Why does everyone whine about us being too dependant on Tmac? I just don't understand. Are you seriously whining because we don't play well without one of the top 10 (don't pick that apart) players in the league? Take Lebron from the Cavs, KG from the Wolves, Kobe from the Lakers, AI from the Sixers, Redd from the Bucks, Dirk from the Mavs, Joe Johnson from the Hawks Do any of these and you'll hardly end up with legitimate NBA teams, why then should we be any different? It's been clear for years now that Yao can't do it by himself (he's good, not great), so quit expecting him to lead this team to the playoffs. I'm as dissapointed as the next guy about how this season has started, but it's injuries and poor shooting guys, nothing else. Some of our key injuries are healing up (Tmac) and might not ever (Sura), but the fact remains, without Tmac we should've already known we're a "first round and out" team at best. Don't blame Yao, Van Gundy, or Les,...personally I blame Clutch for stirring up all those distractions in Training Camp. Good job Clutch, way to make the team lose focus.
Actually I can see Bucks and Mavs be a .500 team even without Redd and Nowitzki. They are those more balanced teams.
spurs suns pacers and pistons as well but aside from the spurs none have a franchise player same caliber as mcgrady spurs are just ridiculously stacked
because everybody know BB is team sport, the best teams in the league are not depend on one person, as Piston, Spurs, Pacer and Sun. that's why all of tems you mentioned above are not good, except Mavs which is more balanced. Can Tmac do it by himeself? did you see Magic's only 21 wons the whole season? Neither can kobe, TD,Shaq and KG. it's just so simple, team work. there 's no God here, even Jordan, he still need Pippen and Rodman. I am so sick of seeing many un-rational posts here, we shoud know even we have a health-Tmac, we would still lost to Spurs, Piston, Pacer and Mavs (or Sun ) for last 7 games. Cuz I did not see a better team than our last season, we added some players, but without sura, james and padget , and with DW, JB, Deke going down. it's still early to say our team is stronger or weaker. However it's clear we don't have the chemestry we have last year at least right now . Tmac and Yao are there, more important is continue to looking for some potential increase such Head and swift.
Take Shaq from the Heat and they're still wailing on us. Wade is near-McGrady, but Yao doesn't belong in the same sentence as Shaq. I'm all about optimism ( and I appreciate yours), but realism reigns supreme. Changes need to be made.
Take all those star players away from their teams and at least their teams would be able to win one or two games here and there. The Rockets are just godawful without T-Mac. Who knows when this losing streak will end.
You take Redd away from the Bucks this year and they are a guaranteed lottery team nowhere near .500.
Not a fair comparison, Alonzo is filling in brillantly for the Heat, he is blocking shots and rebounding like a fiend while Shaq is out.
exactly. Alonzo is almost an unfair backup when he's able to play big minutes without health concerns. Plus, saying Dallas would be better than us without Dirk is ok to me...if this group of guys had been together for a while with maybe 1 new player, I'd say the same would be true about us. But with Rafer, Luther, Stro all new to the rotation (and a key piece in Sura out of it), we're scrambling. I think if you had that many new pieces in Dallas this year getting big minutes and THEN you take away Dirk, you'd have a similar result to what you're getting from us.
That would be why I didn't name those teams. I named specific teams. We are just NOT those teams because we are built around two players and the guys that are playing now are all brand new anyway. Even with Tmac we would've struggled at the beginning of the season, because of a lack of chemistry,...but without him of course we will lose because our new guys don't make up for a loss of Tmac.
Well, since the objective is to win a championship, having a team so dependent on one player IS a problem, because it means you can't compete against the tip echelon (the Spurs, the Pistons, Miami, Pacers, heck even the Suns and the Mavs to some extent). Last I checked, that was the objective -- i.e. to build an elite team -- and clearly we're not better off than last season (or some might argue even worse) at this point of time. If the objective is to just hovering around .500 and then play a top seed in the West Conf and get our arses handed to us, then more power to you. But that ain't why I am here and that ain't what I am expecting. Anyways, I am going to the game tonight, hopefully a win for a change.
Ok, fair enough. We are underachieving, but we all know why. Injuries, chemistry, and poor shooting have all been problems. Hopefully we can overcome that soon. You are right that we're shouldn't be this bad without Tmac, but it also shouldn't come as a shock that we're not good without him.
I really feel that in all the cases above (except Atlanta) the teams would have managed at least 1 or 2 wins without the best player. And considering we are lucky enough to have 2 great players, I dont think it was unrealistic to expect us to be at least mediocre (which we arent right now) when Mac went out.
Something has to be said for the fact that we've taken every team into the 4th quarter during this losing streak. That's San Antonio, Detroit, Indiana, Dallas, and Phoenix all in a row, plus two other playoff teams after that. The way people are reacting on here you'd think we've been losing these games by 20 points with absolutely no hope of winning at all.
I agree that we are hanging in there for most of the games. I havent given up hope that we will turn things around. I guess I was just hoping we could have managed a few wins (Suns (-Amare), Hornets, Bulls) on our home court. Those were very winnable games for us even shorthanded. Hopefully Mac can hurry back and we wont have to worry about this much longer. Its just killing me to watch us miss open shot after open shot in the 4th Q of every game.
