There is no requirement for anybody to have to support every single Rocket. That's like requiring a Knicks fan to support Marbury or Isiah. If a player's hurting the team then you're allowed to have an opinion about that player and make it public. We're fans, not cheerleaders or employees of the Rockets. What's especially irritating to me is the blind hero worship a lot of T-Mac's fans seem to have for the guy.
age doesn't define real rocket fans. passion does. you root for the 12th player on the bench the same way you would criticize the 12th player on the bench. and you cheer for the team even if your favorite player leaves the team. that's why i'll praise hayes when he plays lock down D or criticizes him when he misses point blank layups. if the team trades tracy right now, i'd be sad to be honest. i love his game and appreciates what he has done (through his injuries). but if the team feels it has a better chance to win without tracy and is ready to move on, i'll do the same. does that make me a tmac fan to some? i don't really care.
blind worship? he's been our best player for the past 4 years and is the only consistent guy to step up in the playoffs? that's where my respect is for him. and what he did last yr after yao went down and in the playoffs with 2 injuries that required surgery, that increased it. if stephon marbury did carry the knicks for a few years and played through some tough injuries, i'm sure the knicks and their fans wouldnt be on him like they are right now. unfortunately, he hasn't done jack as a knick.
Name calling for a public figure is a lot different than name calling as applied to members of this forum. T-Mac's a public figure. He's going to be the target of satire and criticism. The problem comes when his fan club takes those attacks personally.
And he's a head case this year, taking himself out of the lineup with phantom injuries and pulling stunts like telling the Rockets that he was only going to play one game out of every back to back. Even if he kicked ass the last few years (which I dispute) that doesn't earn him a pass for his current crappy behavior.
The team doctor said there was no damage. His recommendation was that T-Mac play himself back into shape. When T-Mac didn't like that answer he went to see a nationally recognized expert, who game him the exact same diagnosis. No damage, play yourself back into shape.
I feel you. I understand that there a different types of fans. Not everybody thinks the same way. But I don't feel its necessarily the arguing that brings the board down. Its a message board, folks will always argue, but its what the fans argue about. Most of these threads turn into a fan vs fan thing. "You think T-Mac can still play, you're an idiot." "You like Hayes? What a slurper." "I joined in 1988, I'm better than you." I'm sure you get the point. It's gotten so bad to a point that people don't even remember the topic at hand and turn it into a "Who's got the bigger e-penis?" contest.
Well no wonder I always win. Just kidding. I hear ya.....all we need is a nice long winning streak and it will all quiet down.....it's time. DD
Maybe, but there's a real issue here with some of the posters on this board and their actual knowledge of the game. I also think there's an age gap between the two sides of the T-Mac debate. It's just subjective but my guess is that a lot of the old guys do not like T-Mac.
how is name calling any different regardless? it's an act of immaturity. if you call tracy lazy, scrubbish... this year, i have no problems with that b/c for the most part it's true. those are valid criticisms. calling names is legitimized depending on the individual? please. so you were fine with that guy who threw his shoes at president bush right? i don't like him, but i still find it as a sense of disrespect and extreme stupidity/immaturity by that guy. but yea, bush is a public figure.
As with any player of any of my favorite teams, I love the guy when he's on, and I criticize when he isn't. That's just the nature of sports. Problem is, I've been criticizing Mac more than I've been cheering him. That's his fault. I'm baffled he couldn't rehab the knee in the off-season. That's on him. I applaud that he tried to play his way into shape and endured the pain. Problem is, there wouldn't have been as much pain if he would have rehabbed in the off-season. I'm glad he's trying to get it together now for the stretch run. Problem is, he should have done it in the off season. The days of "rest now while its early" are over with. If he doesn't come back and play the way we all now he is capable of, then he needs to sit. He is enough of a black-hole on offense when he's healthy.....and that's OK when he is on. But when he's a black-hole and not healthy enough to get to the rack, what good is he? He can't shoot. He's a good passer, but what good is that when everyone is standing around waiting for him to be T-Mac? To sum up: Come back healthy and effective, and none of this BS matters. Come back healthy for 2 weeks and go back in the tank......shut him down and make due with what we have. They did well last year without Yao, I'm sure they can find a way to do well without Mac (but...hopefully it doesn't come to that).
There's a big difference between physically assaulting a guy and people calling Bush a war criminal, an idiot, a monkey, whatever. As a matter of fact Bush is the perfect example, as is any politician.
and yea, go have a discussion with those guys. see where your respect stands after their name calling barrage occurs why do you think this board got all riled up when that thunder announcer said the "big chineseman" in regards to yao? that's a racial slur and that kinda showed his immaturity a little bit. but whatever, if you can't see name calling is immature, then that's you.
That's pure nonsense. You've been saying this in your posts repeatedly for a while now, and it's BS. Part of the childishness that this board has degenerated into is highlighted by posters like you denigrating the intelligence of others because they happen to disagree with your all-out hatred for McGrady. There are plenty of us who agree that McGrady deserved a fair amount of criticism for his failures to perform this season, but also recognize the bandwagon effect that is often so prevalent on this BBS and all the groupthink and risky shift that typically goes along with it. I don't have a problem with people who fairly vent their issues with McGrady and don't believe what he says. I may disagree with them from time to time, but I can certainly respect their rationale. What irks me is idiotic threads like this one that could have been perfectly reasonable if the OP hadn't filled his post with childish insults and name-calling. If you want to challenge my knowledge of the game basketball, you're welcome to -- I think you will find much futility in that exercise. Not everyone who disagrees with you is a "rabid McGrady nut slurper who knows nothing about basketball." You need to get over yourself. Only fools think their opinions are always infallible.
uhh what? That has to be the worst analogy ever used in the history of worst analogies ever used. The fact that you compared basketball to cheating on a wife scares me. I never said you had to support every single Rocket. Just mentioned why are we bad guys for still supporting T-Mac. I think he means using name calling in general makes you look weak.
Yes, name calling is immature. But that comes with the territory. So does satire. I remember somebody posting up some humorous articles about McGrady a while back which I thought were pretty hilarious. And the real issue is that T-Mac might conceivably take it personally if you insulted him to his face, but why would anybody else care? I don't know why his fan club has to get all huffy. As for the big Chinaman comment, the only incident I can remember is the one with Steve Kerr and that was just an accident on his part. In his defense it is confusing--nobody objects to "Englishman" or "Frenchman". Incidentally, I have some Asian friends who live in Hawaii and I was amused to hear them refer to someplace called "Chinaman's Hat" all the time.
There's no problem with supporting T-Mac. My problem is with that contingent of his fan club who take every criticism of the guy as a personal attack and respond accordingly. I'm not a big fan of name calling, but my point is this: if somebody calls T-Mac a name that is no justification for calling him a name.
