Tell me your stories when McGrady first came to Houston...

Really?

 

Honestly, I wasn't too sad to see Stevie get traded away. I felt that we couldn't go deep in the playoffs with him. I remember hoping we could've kept Mobley over Juwan Howard. I actually felt Mobley contributed more to the team's success than Stevie.

The trade for T-mac was the biggest thing to happen to the Rockets I thought. Tracy was coming off like a 17 win season with the Magic, but still was considered to be on the same level as Kobe Bryant. My expectations were champions that year.

 

I have two close friends that are Magic fans. They were all pissed about the trade while I was exhilarated.

13 points in 33 seconds was my best Rockets memory (only been a fan since like 2000). Come to think of it, I haven't watched that video in a while.

 

I agree with thacabbage that Game 2 of the very first Dallas playoff series was the pinnacle. I remember thinking that not only were we actually going to win the series, but that this was only the first year with the Yao/T-mac experiment... meaning that it could only get better from here on out as Yao improved and we added more pieces through draft/free agency.

It's sad to see the way this scenario played out. It's definitely not all T-mac's fault. Yao got injured at very inopportune times as well, and we didn't really have a solid core of other younger players to build around until last year (Scola, Landry, AB, possibly Wafer).

If you go back in time, you definitely do this trade 10 out of 10 times. The first year that T-mac was a Rocket, he was a legitimate top 5 player in the league.

 

I went to the welcome press conference and bought expensive-ass tix several times to see the Rockets play back then. Considering the amount of time and money I have devoted to the Rockets, I feel I have the standing to like or dislike T-Mac's game and be considered a "true fan" regardless. There is no doubt he has faded badly since 04-05.