T-Mac out 3 weeks (UPDATE: Audio from Rick Adelman)

I really don't understand. I've been sitting here reading everyone's posts, trying to understand why people are so upset with him. He had surgery and came back early because of the schedule and the Rockets being shorthanded. He's been playing the wort basketball of his career and it is clearly because of his knee. He knows the we have a long road ahead and the Rockets playoff chances are dependent on his health. He decides to stop playing and dedicate himself to rehab during a particularly lax part of the schedule and with the return of Battier. As a result, some posters call him soft, call him a liar, question his manhood, etc. I understand that we all love the Rockets, but the personal attacks are a bit much. I don't know him personally, and truthfully have no reason not to take his word. He feels like he needs to rehab more, so I think he needs to rehab more. If he was just quitting, I think that would have come out by now. I dunno where people come off with the personal attacks. 99% of you don't know him or how he is feeling. Over the past four seasons, he has been a model citizen, superstar player, great teammate, and he led us on a 22 game winning streak last season after Yao went down. In the playoffs, without Yao and Rafer really, he really put the Rockets on his back. All he is trying to do is get better. As much as I like him and like the Rockets, sometimes I wish he would go to a team who's fans didn't keep a bullseye on him. Maybe that team doesn't exist. But damn, I have no reason not to think Tracy is a great teammate and is simply doing what he can to ensure the team's success. I hope his rehab goes well and I look forward to the rest of the season.

 

I agree completely. I'm not sure why everyone is in panic mode right now and thinking like the season's over. C'mon guys. the season is less than 20 games young. As we have proven year in and year out, 50+ wins in the season doesn't get us out of the first round. I'd rather have TMac sit out and get his knee as close to 100% as possible before hitting the court and be ready come playoffs time. I'd rather have a healthy TMac who ALWAYS stepped it up in the playoffs with a healthy Yao and Artest than a TMac who's winded and pretty much hurting and broken down in the playoffs.

 

best post in this entire hate thread. people complain of his play; not attacking enough, being a ball stopper, etc. people ask him not to play if he's not gonna be aggressive enough. now he decides to shut himself down for 3 weeks because he knows he's affecting the team with his limited play, and still people criticize him for it. you people got what you asked for: for tracy not to play because even the 2nd unit looks better without him. now you get your wish, and you still blame tmac? you guys are just plain haters.

 

were gonna hold our own w/out tmac

 

What kind of Rockets fans or on this site? You guys should crawl back to the shanties you came from

 

we'll see if t-mac doesn't do good this season, his contract is up next season, so get rid of him, ron artest contract is up this offseason so same for him, and just build around yao ming or just go into a rebuilding stage and 2010.

 

Wow thats all I can say Wow. From the posts Ive seen, the majority of you imbeciles probably don't even watch the freakin games. Do you guys actually think the Rockets can go anywhere without Tmac? Who on the Rockets gets the others involved, draw doubles, and mainly open up Yao's game? Has Yao actually had a good game with Tracy? If Tracy supposedly was out for the season could Yao and Artest lead us to the playoffs? Some of you guys need your brain checked because last I heard Tmac is the engine of this team. Without him we are lottery bound. Its only 3 ****ing weeks against ****ty ass teams. If we can't beat some of these teams with our current roster without Tmac, blame the players for not living up their expectations. This team is a title contender. If a player needs time to sit out they should step up and respond. To me it only seems as Tracy is the one who steps up when March looms around with an unexpected season ending injury from our big man. The first thing some of you so called fans need is xrays for your brain to see if you are suffering from acute paranoia. Lets say Yao is out for 3 weeks. Will this board come up with inappropriate names to call him? Are most of the users on this site in the ****ing 3rd grade? Coming up with absurd and vulgar names to our star player. We fans need to support our team and players not subject them to stupidity. You guys all hide behind your monitors posting garbage about how "this guy sucks or he should be traded or were done" Grow up because honestly some of you fans need a good beating because you don't deserve to be Rockets fans. I swear if we win a championship and all is well on this forum I will ****ing explode. Have some of you guys ever heard of a thing called patience? God damn it seems there are only a few on this site that are actually sane. Take your frustrations somewhere else. Because the Rockets and McGrady could care less what you think, because they know once they start winning you will all come back running like the insensitive ****s that you are.

 

Why let what other fans think about our players bug you? Why do you care?

Each fan views the games and the players differently. Clearly you believe Tmac is hurt, others don't.

Big deal.

This is a fan's message board do you expect everyone to bend over and have flowers growing out of their arse? Come on...being a fan means...being a fanatic, but it doesn't mean you believe everything players say, or do.

DD

 

Let's see what T-mac say about himself
Tracy McGrady and Shane Battier injury update (12/2)
Dec 2, 2008
Tracy McGrady announced today that he will be out for the next three weeks due to continuing soreness in his surgically-repaired left knee. Here's what Tracy had to say about the decision:

"They told me to take two weeks to rehab. Obviously, I came back a little bit too early. It's still healing. I'm just not ready. They examined me for a couple hours yesterday and they still see that my knee is still healing up. [The recovery time] is supposed to be 6-8 months and I'm just now reaching 6 months, so I need to take a couple weeks to just rehab it.

"It is what it is. It's my fault, really. I should have sat out. I came back extremely too early. But just looking at our schedule before the season, and realizing we had to get off to a great start, so I wanted to do whatever I could to get us off to a good start. It's tough, but for the betterment of myself and this team, I've got to get right.

"I'm definitely not going to get discouraged about it. I trained my [butt] off during the summer time. I'm fortunate enough that I will be able to overcome this. I don't have to worry about losing any of my quickness or explosiveness, I just need to build everything back up - which will happen. I'll for sure be able to be ready to go by the end of this month.

"I actually felt good leaving the doctor's office yesterday. Dr. Andrews is a phenomenal doctor. I felt real relieved about what was said. Now I've got some sort of peace of mind; I don't have to worry about whether it's going to take the whole season to get healthy. I don't have to go under the knife again."

As for Shane Battier, he'll be back on the floor for Wednesday's game against the Clippers, after missing Sunday night's contest in Denver.

"I’m good," said Battier. "The Denver game was a circumstantial missed game because of the flight and the back-to-back. But I don’t anticipate any more missed games.

"It was a two-and-a-half hour flight to Denver, and if I would have hopped on that plane my foot would have looked like a Thanksgiving pumpkin, and that wouldn’t have been good; that would have made me miss more games this week. So we took extra precautions and I stayed home, iced it and it felt good today in practice."

 

the confidence he said with those statements (including how he said it in hilltopper's vid) is the reason i'm going to continue to be patient with him.

whenever tracy is comfortable with his body and health, he's usually back to a dominant player.

 

I agree with this....he needs to BELIEVE it himself....and the team needs him to believe it as well.

DD

 

There you have it. He came back to early, which is stopped his knee from recovering properly. So he needs time off for it to catch up.
It was a good idea to go outside the club and see another doctor.

 

It seems the chron staff are TMac haters too.

 

How much he earns one year? He has been off too long!
What's kobe doing now?or garnett? whose team wins?
Champion!!!!!

 

That T-Mac Injury Ticker is absolutely uneccesary. Poor decision by The Houston Chronicle to do that. I understand people are upset, but I wanted T-Mac to take as much time as he needed to get back to playing at 100% health. It was very painful at times to watch him play this season so far. He should take all the time he needs to heal. I'd much rather have the Rockets deal with injuries in Nov and Dec than in April and May.

 

Eh......he DOES tend to over exaggerate things a little, although that does not mean I think he's a prima donna or anything. It does make me laugh that people live and die by his every word and they will either criticize him to no end for simply speaking the truth (like when he said he would still only be 80% the first month or so) or just ignore it.

I just tend to ignore what he says so I won't have any inflated expectations. It was evident from the very first game that he was not even 50% despite some of the optimistic words said by him about his knee and felt he could have benefited the team more by letting his knee heal before participating in actual games. Who knows, maybe the team would've fared better by using that early time to figure out the kinks rather than having him leave after 20 or so games and at a slump period for the team.

WE NEED YAO TO REESTABLISH HIMSELF AS THE UNDISPUTED #1 OPTION. I've come to realize that Artest is nowhere near the offensive playmaker I though he would be but he ticks me off sometimes by imitating Tmac way too much. Atleast we get Shane back-hopefully.

 

Looks like he is determinated and he BELIVES he will come back strong. I mean look, I am sure he understands this season is something special. They didn't bring Artest here to just win another 55 games in the regular season. They are expecting something special and I think so is Tracy. He knows they are not gonna win ANYTHING with him limping and not being able to be agressive so it is a good decision. March, April, May - those months matter the most.

 

McGrady needs to man up

he needs to first be accountable for what he's doing. i hope his knee recovers and he comes back 110% but highly unlikely.

in order for this team to be a championship caliber team, IMO I think that McGrady needs to be the one to step up. he needs to be the go-to-guy we have on our squad. i understand that getting yao touches is great but he can't dominate consistently, and we need that. we have all the talent, we are 8 deep. we can play all 8 of these guys equal minutes and win ball games.

maybe it's better that this is the beginning and not may, we don't need him as much as we would in a playoff series. i don't care who we play, as long as we play as well as we can. specially on the offensive side of the court.

we can't blame everything on Alston.

 

Blinebury is, for sure. Feigen doesn't reveal it that clearly, but him pointing out T-Mac's salary at the end of the article, while factual, is a clear indication of his opinion on the matter to me, if you read it in its context. And Feigen is certainly not one to bash the Rockets. That, to me, is more telling of what's really going on than anything else.

 

You have to be one of those tin foil hat guys to think that the Chron writers have it in for T-Mac for no reason.