are you referring to the reg. season or the playoffs? your point is valid for reg. season primarily. but in the playoffs, i don't see where his defense lacks in intensity.
shane couldn't guard him AT ALL. shane is more equipped to guard 1-on-1 guys, but he struggled defensively in both series v. the jazz guarding harpring and ak. adelman and JVG switched tmac to those guys whenever shane struggled to keep up.
Again, I would agree with what you have said if Tmac had the teammates that would deliver. Throughout his tenure in Houston, he has never had the team that would allow him to play team ball. The only exception was last year when he was not healthy. There is no evidence to say that he isnt a team player. If you can show me a team that he has been on where he could have been a team player, please let me know. From what I have seen, he has no problem giving up the ball to Yao, a player he knows that is usually consistent enough to score. If he had a problem with giving up the ball to Yao, you may have a valid argument.
I don't think Tmac is selfish, he has good court vision and is willing to pass to the open man. Nor do I think his style is not conducive to winning, his style isn't that much different from Kobe or Jordan or any number of all stars that dominate the ball and have won it all. I do think his style is definitely to dominate the ball though, and that requires him to be completely healthy to be effective, and too often over the last several years he hasn't been. An unhealthy Tmac dominating the ball is definitely not conducive to winning. We can't just wave that away and say well if he had been healthy he would have been awesome. It might be true, but it's not the way things went. I also think he has gone away from finishing strong around the basket like he used to alot more earlier in his career, to settle for jump shots, probably in part because of his injuries. Regardless of the reason, even when he was completely healthy and playing at a top level, it has never been enough. So what makes him a "superstar" as oppossed to just a perrenial all star starter? Especially over the last few years? I can see an arguement when he was in Orlando and maybe thru his first year or so with the Rockets when there was still a debate on who was better, Kobe or Tmac... But now? Who knows if he will even make it back to all star level, much less super star. But I guess it all depends on how you define "superstar".
again, i think people use last year as a baseline for tracy's entire time here in houston. i don't care if you look at numbers or his 0-7 playoffs record, it's not like he's performing like AROD or guys who disappear in the playoffs. he does show up. there's a reason basketball talking heads and former players never call him out about his 0-7 record like they did with kevin garnett even. people have called him out for his inconsistency during the reg. season numerous times nationally, but i have NEVER heard ONE SINGLE INDIVIDUAL called tracy out during the playoffs. b/c HE SHOWS UP. do we all expect him to elevate his game EVEN MORE? sure, b/c we have high expectations. these are his HOUSTON's playoffs stats: 27.7ppg, 7.1rpg, 7.0apg, 43%fg, goes to the line 8.1 times per game (for those who says all who does is jack up jumpers), 23 shots per game (VERY typical of elite scoring wings), 1.3 steals, 1 block on 41 minutes per game if someone were to say to daryl morey, hey daryl, i'll trade u this guy who puts up these stats in the playoffs. u wanna trade for him? daryl would bow down in a second for that guy.
Tracy is completely nonexistent to me now. I didn't even watch the video. He was my favorite player in the league since his 3rd year in Toronto but it has gotten old defending him when he puts his foot in his mouth every time he opens the latter. That and the fact that I think he is probably done as a player makes me completely apathetic to his existence. What gets me going though is when the likes of Dakota try to rewrite history by shouting over everyone. I don't see how difficult it is to recognize that he isn't very good anymore but carried the team basically by himself in the years prior to last. Let's not even forget the fact that Dakota didn't become an efficiency ranger or conjure this notion of "conduciveness to winning" prior to last year. I would do a search for his old posts on McGrady but my firefox is pretty buggy and I don't want to run the risk of it crashing upon the return of the expected 35,000 hits. lol. big surprise - more unsubstantiated empty rhetoric from dakota. you make the claim that his style wasn't conducive to winning by juxtaposing him against lebron and this is your response upon its subsequent destruction? please pray tell oh wise dakota what this "understand[ing] how to make the team better" entails, lol. Never mind the fact that you completely ignored my arguments. Please enlighten me as to how T-Mac hasn't learned how to share the ball. I mean I totally agree, he should have found a way to find more open shooters in Game 5 in Utah '07 when only 4 f****** players managed to make a basket for the entire team. Your abstract blanket statements always crack me up. This is reminiscent of one of my favorites, your classic "it is about understanding working with people and team building, i manage people, DD". Please bring substance for once. LOL, yes. It suddenly all came together and serendipitously clicked for Kobe the same year they traded for Pau Gasol and Bynum and Ariza came into their own. Imagine what he could have done if he had just trusted Kwame Brown! Please don't insult my intelligence. And how do you propose that complete androids like Luther Head and Rafer Alston would have scored were Tracy off the ball? I suppose this would have been conducive to winning, lol. Please enlighten me as to how you somehow concluded that I was implying he could do it by himself. When did I not assign any blame to him? It's a team effort - every guy on the team is to blame. Herein lies the critical distinction between you and the rest of society. You see and you instantly react. You think in absolutes. The mere fact that Tracy hasn't won is sufficient to you in proving an authoritative blanket claim as to the casaulity of his effect on the team. A level headed individual can recognize that while Tracy isn't perfect - he could have played better in 4th quarters - that certainly doesn't mean he is somehow the root cause of the team's futility in the playoffs or that he somehow wasn't conducive to winning/doesn't understand winning or whatever that empty BS you spewed earlier was. Sigh. I feel dumber every time I read your posts. You once again continue to ignore the point that the roster was far superior last year than in years past, clinging to this "HOW HAS THEY WON LAST YR W.OUT HIM WEN DINT WITH HIM HE SUX!!!, DD" It's interesting observing you from a psychological perspective. And by interesting I mean frustrating. I do think I'm starting to understand your mind better though as I have been noticing certain patterns. This is one of the underlying flaws in your entire paradigm. You ascribe to this strange Utopistic idealism in which unathletic, unskilled players can thrive in the NBA merely by sharing the ball and adhering to the system. This was the basis of your argument with me a few months back when you asserted that a Yao-centric team could win a title and I claimed the contrary. (It would be embarrassing for you for me to also point out that just months later you did another 180 and soured on Yao advocating his trade. Oh, and before you cite "changing circumstances SHEESH DANGIT, DD", this was PRIOR to the announcement of Yao's injury - so about the same time of Carter-gate [but we won't get into that]..." Interestingly, this theory also seems to reaffirm the fact that the fetishistic frenzies you work yourself up into over certain players are usually directed toward scrubs like JJ Reddick who thrive in the college game but can't cut it in the NBA. I won't take credit for the latter observation though as it was astutely pointed out by someone else here. I have news for you: the NBA doesn't work like that. Talent wins. Chemistry and teamwork are necessary components to winning, but contrary to your implicit supposition, they aren't sufficient to winning. Those Kings were literally stacked. Doug Christie could shoot and handle the ball better than any non-McGrady perimeter player we've had here. Bibby, Webber, Peja, and Divac were all all-stars. We saw last year what Hedo was capable of and what his skillset entailed at that age. The Kings ran a system but they had one hell of a unit running that system. Up until last year, the Houston Rockets didn't have much talent. That is fairly axiomatic among level headed observers. (Sorry to keep including you in the "other.") Oh. Oh, okay! Now I get it! Cab.
I remember him switching off on those guys, but I don't recall him doing anything special defensively.
watch it closer. JVG and adelman switched tracy onto those guys numerous times instead of shane. tracy always started out guarding brewer or some scrub, but eventually had to switch.
I gotcha I know he had important assignments, but his defense in both jazz series fell way short of his 05' playoff defense.
he can post 30 going like 9-20, look kobe struggles to post 30 and he had a career reputation of being a work-out warrior/weight room veteran.
our defense v. the jazz were both top notch. the reason it doesn't look as nice b/c ak/harpring aren't dirk. tracy basically played D on every perimeter player BUT deron williams v. the jazz. hell, he switched onto boozer several times and shut him down too, swatted one back in his face. defense isn't a problem with mcgrady in the playoffs.
Oh no you are definitely on point with that. This T-Mac Comeback announcement is easily the biggest news of the offseason which is sad compared to how much buzz most of the other good teams are stirring. But after reading through most of this thread and many others, with you seemingly being more on the supportive side of Tracy while others being on the more negative side, you have to agree that you've seen the majority of these arguments brought up before. And you also know they have been endlessly debated at least a million times over with hardly any convincing done on either side, so it's safe to say McGrady has a lot of proving to do, whether it's proving the doubters or supporters wrong. But fans will be fans, a lot of us jump on or off the bandwagon at the first sign of success or adversity, then point fingers thereafter lol. I for one am pulling for him in hopes that he can at least contribute to a decent season for us and reconcile his name. Though he has questionable behavior, I don't think he's the careless, heartless, and selfish brat that people always label him to be. Eh well, I'm a glass-half-full person and am a fan happy endings, so again, guess we'll see what happens eh?
Kobe can post 30 any night he wants. Hell he averaged like 27 ppg. If there's anybody in theleague that doesn't struggle to get 30, it's Kobe.
I guess this is fair...sometimes it's just hard to remember. I'm still scarred with the recent flashbacks of him watching Jamario fly past him for open tomahawk slams.
again, like i said, people use last year to diss his entire time here in houston. last year is last year. tracy SUCKED IN EVERY ASPECT LAST YEAR.
<br> This thread is no different than every McGrady thread of the past I'd say 7 months. These points have been beaten to a pulp. No side is convincing the other of anything. What Tracy does this year will ultimately swing the opinion (at least for a few years) either way. McGrady is really something else. I don't think we have ever debated upon someone quite as much on the same topic.
it's amazing, really. just goes to show the collective dependence on short term memory. why even bother?
Not going to read through all these posts BUT, I would like it if he stayed out until he gets all healed up. None of this "oh I can play today but not the next" BS. Take the whole year off Tmac, the season is a wash anyway!
