The next move

[moofs]

Agree completely. When tmac and artest went out yao did not step up his game, hell some of the games he played were just pathetic. Im not pointing the finger at just Yao, this whole team has been horrible aside from Landry Scola Brooks and Artest. Thats right I said artest, as bad as his game has been you can see in his eyes hes trying as hard as he can to be aggressive and make plays. Brooks as well hes just young and his b ball IQ isnt up there yet. Yao just hasnt been able to step his game up when he needs to. Tmac has been horrendous, but its not because hes lazy, clearly he looked different on that open dunk compared to when he dunked over thomas. U think he just chooses to be lazy on a wide open dunk. His injuries are killing him and physically and mentally. Finally Raefor has been absolutely horrible this year and i dont think he meshes well with adelman. We need a leader at point guard because we cant count on Mcgrady to get healthy. Battier has been horrendous as well due to injuries.

We need a starting point guard and we need to pray that battier and Mcgrady get healthy, Once that happens artest wont have to create his own shots and things will open up for everyone

True to the latter, hadn't really put that bit of 2 and 2 together yet, but do still think that McGrady's ... something or other. Don't really know, but he's definitely screwy.

To the former, whether Artest is trying or not, more accurately, whether he's putting effort toward playing hard or not, is not the issue. The issue is that he doesn't run our offense well / consistently, takes bad shots, is gambling too much to be a good defender, etc, etc, etc, ad infinitum. He's either not the player he used to be or he sucks. Going by what I saw in Sacto, sucks seems the safer bet. Someone else brought up a good point today that's been frequently neglected in considering (or at least discussing) Artest's play. Remember, he's looking for a contract. He needs ppg. His "effort" could easily be his attempts to prove leadership/value/$$$ in his own semi-schizophrenic way rather than trying to give the team his best shot at what they need. If that's the case, Artest would never stop trying to create his own shots, but lots of people called both this and that before he showed up here.

His 3p shooting is still a nice touch. (positive, positive, positive!)

[blims10]

McGrady is the only one who's shown any sign of being good enough to lead this team. Say what you want about Yao and Artest, and how much more "heart" they have, but they aren't talented enough to lead and inspire other guys. T-Mac is. The problem is that the only time he's been able to do this is when Yao's been out. I have faith that he can still lead this team, as pathetic as it is, but he needs to be the man. Every time this team has been handed over to Yao, he's blown it. Love him or hate him, he's the only chance this sorry ass bunch of losers has.

And the reason we don't have any ball movement on this team is because it's full of chuckers. Chuckers with big egos. This won't ever happen, but the next move should be something like a package of Head, Artest and Alston for Jason Terry and Josh Howard. Terry would be the best point guard in the league for this team, and Howard would keep us stacked, talent-wise. It's too bad that the whole division rival thing will prevent anything from happening, because that deal would address several of our issues, while getting rid of this teams main problems.

lol, by watching the game we play without TMAC, i realize how funny you are...

If they are chuckers, TMac is the queen of chuckers.
If they are losers, he is the ultimate loser.

OO yeah, today is Fed 09, not 2001, in case you don't know

[PocketRockets]

I bash McGrady more than anyone, but saying Artest makes some of his shot attempts when compared to Mac is laughable, Artest is shooting an even less percentage from the field and much more a ball-stopper.

Season Team G GS MPG FG% 3p% FT% OFF DEF RPG APG SPG BPG TO PF PPG
08-09 HOU 39 25 34.3 0.384 0.399 0.731 1.1 4.2 5.3 3.1 1.7 0.4 2.00 2.10 15.8

Season Team G GS MPG FG% 3p% FT% OFF DEF RPG APG SPG BPG TO PF PPG
08-09 HOU 35 35 33.7 0.388 0.376 0.801 0.6 3.8 4.4 5.0 1.2 0.4 1.97 1.10 15.6

Here are the stats for McGrady/Ron Artest this season (from NBA.com). They are basically interchangable and okay I've give you that "artest is shooting at a lesser percentage" but .004 worse from inside the arc? That's negligible....Ron is shooting .2 better from the 3pt.

I didn't say Ron isn't a ball stopper either, but you are blind if you don't think Tmac isn't (probably even more-so).

"At least Ron makes some of his shot attempts"


LMFAO I don't even have to come back at that. That type of ignorance isn't even worth my time.

The only ignorance is your blind love for a player that is obviously hurting this team by his effort on the court. If you even watch the games, Tmac plays with no effort for most of the game and turns it on for maybe 4-5 possessions. There's been games earlier in the season where he's just given up on the team. That my friend is a loser and a horrible teammate.

The past three games Tmac: 16-46 FG, 3-10 3pt.
Ron: 13-33 FG, 5-14 3pt
Yao: 29-37 FG, 0-0 3pt

Granted Yao takes easy shots, but there's no reason Tmac should take that many more shots than Yao, especially at that percentage. Yao has been playing like crap too and scola has been missing his midrange shot, but the effort is there.

[CuttingEdge]

"At least Ron makes some of his shot attempts"


LMFAO I don't even have to come back at that. That type of ignorance isn't even worth my time.

Tracy is a washed up loser... He doesn't have the talent or passion... He's scrub for scrub.. We move Yao we can get any elite big on the dime cuz he's got the talent and skill set any coach could rectify better than Adelman can... You need to remove the wax-build up in brain.

[grond]

McGrady is the only one who's shown any sign of being good enough to lead this team. Say what you want about Yao and Artest, and how much more "heart" they have, but they aren't talented enough to lead and inspire other guys. T-Mac is. The problem is that the only time he's been able to do this is when Yao's been out. I have faith that he can still lead this team, as pathetic as it is, but he needs to be the man. Every time this team has been handed over to Yao, he's blown it. Love him or hate him, he's the only chance this sorry ass bunch of losers has.

Leadership, while obviously important, is also a non-empirical factor. You should look at the team from a black-box perspective. From that perspective, our most effective starting lineup this season didn't include T-Mac.

This is not to say that we don't need him. I still think that our best offensive option in close game situations is to put the ball in T-Mac's hands and let him play pick and roll with Yao because of all the rockets he is still capable of making the best decisions with the ball in his hands under pressure (and capable of executing, at least in terms of getting the ball to the right people).

But it's no good starting him if he's too injured or too lazy to go hard from the outset. It impacts the rest of the team and we get into holes we can't dig ourselves out of.

[houstonPG]

I am not sure what kind of players we can offer, but I think Hinrich is the best player we can get at this point. I have no problem with Alston, but I think Hinrich can provide some leadership that we do not have and he can play 2 if necessary. He looks great in the Chicago/Miami game. If we can get him and Sefolosha, that would be great. I am willing to give up Landry if necessary. Of course, I prefer them to take Hayes.

[LISTEN2JAZZ]

Would you guys consider Ridnour/Jefferson/Redd for McGrady/Artest/Head?

Redd & TMac are both injured and worthless for the time being, but with Redd's main skill being shooting, it's possible that he'll return to form when he heals.

Obvioulsy Ridnour and Jefferson would help you more in the meantime than Artest/Head will. But on the other hand, you'd be taking back a lot of salary, and it's possible that if you held out with TMac, you could get something better next year at the deadline.

Bucks are interested because we need to somehow clear salary to re-sign Villanueva and Sessions.

[TMACFORMVP]

Is Redd done for the season?