i dont bring him up in discussion on a daily, but i do check the box score to see what he did, i will probably do that until he retires
God knows I am not a TMac fan. I always thought he was a primadonna who felt even though he was making megamillions he deserved more. He thought he could play when he wanted and call the shots. But somehow I thought this year would be different. I watched him practice and play preseason and I saw some old talent reappear. Yeah it was raw but it was real. Even though he screwed the team last year he was coming back motivated. He knew the Rockets were the best franchise he was ever going to play with and he wanted to stay. He was mostly (mostly) saying all the right things and on the floor in his brief encounters was playing team basketball. Even when he said he wanted more minutes it wasn't the outburst and arrogance of the past but more a statement of his belief that he could contribute more. I actually agreed with him at the time. I thought the Rockets should have given him more minutes especially considering how poorly Ariza was playing. But they preferred Taylor over TMac and considered resigning Wafer before giving Tmac more minutes. So in my mind I thought man Les must really be pissed at Tmac for screwing the deal last year and it most go deeper than we fans can see. I thought what Tmac did to the franchise was ****ty but he was a super-athlete and by nature they can be primadonnas and flaky. So why not just give him minutes and see where it takes us. The Rockets were playing great basketball early on considering no superstar was on the team. So why not give tMac a real go and see if he can emmerge as a team player. I thought there was a chance. Not because of Tmac's charactor. You can put lipstick on a pig and it's still a pig. But more importantly I thought he was motivated for money. It was his last year and I thought maybe that pig would dance like he hadn't in years because he wanted to do whatever it took to prove the organization he could still contribute and had some game left. A lot more than most thought possible. Boy was I wrong. The Rocket's organization is much wiser than me. They understood not even his contract year was enough to motivate to play with heart. Tmac has definitely slowed down but the worst of it is he is not willing to play through pain. He is not willing to put his team first. He already is not talking to the coach. He plays when he wants and doesn't play when he hurts. Maybe he is just one of those people that just has a very low tolerance of pain. But the point is he could talk to his coach about it. He doesn't have to make excuse to the media like the tmac lady we know him to be. I whines to the media. He tells them he may not be really ready to play for another season. He goes to the locker room when he wants and decides when he is ready to go back in. The knicks understand he is on loan for half a season and already they are wondering if that is way too long. Tmac doesn't need the money so he can easily walk away from the game and live fine for life but rest assure he will live wishing and hoping for something bigger had happened and regretting he didn't do more to take advantage of his shot with. He will die a shell of himself and everyone will remember what could have been more than what was.
Dedicated to Knee Mac... <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/NE8Taygteak&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/NE8Taygteak&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
