hotseat as a guy who has flunked out of seven 3. Centers historically have longer shelf lives
1) and who's to say yao is gonna improve more considering his injury problems the past 3 years. and since adelman is saying he'll play less minutes, who's to say he's gonna dominate like he should? 2) and has he dominated one playoff game like a superstar should? can you remember one playoff game where yao absolutely murdered the opponent? so who's to say he has that coming? and he missed last year's playoffs entirely. and yes, tmac has failed 7 times. i can't argue against that. 3) centers historically have longer shelf lives. but those centers don't have 3 major injuries from year 4-6 of their career. shaq/hakeem/ewing/robinson... did not have major injuries. who's to say he'll play at a dominant level until 33-34 like the centers i mentioned.
A few more: (2) You're seriously going to give Yao a pass for last year, but count that against McGrady? Seriously? (3) What does history say about the shelf lives of centers over 7'3 and big guards?
Fair enough. I would point to Ilgauskas in Cleveland as a possible example of things getting better for big men since the days of Ralph Sampson and Brad Daugherty. But you are right, that is a genuine concern and it could go either way... I was initially (and very vocally) against taking a chance on Yao because he could/should have just been another tall stiff.
yes ilgauskus got better, but he never recovered his all-star form. he still is not able to play a lot of minutes. basically, he never become as good as he once was. so who are we to say yao will recover the great form he was (i thought the best he ever was was how he ended 05-06 season up until he got injured in 06-07).
Okay, even if we give McGrady a pass for not having Yao last year, there's still six other series he didn't step up for. Convenient enough?
Thats statement is FALSE. McGrady is the definition of stepping it up in the playoffs. He was beaten everytime by a better TEAM
Come on, three or four times? Maybe... But five, six... seven? At some point you have to acknowledge the obvious common denominator. The buck stopped last year. Now we have Artest. Now we can go places.
Wow. You asked for an example where two stars play on the same team yet dont complement each other. I did so and you still have the audacity to try to diminish my answer even though it meets your criteria perfectly. When you've clearly lost a portion of the argument, admit you're wrong and move on. Otherwise, you look like a greater idiot than you should. First of all, your original request was "so i ask you again, give me one playoff game where after the game, analysts clearly said, "yao absolutely dominated the game" or "that individual game that yao played is historic."" So dont give me any crap about asking for "ONE FREAKIN' PLAYOFF GAME. JUST ONE." And since I already replied earlier, I'll just paste my original reply: There hasnt been one. He and Tmac both played a lot of minutes in the playoffs, and they do not complement each other. With Tmac running the offense, it would be nearly impossible for Yao to dominate or have historic games.
To be fair, IMO, last year's playoff loss cant be blamed on Tmac. There was no way we had a chance at beating the Jazz w/o Yao.
the only time where his team was favored was in 06-07. that's the series that you can say his team should have won. he had homecourt; his team had the better record; yao played. but yes, at some point, you can say all you want, but the main thing is tmac hasn't won. you can say the ifs and what nots, but yes, he hasn't won. i can't argue against that criticism b/c it is legit. but you cannot say he hasn't stepped his game up. performance-wise, tmac has done his job. maybe leadership-wise, he can do better. and hopefully, he will do better. time is running out.
Actually, it's still 7 if you want to count his first playoff series as a Raptor when he was 20. And if you're going to give the Rockets a pass last year for not having Yao Ming, wouldn't it be also fair to give his Magic team's a pass in the years they didn't have Grant Hill in the playoffs (which would be all of them)? Sure, we can say that McGrady has underachieved given his talent level. But at the very least, can't you admit that the guy has had some rotten luck also? If he just caught a few breaks, there's no question he'd no longer be that "second round virgin", and we probably wouldn't be having this conversation. You said great players don't make excuses. Well, great players also haven't had McGrady's incredible misfortune of having all-star teammates that can't seem to stay healthy.
