that is one thing I'll agree with you on...when those words come out of tmacs mouth they mean nothing, because.............well they mean nothing to him either..........
Let me try to reword what I meant. You think McGrady didn't do enough down the stretch. And we lost. So, you think he deserves the most responsibility, because he's suppose to be the leader. That's not how I look at it. I think to myself, "Ok, what should McGrady have done differently down the stretch?" Would we have been better off if he tried to "take over" and shoot every shot? Does that give us a better shot of winning? I think if you want to criticize a player's performance, that's the way you should look at it. Now, what actually happened is the Rockets weren't struggling to get baskets. Sure, there were some possessions where the didn't convert. Guess what .. if T-Mac decided to take every shot, there would be possessions where he wouldn't convert either. In terms of efficiency, we were ahead of what could be reasonably expected if T-Mac decided to play 1 on 5 (as you are advocating). As I've said a number of times, our defense in those last 5 minutes was just terrible. We gave up far too many offensive rebounds and 3-point plays. That's why we lost. If the situation was reversed, and we lost because we couldn't score ... you'd be justified in criticizing McGrady for not putting up more shots. That's just not what happened. If you just look at what happeend and think about it for a second, we lost because of our defense. Not because of McGrady's lack of aggression (which, considering how well we played offensively without it, may not have been a good thing). I agree with it. Look ... McGrady has his faults. He isn't a leader. If you want to say that he's mentally soft, I won't deny it. I just think your criticisms are going way overboard. And when Barkley and Co. say that we need to get rid of one of them to be better, I think that's just stupid. Who can we possibly get in return to replace them and get better? And this definitely isn't a case where we'd get better by addition via subtraction. Just look at our record over the last 3 1/2 years with both of them playing, and with only one of them playing. Nuff said. You know what that "it" is? Winning. That's the difference. If we won that game, we'd all be celebrating McGrady's performance. How he imposed his will to get us back into the game when we were down in the second half. And how he was smart enough to rely on his teammates to down the stretch, versus a Kobe Bryant who'd try to do everything himself and fail. That's what people would be saying. But he lost, so instead he's a dog. That's how it goes. But we know what the real difference was in winning versus losing that game. Down the stretch, it wasn't the offense, it was the defense. It's the same story with LeBron. When the Cavs lost, the media ripped him for not being aggressive and not wanting to take the last shot. When they won, his unselfishness and team play was praised. All of a sudden, he played the game the right way. Kobe too. The Lakers are winning more games now, and Kobe is getting more praise than ever for being unselfish and allowing his teammates to flourish. Right .. the difference is his teammates have improved, and they're actually playing defense this year. That's the difference between winning and losing for them. But, the impression everyone has is suddenly Kobe has gained all these intangibles and leadership that he didn't have before.
Yao won't be traded...ever. That's a fact. Tracy is soft and will be traded. If not this year, then next. The Rockets are in trouble but it goes deeper than those two. Bad personnel decisions.
t-mac won't be traded because you'll never get much in return. He's not a very coveted asset right now. Ask Orlando. Just becaue a team doesn't go far, doesn't mean you trade the stars. Just imagine if we had traded Olajuwon? Or if the pacers had traded miller before they got good? Should Miami trade Wade since the team is losing? No no no. You keep your stars. Not only do they sell tickets, and are good for business - it keeps you closer to contention. trade t-mac, and unless you are able to do it to a team that has a glut of talent but no vetern star, you will regret it. Philly trading Barkley to Phoenix? Disaster. Remember what we got for Pippen? nothing. Kelvin Cato? If T-mac gets traded, then you are basically giving up on any chance for a ring in the next 5 years. You are saying, let's start over. You might as well trade battier then, not resign wells, and move francis and james as well. All of those guys will be too old for a rebuilding process, so you might as well trade them for young guys or draft picks. And you'd have to hit the lottery for years, that means years of being celler dwellers. You get rid of Rick then as well. because no sense in having a good coach with a team built for the lottery. So that's the choice, you keep t-mac and go for getting better, or you give up on everything but yao, head, brooks, and novak. Is that what you want?
We don't need a 3rd scorer. We need another play-maker other than T-Mac! Rafer is not a play-maker and Bonzi is good enough to be a 3rd scorer. When T-Mac was out, we were able to make up for most of his "scoring" with others stepping up! However, we weren't able to make up for his play-making! That was the main reason why we were losing without him. Also, we already have Yao, T-Mac, and Bonzi scoring from isolations. Would another scorer iso-ing improve the Rockets overall offense? No. The offense will be stagnant like it is now already. We still need to get the role players involved on offense to win consistently. To do that we need a real play-maker(i.e. a passing PG) that can create easy close-range to mid-range shots (not just open 3 pointers that they've been getting). Trading T-Mac for a good PG(full time play-maker as oppose to T-Mac's half play-making half scoring role) plus a decent scorer will probably improve the team. However, we won't get full value for him, so we should keep him and look to add a passing PG instead. Unless T-Mac becomes more of a play-maker than a scorer, we'd need to acquire one. Lately, Aaron Brooks seems capable of filling that play-maker role. The thing is that T-Mac is handling the ball most of the time. Unless he's the play-maker he shouldn't be handling the ball that often, but he's looking to score more than to create for others. I'd like him to catch and shoot mid-range jumpers instead of dribble-and-pulling up for jumpers. He can still get his points, and by catch and shooting, his TEAMMATES would be passing it to him. That way, his teammates will be involved in the play and the offense wouldn't be as stagnant.
