NBA players respect his talent. Not him as a person. Player with talent and bad attitude is fine. When you're at the top, you can do anything you want. Player without talent and bad attitude is not fine. No one puts up with your s--t when you have no game.
That's great, it reminds me of a King of the Hill where Hank said he'd "tie the long hair on your head to the short hairs on your #$* and kick you down the road or hill." Different set of short hairs but still funny.
I must say even though I'm a tmac fan you got a point, you have to have results first you can become a diva on court. However, is there anybody else besides Tmac who has been documented of having a diva personality? Not punk/thug/douche mentality like Kobe or KG, I mean guys who always seem to have a sense of entitlement about them that turns teammates off (like what happened with Battier or Yao). I'm racking my brain and apart from the iso-guard trifecta of Starbury, AI and Francis I can't think of anyone else.
Yep. That one was definitely Carter, satirizing his "half man, half amazing" nickname. Not to derail the thread but looking back, IMHO purely from an entertainment/wow factor Carter probably has to be one of the best in league history, even over MJ. That dunk in the Olympics was insane
makes me wonder what kind of mind tricks JVG used to get tmac to work hard, either that or JVG just said BS when talking about tmac while he was coach.
It wasn't anything that JVG did but rather McGrady wasn't totally derailed by injuries and still had elite skills his first year with the Rockets.
Indeed. T-Mac never worked harder during his peak years. It's just that he was so athletic it didn't matter. And I'm pretty sure JVG slacked off on T-Mac's defense because Tracy was carrying such a heavy load on offense. probably a lot of players, I'd imagine. It's just that we don't really hear about them. I'd imagine there'd be a lot of stuff we'd never hear about T-Mac if were weren't on Clutchfans all the time.
as opposed to his last year in orlando where he "shut it down" because the magic sucked? Sorry that explanation doesn't fly with me.
JVG had great player motivation skills (V-Span being the exception). I remember him saying that he used positive affirmation on Tmac since he works harder when praised (like a puppy!), but used constructive criticism on Yao Ming since he tries harder when criticised (like a masochist!). Plus, JVG was one of the hardest workers in the NBA (even harder than Yao), so I guess his example rubbed off not just on Tmac but on the entire team. Also, having tough as nails guys like Bobby Sura didn't hurt, I remember Tmac going to war (and winning!) with a bad back and Sura with fractured fingers. Too bad Tmac's toughness lasted as long as Sura's career
Yeah, that was what Charles Barkley called Vince Carter. He didn't the other half went to Tmac though.
The Horace Grant story, for any that forgot or hadn't heard: SI runs a tidbit (print magazine) in 2001, citing an anonymous Magic teammate, that called out McGrady's defense as lazy. McGrady flips out on a team flight, demanding to know the source. He and Horace Grant have to be restrained when it comes out that Grant was the source. Horace Grant, still a semi-decent rotation player, is waived the next day. Good times.
Clutch has said under JVG, McGrady was allowed to spend half of practices, watching from the sidelines in a director's chair.
Did they win the game?? If you remember... Not saying I agree with McGrady but it was wrong for Grant to do that. I mean why disrespect a teammate. Especially a teammate who is carrying a not so good team. Horace Grant didn't play defense but so good himself while in orlando. His career was coming to an end btw. He deserved to get cut. Not a team guy if you have to speak about a star player and the guy talkin is a bum.
In my almost 30 years of being a Rox fan, I can never remember being so happy to rid our team of a player. I'm sick to death of reading about him, he made me want to puke with his antics the last two years, and now reading more about his laziness while being the highest paid NBA player...Just disgust. Go the **** away already.
to be fair, Horace Grant was a respected veteran, having won 4 NBA championships, and was a major contributor to the first Bulls 3 peat, (though It does not give him the authority to call out a teammate, a veteran of his status should not endure such a fate)
