[Tracy McGrady] No matter how hard you try and how great you are, you need pieces to elevate you.

LEAVE TMAC ALONE!!!


The TMac Crew

Rocket River

 

China Tmac in his prime was surrounded by multiple Hall of Famers on the Spurs. Still couldn't get it done. smh

 

I get it, I was real bitter for a number of years, but time gives perspective, and I think everyone remembers the messy divorce and not the good times...

Over a two year stretch TMac was arguably the best player in the league as a member of the Rockets. Year one he was a man possessed.

It’s a damn shame that health derailed that team period. The ‘09 Team was Championship caliber, and his legacy would have been completely different if he and Yao’s bodies didn’t betray them.

The Dallas series was an abomination and would have been a WCF birth at a minimum...if not for Stern and Cuban intervention. This is the real history not found on the yellow brick road

 

The poor man simply can't win.
The playoffs as an 18 year old Rookie! Too bad your team leader ***** the bed
MVP Caliber Season? Its wasted on a shitty magic team with an injured Grant Hill.
Up 2-0 against the #2 seed? Timmy Donaghey gets orders to rig the series in the Mavs' favor.
Game 7 against the 5 seed? Only 4 players even SCORE.
22 game win streak? LOL Season ending injury to your second best player.
The new GM finally built a deep and stacked roster? Too bad your knees won't let you play with them!
Years of injury, and you can finally win a championship and silence the "muh rings" crowd? BANG! TIE GAME WITH FIVE SECONDS REMAINING!

 

Here is another way to look at it, so many stars in Rockets history never won a ring for the team; Murphy, Malone, Francis, Yao to name a few. Why does none of them get the type of hate that T-Mac did. And it goes beyond the Rockets. When T-Mac went back to Toronto, he was booed. When T-Mac went back to Orlando, he was booed. When T-Mac came back to Houston, guess what? He was booed. When a person drives that much scorn, disdain from fans franchise after franchise, when a supposed superstar has that much failure in the playoffs franchise after franchise, it's not on his role players, it's not on the fans, it's on that player.

 

This was the first time we felt legitimate hope for a championship since Hakeem.
A fan base grew with Yao and was emboldened by TMac.
It was a slow and organic growth, it felt right.
Real history

 

The thing is, fans from each of his 3 teams were not mad at T-Mac because he didn't win a ring. Rings are hard to win. Yao never won one, everyone still respects him. Francis never won one, but we all have mostly fond memories of him. Why is T-Mac so different. Ask yourself that and think about it, like seriously. The man quit on multiple teams throughout his career. The man refused to try to be more of a leader. The man through his teammates under the bus. A lot of us hate T-Mac not because he didn't win a ring, but because of the way he carried himself and could not carry his teams.

 

the anti-McGrady crew are the main ones crying about him...sh*t, Tinman already got like 10+ posts in this thread

 

He requested a trade from a Toronto team that would go on to be lotto-bound for years? How horrible!
He requested a trade from an orlando team that wasted his prime years with non-existent talent, talent so bad that they earned the #1 pick?
And then his knees collapse as he approached 30.

More of a tragedy than an evil villain.

 

- The same Toronto team that got past the first round soon after he left with basically the same cast? The same one that finished even better in their division? That team that you call lotto-bound?
- The same Orlando team that jumped from 7th to 3rd in their division, that team? Seems like T-Mac wasted that team as opposed to the other way around.

Tragic people don't carry themselves as selfish prima donas that repeatedly give up on their teams. That's the difference between T-Mac and Yao.

 

How did Toronto do the year after that? OH THATS RIGHT they were so bad they got the #4 pick and used it on Bosh.
Orlando? Well they won a guy named Dwight Howard, but they still didn't even break .500 until 2007-2008.

 

If you're a loser it doesn't really matter how much talent you have around you. You'll always find a way to cough it up.

 

- The year after that... you mean when Vince Carter went down with a season ending injury and the team that T-Mac couldn't get out of the first round with STILL got to the playoffs? Oh wait, you actually mean the season after that where Vince got hurt again and that's how they got the 4th pick that turned out to be Bosh. So what your saying is that T-Mac could look two years into the future and determine that Vince would get hurt and the team will become lotto bound? Leave it to T-Mac fans to re-write history into fiction.

- So you are saying that Dwight Howard, a 19 year old rookie straight out of high school just like T-Mac was, a guy who all know today is dumb and lacks heart, was a better player for his team than T-Mac (the same guy that some of you just a few posts decried having a superstar like VC didn't matter because he was still 19-20 as well) ever was? By the way, the year they made it back to 50% was the year they won 52 and made it all the way to the finals with a 22 year old Dwight Howard carrying the **** out of that team.

We are talking about the same teams yes?

 

What difference does it make? Carter and Hill both went down with season ending injuries anyway. Hill played a grand total of TWENTY SIX games in the year where they took the #1 seed pistons to 7 games. Guess what? Twenty Six games would be his high for a year when TMac was on the Magic. I can't blame him for wanting out, when the Magic surrounded him with AMAZING (former) ALL STARS like (37 year old) Horace Grant! and (Fat & Old) Shawn Kemp! How could you forget his amazing backcourt partner, Darrel Armstrong! Setting offensive records with his 41% FG% and 33% 3PT%, and his partner in crime, Jacque Vaughn! Most may think that his 6 PPG on 45% EFG% wouldn't be enough to be in the rotation, but the man started 48 games at point guard! That team had one shooter in the form of Mike Miller, the fact that McGrady got them to the 8 seed, let alone took 3 games off the #1 seed pistons, should have won him MVP.

Also, Dwight Howard did not make the finals until 2008-2009, when his Magic, famed for their scheme and surrounded by shooters, beat the defending champions without their best player, then feasted on the likes of intimidating defensive bigs like Anderson Verajao and a 34 year old Big Z! But once the Celtics got healthy again, and LeBron got a real team, the Magic's window closed as quickly as it opened.

 

Didn't Tmac have multiple 2-0 leads and proclaimed a series win after being up 3-1? The og "blowing a 3-1 lead" hehehe.

The man underachieved. Pretty simple and hard to argue against. But it also wasn't entirely his fault. Additional, he didn't leave the Rockets ceremoniously. It's not as bad as the haters say and not as good as the fans say. In the middle, per usual. I do think he was very invested in the beginning but also quit at the end. So I was very invested with him at the beginning, but quit on him at the end too. A lot of promise unfulfilled.

We have a 65 win team, move on guys.

 

Had the talent to be the GOAT.

Has the heart, brain and manhood of Theon Greyjoy.

 

It tells you the team that won it had multiple all star caliber players still in prime Yao and Ron Artest, and that they were surrounded by multiple roll players who’d go on to become all stars or starting caliber players like Scola, Landry, Brooks, Lowry, etc.

That year we were up 2-0 to Dallas, we should have won and made a run that year, but that was one of the Donaughy scandal series unfortunately. Also... our 3rd best player, David Wesley? Next time against Utah, our 6th man was Luther Head (lol) and McGrady put up video game numbers. Boozer and Okur just killed Yao. Last chance he really had was the next year when Yao was out against a Utah team that would go on to the WCF.

 

McGrady's true shooting percentage was actually lower in the playoffs. He just chucked more.

 

what not many brehs realize is that if mergady grew out his beard... the elevation of his greatness would have been off the charts.

 

Awful coaching ? You mean JVG and Rick ?
Both have been to finals when they had a real superstar with leadership abilities