let's be real durvasa, nobody cares about one's misfortunes in sports. you think people care that grant hill couldn't reach his HOF potential b/c of injuries? or penny's? look, if grant hill had stayed healthy and blah blah, tmac wouldn't be a rocket. let's not elaborate on his orlando situation b/c he's now a rocket. we all know about injuries. that's why morey has stacked up on depth and added another star player. now there are no more excuses (unless 2 of the 3 guys freakin' get injured).
If this were a case of him being on teams getting swept every year, I'd completely agree with you, but that's just not the case. He's had several chances to close out multiple series but did not step up to the plate.
kobe is one of the greatest closers in the history of the L and he blew a 3-1 lead. and he played a suns team that wasn't healthy. but again, tmac cannot do it himself. and i think you agree nobody can win a 7-game series by himself. tmac has proven (many times) that he can lead a team to the 7th game. now he needs that other guy to step up and deliver him that one extra game. yao can't do it. now let's see if artest can deliver.
Don't you see the problem with this line of reasoning? Because he actually got his team's to be competitive in the series, despite invariably playing against better equipped teams (either in terms of home-court advantage, or depth, or health) ... you're going to penalize him more for not winning. But if he didn't play like a star in the playoffs, and consequentially his teams got swept, all of a sudden it would be understandable. I'm sorry, I just don't get it.
Do you know what I've noticed? You will present an assertion that is ultimately proven to be incorrect, but after a few months, you will once again present the original assertion and act like its true. When Tmac's Orlando team was up 3-1 against the Pistons, the Magic were favored to win. When the 04-05 Rockets were up 2-0 against the Mavs, they were favored to win.
Best post of the thread. All these "only-fans" who have shown up in this thread make me want to vomit, especially the ones who try to defend their idol by talking down the other Rockets players. Tmac_mania.com and Yao_mania.com are where these fools belong.
that's funny, i thought the series was a 7 game series? if you go game by game, then you can argue the team that won the previous game is the favorite. the ONLY series houston was favored to win BEFORE the series started (0-0) was the 06-07 series v. utah. tmac even admitted it. he failed. point blank. again, tmac has shown he can't win a series by himself. he can lead you to the 7th game. but he needs that somebody else to play hero for 1-2 games. morey is hoping that would be artest.
It works both ways. If he's not held accountable for losing, why should he get all the credit for taking series leads? Nobody really talks about the "team effort" of going up 3-1 on Detroit or 2-0 on Dallas...
Actually, its a best of 7 game series. So when Orlando needed to win 1 game and Detroit needed to win 3, the odds were in favor of Orlando.
In truth, it doesn't necessarily go both ways. One player can be fantastic, and his teammates can suck. If that happens, then he should get most of the credit for the wins, and his teammates should get most of the blame for the losses. That's an extreme way of putting it, but there's a bit of that when we're talking about McGrady's postseason failures. But, fine, let's say for the sake of argument say that it works both ways. If you want to principally blame T-Mac for all those losses (which is what you're doing), then give him the lion-share of the credit for the leads he took in those series. Or, if instead you want to say that his "team" took those leads, then be consistent and say that his team lost those playoff series, not him as an individual.
All I'm saying is that his supporting cast wasn't bad enough for him to get swept every year. If they were, then the "he's just been unlucky and played for horrible teams" excuse would be sufficient.
When he was in Orlando his supporting cast was bad enough to get swept every year. The only reason they didnt was becasue of how great of a player Tracy was.
Sufficient for what? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying McGrady is blameless. I'm saying that there are a number of legitimate reasons beyond "McGrady choked" for his lack of playoff success. Enough of them, at least, to where we shouldn't be making ultimatums like "McGrady has one last chance. If we can't get past the first round, under any circumstances, he's GONE!". McGrady is making a lot of money. Maybe that's money better spent elsewhere, and I have no problem reassessing that after the season. But whether or not we get out of the first round shouldn't be the only factor under consideration when that time comes.
Sure. Going 0-3 against a team that's probably better than you (based on the vastly different regular season records), and moreover is playing at home in 2 of the 3 games -- there's no shame in that. In the game they lost at home, he had 37 points, 11 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals, 47 minutes played. Again, look at his teammates -- Gordon Giricek, Pat Garrity, Drew Gooden, ... this team wouldn't have been anywhere close to the playoffs if not for a sensational MVP-caliber season by McGrady.
A lot of you love Tmac's honesty. However, as the leader of this team he needs to be more guarded in delivering those honest remarks. It's all about how you say it. He remarks make you feel as if he's going to lay down for the rest of the season, when it appears that he could have taken care of this earlier.
Why are we talking about Tmac in Orlando? Tmac in Orlando has nothing to do with the Rockets. If you talk about Tmac in Orlando, please mention that he got shut down by Cuttino Mobley and that overachieving Rockets team with Francis and Cato. So if you glorify his play in Orlando, I'll glorify that we stuck the Cat on him and whipped that sorry team like the Rockets whipped the entire Eastern Conference in the early 2000s. What now? Are we going to talk about Juwan with the Bullets?
Haven't you read? We are talking Orlando because people are counting his "not getting out of first round" all the way back to Orlando. And for TMac as a Rocket, the only playoffs series the Rockets were supposed to win was in 2007. It was a choke job done not only by McGrady, but the whole team. That was what got JVG fired, fair or not. BTW, durvasa is the only poster in this thread that gives rational reasoning and you guys just ignore his arguments whenever they are not convenient for your view point. LOL for someone who LOVES past heroes.
Can you imagine if Tmac In Orlando and Juwan in Washington and Grant Hill in Detroit played together??! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
