Well I would hate to see the perception of T-mac on this board if he ever chose a Super Bowl game over the team.
I'll always love Tracy more than Steve. McGrady has had to perservere through a lot more than Francis ever did during his first tenure in Houston. Tmac has always acted professionally and his coaches here have always been complimentory of him. Regardless of his negative traits and playoff failures, Tracy has been 10 times the compliment to Yao that Steve could have ever been and has brought an NBA buzz and culture that Houston hadn't had since Dream. but.... The SF3 lovers will always adore him more for some flawed, but understandable reasons. The guy was reckless on the court. He always tore it up and it was impossible to question that he wanted to win. People loved seeing a guy grind for his team the way Steve did. Compare that to Tmac, who displays mixed body language at time and often seems to get discouraged. Tracy will show 5 minutes of Lebron like play, then give you 5 minutes of cricket sounds. The thing is that Tracy never skipped a team flight for the Super Bowl. He's always tried to play within the team, where Steve wanted to play above the team. Overall, Steve never came close providing or sacrificing what McGrady has for the Rockets. Not even close..
I still remember Francis Fighting to play during the Migraine Season. My friend of mine . . a fellow rocket fan . . . recently started having migraines He was a SF3 fan too . . but his respect for Stevie wanting to play grew 10 fold Rocket River
In a Sports Illustrated article that was printed a year after the trade, Tracy admitted that he shut it down during that season. McGrady told Sports Illustrated that he was so defeated mentally by the losing that on some nights he slacked off. As far as John Weisbrod goes, the biggest mistake that he made was that he didn’t know how to motivate a person that was not tough. John Weisbrod is a hockey guy. Personally, I have been involved in Powerlifting, Judo, and real wrestling, and I believe that hockey players are toughest athletes around. John Weisbrod wanted Tracy to be a leader and wanted him to play with more passion. Weisbrod tried to motivate Tracy similar to how he would motivate another hockey player. Tracy had two choices, he could rise to the task, or he could quit. Tracy chose the later.
Do you have a friend who underwent knee and shoulder surgery in the summer? My fellow rocket fans, T-Mac disappointed a lot of us but can we at least speculate that perhaps he was playing through some nagging injuries?
You "SF3" buttsmoochers always forget when Steve quit on the team and lied about it when he went to the Superbowl instead of going to Phoenix. Right. We were going to have much more "success" with this guy.
Houston likes hometown kids who becomes stars. Hometown kids are define as someone who: 1. Grew up in Houston and it's surrounding area in Texas 2. Started their career in Houston (Yao, Steve) 3. Played college ball here and it's surround area in Texas (Vince Young) Tmac had extra love from Magic fans back in the day because he was a hometown kid that made good. That is until he quit on them and demanded a trade out of town.
Honestly I think its because when Francis was our franchise player he played as best he could, which normally meant ball hogging or taking 20 seconds to pass the ball, while we really haven't seen Tracy elevate his team consistently. He's been pretty injury prone and has lost some of what made him great. I think the biggest reason as to why we seem to care for Francis alot more is because as great as Francis was, Tracy is and can be better. We've just haven't seen it in the post season (his team doesn't show up rather than him, its obvious that he tries a lot more during the playoffs).
I think it's the fire and intensity he brought to the game. T-Mac used to be explosive and exciting, but now he just seems lazy. Steve loved Houston and still does and he played through some pretty bad seasons with us but look at the supporting cast he had up until Yao came along. I still wish we would have waited one more year to pull that trade
People dont love Francis more than Tracy. It's just that we complain about the flaws of what we've got, and the grass is always greener.
well this is easy. steve started his career in houston and never wanted to leave. we saw steve from the beginning. contrary to what people here think, orlando is not a suburb of houston or is in the same state. when people here think of great francis memories they think of him in houston. not orlando. tmac is obviously a much better player than steve. but we like overachievers not underachievers.
Wow, Steve just had nothing to work with, did he? I mean, he sure got the most out of his talent, didn't he? What an incredible NBA career he had. Full of glory and success.
