Tmac's shooting percentage will probably come back up. But what concerns me is his loss of driving ablity. It seems that he's lost that quick first couple steps and explosiveness. He coudnt turn the corner to shake off his man like he used to anymore. Maybe that's the new Tmac, a better decision maker with good jump shooting percentage we have to accept. Also, not sure if JVG asked him to sacrafice part of his game for the team's good. We didnt run much one on one ISO for him to get into flow in the first 3 games.
huh wtf boby.. what in the world are you talking about.. in no way did he suggest anything about yao... you must be a YOF that gets really defensive.. i think his point was that its not a physical thign but mental because he still had the capability on perform like an all star in pre-season.. however I pointed out that it was preseason so the other team probably didnt have their best defender on him too.. anyways ur smoking too much or something . .
hopefully, maybe T-Mac can model his game after the later years of Jordan when he was on the Bulls. the ones where he was mostly a jump-shooter, but still shot close to 50% as well as playing great defense. although, it would be nice if T-Mac could still play like the younger MJ (who was 28 when he won his first title) that drove to the basket frequently. anyway, any Jordanesque seasons (hey, even the Washington seasons weren't bad) out of T-Mac would be welcome.
Hay dude I don't quite sure what are you talking about. First off, you wont embarass me a bit by labeling me as YOF or MOF or whatever the heck am I. I don't simply care. So why don't you knock it off? Secondly, if you know some basic logic 101 as everyone elso does, here it comes: 1. wnes stated that Tmac performed very good in the first two preseason games (which Yao was't present). 2. It is obvious that Tmac didn't perform well after second pre- game (which Yao returned). 3. he also stated that he doesn't believe this is something physical, but something mental. So what's your conclusion? Especially when actually Tmac just had one good game (pre- one) wnes made it into two. Does this make the suggestion easier for you to understand? Hay, I am not agree with what I think what I read. However, is there any logic explaination for his statement?
i hate to say this, tmac's problems might be related to his reduced role. he played much better without yao (2 first preseason games and some Qz in the first 3 games). i do not think tmac did this intentionly, but he's at his best when everything goes through him, he's kind of lost when our whole team focused on yao mainly. it happened at the start of 04/05 season
I dont know if I agree about your assessment of Tmac...I saw a lot of quickness from him in the half court game. His first step is still there, but guys know that his shooting is off so theyre playing off of him and not allowing him to take it to the rack. Tmac just needs his confidence back. He also needs to find his role on the team now. He missed so much time last year and its no suprise to me that he is a little off right now, but I don't think this is a permanent thing. People are just panicing.
It can affect your confidence when you don't know your role on the team yet. If you're unsure about what you're doing you're going to force shots or pass up shots that you normally take. Tmac will settle in and be fine, but it's going to take about a week or two.
I won't pass any judgement on Tmac until this whole season is over. Before that, I believe Tmac is still same old Tmac with a little rust.
Guys, Tmac played really well in the third quarter. He was clearly the best player on the floor for that period. The whole team sukked in the 4th. That's why we lost the game. We don't have good team chemistry just yet. It's tough to come from behind and win games on the road espeically againsat good defenses. Tmac is still a very good player even though he is not as athletic as he used to be.
It should be noted that TMac has never shot over 45 percent (.457 to be exact). The guy is not a terribly accurate shooter with a 44 percent career average. Go back to the 03-04 and 04-05 seasons and he shot just over 42 percent for those two seasons before dropping to 40 percent and below last year and this one. This is in a league where, even today with shooting percentages much lower than in the 80's and early 90's, you have to shoot better than 46 percent to be in the top 50. So, it isn't like McGrady is suddenly going to leap to the top of the league in FG percentage. But, his numbers this year are abyssmal as they were last year when he was hurt. And we have no reason to believe that they will remain that way given his consistency of being in the mid-40 percent range throughout his career. Slow starts are not uncommon for him AND he's coming off a LONG stretch of not playing any basketball. The combination means a BAD shooting start, but I don't believe it will continue for the whole season. That doesn't mean we won't have to endure a few weeks of it though. Other players will just have to step up until then just like Bonzi looks bad right now, so we just have to deal with it and do the best we can without him.
Cut Tmac some slacks, everyone goes thru slumps. During his slumps, he still passed the ball great. He'll be fine. If by Dec 1st, he's still shooting 30% from the field, and 60% from the line, then order me one of those panick buttons.
I think alot of T-Mac's problems right now are strictly mental. He doesn't have that athletic arrogance or swagger that he usually has, it looks to me as if he is afraid of contact right now. This sometimes happens when you have a long layoff from injury, but he is still young and when he eventually busts out for one of those 40pt games then I think he will get rolling and so will this team. I'm not worried in the least.
LOL ... boby, I can tell you for sure I didn't have Yao in mind when I replied to Jeff's post. Later when I edited my post to emphasize 2 preseason games, I didn't think one bit about Yao either. SunsRocketsfan had it right. I only intended to suggest TMac's problem seems to be mostly, if not entirely, mental rather than physical. Typically, when a pro athlete returned from long rehabilitation from injury, he would be rusty at first but getting progressively better over the time. Not so for TMac. He started off with 2 good preseason games then fell into a slump and never seemed to be able to get out of it. Again, we are engaging in TMac discussion on the basis that we believe in what he said about his health and physical condition -- his back, to be exact. Up to this point, we have not seen or heard anything in the press or hearsay that he is not 100% physically. On the contrary to his low point in the middle of last season, he exuded confidence in this team and was very upbeat aboput the upcoming season in various recent interviews. However, his stats in the 6 preseason games and the 3 latest regular season games suggests he struggles mightily to adjust to something he doesn't feel very comfortable with. If we were to draw an annotated curve on his (offensive) games over the course of last month, we would find the pattern doesn't quite fit the notion that he is merely trying to recover his own physical form. Whether we hate to admit it or not, TMac's slump nearly coincides with Yao's emergence. The one brief spike of TMac's production in the late preseason occurred, sadly, when Yao was prematurely out of the game in Orlando. It's one thing TMac has fewer points per game due to the fact he is no longer the lone 1st option on the team, it's another when his field goal and freethrow shooting percentages drop precipitously. At the same time we should also note TMac's assist and rebound numbers are still very good for a SG/SF. That shows he is by no means slacking off. It takes concerted effort by TMac himself, his coaches, and his teammate (mostly Yao and Alston), to help him fit into the system as quickly as possible, so that TMac's slump doesn't become an insurmountable mental obstacle. TMac is a talented superstar, there is no reason to believe he can't get over with this if he is physically sound.
I'm new to the board and I agree that most of T-mac's problems are mental. You could tell by watching the game against the hornets he was thinking too much about his shots. I was still impressed by his ability to get everyone else involved and he got it going in the 3rd quarter for a few minutes. Anyone who has ever played basketball can tell you that no matter how good you are, if you take time off from the game, when you come back you are gonna be rusty. So everyone just needs to relax. T-Mac will be fine.
