I think if Tracy keeps working hard, he can return to his regular form, and once again be the most versatile player in the league. He has to believe in himself, and we have to believe in him, and support him. If he's reading this, I'd like him to know that I believe in him and that if he works hard he'll be the "T-Mac" that dominated the league day-to-day. I still believe he's one of the best, but he's just not in shape, so if he works back to game shape, I'm confident he'll be in the MVP race.
he does believe in himself. he just doesn't believe in his health. BIG DIFFERENCE. the moment he thinks he's healthy, he puts up a near triple double. just hope he doesn't get another injury that makes him question his body/health and we'll be fine. i really do hope he just averages 30-32 mins the rest of the way.
He played great, but it was against Golden State, and Marco Bellineli was able to stay in front of him far too easily. I will wait until I see him elevate on a backdoor cut for a slam to think he is back, but he can help the team immensley while he gets in shape mentally and physically, which was my entire point all along. DD
he tried to cut twice for a backdoor alley-oop in the 4th but rafer didn't pull the trigger. he's still obviously not there (quickness/explosiveness), but you can see his game is obviously still among the very best despite lacking those. like tracy said when he shut it down, those things will come back.
I remember JVG talking about T-Mac thinking his career was over when he was young (I believe when he was in Toronto) because T-Mac thought he couldn't make it in the league. In my opinion he has always had confidence issues. God gave T-Macs gifts that very few if any basketball players have ever been given. He is insanely talented, but not a very confident athlete. I watched the leadership in Kevin Garnett the other night when he pulled Big Baby Davis back into the second unit huddle. Garnett plays by example and never ever takes plays or games off. Its not about stats and its not about being on the most talented team, but its about playing hard and playing to win. If T-Mac can put forth the effort every night like he did last night and if Yao, Artest, Battier, Alston, Scola, Landry, Brooks and the potential back up center that they will eventually add to the team can stay healthy come playoff time, I like their chances against anybody. The biggest key is T-Mac.
Tmac's health is a big key to this team, but his leadership isnt a huge issue. We have Artest, Yao, and Adelman who are all pretty good leaders. Tracy just needs to be Tracy. His passing really makes our offense so much better and we need him to take over games when everyone else is struggling.
You need leadership to advance the playoffs. We need Tracy to play hard all the time and that is leading by example. Tracy is the key.
It really isn't. T-Mac's going to be T-Mac going forward, and into the playoffs. It just depends on if the other guys step up. If they do, we'll get past the first round. When his team steps up, he is more than happy to share the ball and we can get it rolling as a team and win the game. When they don't, he has to become a scorer again, but we will usually lose those games.
I was talking about the leadership part. T-Mac is the key no matter what you may think. He is the best player on the rockets team and he can lead by example in bringing effort and intensity (last night was a great example). The rockets don't need his scoring because that is a natural with T-Mac on the floor, they need his intensity ie.(aggresiveness) more than anything else.
Yeh we do need him to play with confidence and to attack. But to me, that's not what leadership is. Leadership would be something like Artest calling a team meeting, or Yao coming over to Ron after a loss and saying lets start thinking about the next game. We dont need tracy to be that kind of guy. He's laid back and soft spoken at times, but I think he talks to the younger guys when he has to. Bottom line is I think we can win with Tracy Mcgrady.
To me leadership especially for a soft spoken guys like Hakeem or T-mac is to lead by example ie.(on the basketball court). Hakeem was not a vocal leader, but he lead by example. Tracy is the rockets best player and he happens to be a soft spoken guy which there is nothing wrong with that. In my view his only way to lead the team as there best player is to lead by example just like he accomplished last night against Golden State with his aggressiveness and intesity.
well i think that when you look at mcgradys playoff career, he has certaintly led by example. I mean i guess its questionable that he can take this team to the next level, but i'm certainly not going to doubt it.
But is his playoff career based on his individual stats or wins in his seven chances he's had to get past the 1st round. Is that based on trying to get the best record in the regular season so his team can play a weak opponent in the 1st round by achieving a good playoff seeding. If Tracy does what he has always done, he will get what he has always gotten. I am one of the biggest T-Mac fans around and I want him to achieve playoff success so he can finally get the credit that he so justly deserves. He has a huge monkey on his back with all his teams losing in the 1st round of the playoffs and him being the best player on most of or all of those teams. I would think that Tracy has gotten sick of the taste of failure in the playoffs and I think at 29yrs of age or at some point he will do whatever it takes to not have to taste that failure again ie.(hate to lose). Last night Tracy was the leader of the team.
I totally understand. He most definantly has a monkey on his back, and I guess I'm just going on faith that he will get it done this year. Only time will tell.
T-mac is a Good Player. . maybe even Great but He is the engine . . He is not the Driver He will make great stats . . he will do alot but IMO whether we go further is 'not on him' we need someone to get us over the hump T-Mac is like Doug Collins with the Bulls He will get ya to brink . . .but lacks that extra UHMF to get you over Artest was brought in to be that UHMF Yao needs to bring some UHMF Rocket River
