I definitely agree with you about Tracy posing his will on the game. That series was winnable. Did you know that Tracy went 6 minutes without scoring in the crucial minutes of the game. Tracy was the best player on the floor and he didn't step up in the clutch moments.
LOL Sprewell had his best years with JVG, and Allan Houston regressed because of his career ending KNEE INJURY. Look up your facts before you speak. LOL BTW... arent we talking about YAO MING here? You are telling me Yao has improved substantially under JVG? LAMO.
nice post !! One thing I would like to point out ... The only time we have seen a DOMINANT YAO is when Tmac was not in the lineup.. which tells me that YAO is unable to retain that "mentality of dominance" when Tmac is in the lineup. Why this happens, no one know, but YAO needs to figure this out. Also, this not the "first time" YAO has looked slow like he did in the Utah series. This happens every now and then and the problem is in his HEAD.. If you don't believe me just see how much quicker YAO was in the fouth qtr of game 7 compared to the first 3 qtrs.
What's a best year? Most player's offense numbers suffered under JVG. Check out the numbers b4 you barked.
Yeah, I noticed a lot of that too, and seriously wonder if maybe trading Tmac finally tells Yao that it is "his" team. It seems that Yao defers to Tmac a lot (can't really blame him), maybe it is time for Tmac to go, and put Yao's feet to the fire? DD
I would love to keep them together, but if the right deal came along and with Tmac's 10 year history of coasting in games, I would consider a good deal for him. Sometimes the master has to leave for the grasshopper to grow up. And who in the West is adding a superstar? Heck the Jazz are in the finals and they don't have a single superstar on their roster. DD
I guess the question is this: Is TMac really a super star when he has been unable to advance past the first round? Certainly he is a star and one of the top 10-15 players in the league talent wise. That being said he has a bad back that has hampered him for the last few years and those don't tend to get better with age. He also appears to have peaked in ability. I don't really see him adding more to his game honestly and his desire to drive to the rim appears to be less and less. If he had continued taking the ball to the hoop in game 7 instead of settling for jumpers I truely believe we would still be playing now.
Of course I'm not advocating dumping him for the sake of dumping him. I would only do it for the "right" deal.
Personally, I think it's the exact opposite: T-mac, for whatever reason, does not play at his best when Yao is in the lineup. Yao's dominance occurred earlier this season, when both our stars were supposedly healthy (though obviously T-mac was not 100%). We were winning games, Yao was killing, and T-mac was almost a liability with his awful shooting. When Yao went out, T-mac stepped it up to MVP level scoring, passing, and rebounding. When Yao came back, T-mac regressed once again; his shooting especially suffered which I don't understand. There was no reason that his % went down after the most dominant post presence returned; he should have only been getting even more open shots. My personal hope is that Yao remembers how good he is, and that he was hampered by injury and, just as bad, fear of injury. He needs to overcome that fear of reinjuring his knee this summer and if he does, my guess is that Yao will get back to his earlier level. T-mac's mental condition is one that I'm a bit more worried about; it remains to see how he will respond.
Except that Sabonis and Divac when they played for Adelman had less mobility that Yao. Anyway this isn't an either you play Yao in the low post all the time or in the high post. You mix it up. One of the biggest knocks on JVG's offense was that it was predictable. Playing Yao occasionally in the high post will shake things up.
You dont base how good a player is solely on his OFFENSIVE numbers. Tmac doesnt score as much now as he did in Orlando, but his years under JVG have been has BEST. Now go gain some basketball knowledge before you speak.