I just read this on ESPN and i wanted to post it on here if it hasnt been posted before... "I love my Big Fella. I'll take him any day of the week. This [expletive] can play. You guys can say whatever you want about him, but this [expletive] can play. "He is not Shaq. Everyone needs to get that out their mind. He can do so many things you guys don't even understand. I'll take him on my team any time." Houston's Tracy McGrady, upon seeing an ESPN face, launching into a passionate (and unsolicited) defense of teammate Yao Ming in response to the criticism Yao has received for Houston's 0-8 record with T-Mac out of the lineup. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailydime?page=dailydime-051203-04 there is also a section regarding the rockets ability to ask for an injury exception for Bob Sura and being able to offer Spree 1.8 mill
That's good, I like to see TMac stand up for his teammates. after all, yao just bought him an ipod.......
You can sense the frustration on the whole team and this comment is kind of venting it. I agree with him. Yao does his part. It was the rest of the team's inability to knock down shots that killed our fourth quarters. More power to T-mac to speak out like that. ps: I'm not a big fan of Sprewell but he's not looking all that bad anymore.
You guys have to go to more games and not just watch them on TV to clearly see how good McGrady and Yao's relationship is. When the camera is not on them (away from the ball that is, so it's not being shown on TV) him and McGrady are talking and communicating. In the Hawks game, McGrady was patting Yao on his back while all the rest of the players from both teams were on the other side of the court. Him and Yao are tight and are on the same page, and I don't think either of them will ever get tired of one another any time soon. This ain't Shaq-Kobe II, these guys genuinly like one another and are selfless on the basketball court in so many ways because they have a shared commitment to winning, whatever it takes. Now, the challenge is to find role players that think the way they do and are as passionate about it. We'll be alright as long as our two guys are here, and as long as McGrady continues to show that type of leadership (When a reporter questions his coach's tactics in calling out the team, T-Mac backs up his coach and makes sure to shut that non-sense out for good, expressing full commitment to the coach's philosophy, that's leadership; when people get on his sidekick's case, he fires back, this is the Tracy the whole city has been waiting for).
BTW, does this mean that McGrady was just walking by unbothered until he recognized someone who was working for ESPN and sought that person out to unleash these comments on him? Wow! I didn't realize that the first time I read it. Wonder who McGrady was specifically responding to, but a good guess would be Steven A. Smith and his harsh criticism of Yao as if he was another Slava or whatever that Spurs' center name is. T-Mac must've been pissed off enough at the criticism Yao's been getting for him to do that. BTW, the (expletive) was probably the "n" word, in an affectionate manner of course.
I think it was Stein himself. He was the one who was at the game against the Hawks. Stein probably wanted to get some juicy material out of T-Mac by putting Yao down and Tracy told him to fu*k off
Good for Tracy! Nothing wrong with Yao- if some of the other fellas would put up even 10-14 points and 5-8 rebounds per game consistently, we wouldn't have some of the problems we do. I would have said the same thing. T-Mac is the (expletive) (expletive)!!!!
