ok, im watching this houston / denver game. the announcers and the tnt crew all mentioned that yao / t-mac dont play well together, and the time to trade one is near.

i agree.

yao isnt getting traded.

tracy will be the one to go. however, he is damaged goods. 1) correct me if im wrong, but didnt he have some sort of family tragedy or something? didnt he miss extended time cuz he was sad, and he even mentioned retirement? am i making this all up? anyway, they interviewed him, and he did seem sad, in general. i also think hes picked up weight. he also is fragile, and everyone knows how many times hes gotten out of the 1st round.

so i dont think t-mac is the superstar he once was. i also think that, the way we use rip these days (more 3's, less movement and curls) t mac would be a decent upgrade.

i think rip could be the foundation of a blockbuster that could bring tmac to detroit. we probably have the other assetts necessary to meake this deal possible.

how crazy am i?

ps i also think tmac would benefit from a change of scenery, the piston lockerroom, and maybe even our mythical training staff. the more i think on this, the more i think it should, maybeeven could, happe.

I agree, I'm watching the same game, and something has to give for Houston, they have 2 Super Stars, yet they can never put anything even remotely close togehter to be taken seriously as a Title Contender...

I'm not sure how I'd feel about having T-Mac in the D, the guy's never won anything, but obviously it'd be easier for him in the East, my only problem is he never seems to stay healthy, it's like for every 3 games he plays in, he takes one game off due to a "tender elbow" or "tweaked back"...

A career underachiever is what T-Mac should be recognized as...

an interesting thought putting a package together to bring t-mac here, would probably cost 2 starters (Rip & Dyess or Rip & Prince) IMO.

t-mac makes a little over 18, rip makes 10. if you still need only be within 25%, i believe we could make an offer somewhere around 14 million. meaning rip and amir would get us in the ballpark. i would become less interested if 2 starters were at stake.

ill also say im liking the pistons this year, and if we go into the playoffs i can see us making the finals. but if we took a gamble on t-mac i think the potential payoff would be huge.

It's Starbury's family tragedy and retirement you're thinking of, not TMac's.

Why would Houston think that Rip would fare better than TMac or Franchise?

Rip Flip and Brezec would work better financially. Also I'd rather part with Flip and Brezec than Amir. Plus if we are signing CWebb he can pick up the 8 minutes every couple games that Brezec would have gotten.

I like it from the piston point of view. TMac is another one of those guys like Sheed that doesn't do all that well being "the man" and might flourish in a system that takes the focus off him.

I can't think of any obvious reason why Houston would want to do this trade.

Houston just needs a shake-up, I've heard they've talked with Milwaukee about a T-Mac for Michael Redd deal

To get rid of a contract that isn't producing for them?

To get rid of a contract that isn't producing for them?


No because Houston is obviously not good enough to win the Title...


Daryl Morey's wants to make a change for the sake of change...

I can't think of any obvious reason why Houston would want to do this trade.

They're creeped out by the lazy eye?

if they feel t-mac and yao arent a good match, which as i stated in my original post, i think is becoming apparent, then trading t-mac is the logical choice.

if they want to move him for the best player available, we'd probably be out of the running.

if they want to trade him for the best shooting guard available, not shaking up the team too much and conitnuing to contend, it might be rip. if we sweeten the deal with a few prospects and draft picks and i think we are a logical choice.

i think its pretty likely t-mac gets traded in the somewhat near future.

No because Houston is obviously not good enough to win the Title...


Daryl Morey's wants to make a change for the sake of change...

houston isnt playing well, but theyve been picked to win the title by many "experts" for the last few years now.

RIP and Yao would work good togther. They could post Yao and RIP can do his cuts off Yao's post ups. I watched the game last night and Yao played very well. But all the complementary players (besides Bonzi) just stood up at the 3 point line and watched. Yao had to yell at them to cut all night. They need a guy that stays in motion because Yao is a good passer.

The first thing I thought when I saw t-mac in the Trade Ideas thread was "no". There's a reason for that.

I wouldn't do it either. he's been out of the lineup so much with back problems you can classify it as cronic at this point. While you can overcome that in the regular season, what happens when it flairs up in the playoffs?

RIP and Yao would work good togther. They could post Yao and RIP can do his cuts off Yao's post ups. I watched the game last night and Yao played very well. But all the complementary players (besides Bonzi) just stood up at the 3 point line and watched. Yao had to yell at them to cut all night. They need a guy that stays in motion because Yao is a good passer.

McGrady for Ray Allen

lol sry

the reason i picked t-mac is because i think the pretty much only way we upgrade the team is at the 2. its not too likely we find someone better for us at the 1, 3, or 4 (sheed). mcdyess is upgradeable, but i dont know where we'd find that upgrade. we could probably improve the bench, but we have a nice mix of youth and balance there. and tmac is or will be available soon.

i get that it is risky with his back, but if hes healthy he'd be a huge upgrade. if we could get himwithout losing C.B, T.P, R.W, A.M, or stucky and maxiell, i think we'd have to gamble on it.

with the team we have, i dont see any matchup in the finals that we'd have better than a 40% or so chance of winning. we get t-mac and that number would go up quite abit, imo.

Alot of risks involved in this trade but it plays out really well IF everything goes as planned. tmacs gotta stay healthy and I think he'd do wonders for us in our system, compared to adelman's.

what about someone like jrich? it'd be hard to get him with the fact that we just made a trade with the cats and all. however i dont think we need to be trading any starters at the way we are playing right now.

no, i will not let this die.

heres another reason for joe to make this trade: t-mac has avged ~26 ppg against san an over the last 3 years. BB has dominated our scorers probably worse than anyone else in the league. imo, he was the true finals mvp in '05. it would be a real plus to bring in a guy that no one on san antonio (the heavy favorite to be the WC champ) can stop.

i was thinking of different ways to do this, and i came up with getting a 3rd team involved. getting jersey involved, and having kidd go to houston would be the way to get houston 100% into this trade. but i dont see how that could happen without then getting a 4th team involved. so thats not too likely.

what might work is getting philly involved. what if the trade was something like:

D gets: tmac
d sends: rip, AA, amir,

houston gets: rip, andre miller
houston trades: tmac

philly gets: AA, amir
philly trades: andre miller

we might have to include an expiring K here or there, and im unsure what draft picks would be needed for balancing, but i cant see any reason why any of the 3 teams wouldnt want to do this (well, maybe houston...).

no, i will not let this die.

heres another reason for joe to make this trade: t-mac has avged ~26 ppg against san an over the last 3 years.
42% shooting, and TMac missed 5 out of 14 games against the Spurs since the 2005 season, so I could argue that's 26*(9/14) or 17 ppg -- or worse. TMac's never made it past the first round, and my hunch is that he'd get worn down just when we'd need him. Or, Kander intervenes and says "play him 30 minutes instead of 40", and there goes our TMac advantage. And who's to say that those 26 ppg don't come at the expense of other people not getting as involved with the offense because TMac needs the ball in his hands moreso than Rip does?


BB has dominated our scorers probably worse than anyone else in the league. imo, he was the true finals mvp in '05. it would be a real plus to bring in a guy that no one on san antonio (the heavy favorite to be the WC champ) can stop.
Rip seems to have worked out his Bowen woes since then, to the tune of 45% shooting and 18 ppg. Of course, that's only a 4-game sample size.

The only reason Bowen could smother Chauncey late in the 2005 Finals was because Rip was worn down and incapable of abusing the TP mismatch as he should've. In 2006, every coach of a team with a zippy PG thought they could use the PG to fluster Rip, and Rip would post and torch them. Afflalo is the best thing that could happen to Rip as far as keeping minutes down and keeping him sharp.

I don't get this hard-on for TMac at all, especially given his injury history. He's not getting any healthier AFAICT. He's not enough "better" to take the gamble.

cuz right now, if im in uber homer mode, i can ignore our twin playoff exits from the last two years and say we should make it out of the east.

but you have to assume we'd play SA in the finals. and still in homer mode, ill say we have as good, if not slightly better talent than the spurs. but it will be close. when when the talent is a draw, it comes down to coaching. and i dont like our chances of winning a title if it comes down to flip having to out gameplan poppovich.

I like the idea of trying to upgrade to put us over the top, but an injury prone shooter that has never made it out of the first round just doesn't seem like a huge upgrade to me.

right, hes not perfect. ive criticized him before. i personally prefer players who have got some seasoning in the NCAA's, because i think thats where you learn about winning.

and his durability is a huge concern.

but those two critic's of t-mac are why we are his ideal destination. we've got that culture of winning, and we have the best training staff in the league.

im not at all worried about him Fing with chemistry, or hogging the ball. hes very sheed like in that respect. hes excellent at moving the ball, and unselfish almsot to a fault.

t-mac playing well is a huge upgrade over rip.

and who else could we bring in to upgrade the five, realistically?

the only position we could clearly upgrade is the two, and of the 2 guards in the league i consider clear upgrades over rip (james, kobe, pierce, wade, t-mac) i think only t-mac, and MAYBE wade would possibly be available. and i'd bet anything miami would never trade wade to us, if they would trade him at all.

tmac was my favorite player whilke he was on the magic with gooden, tmac was my favorite player when he lost to the jazz and cried, tmac was my favorite player until he kept getting injured this year. tmac was the shit until this year.

I wouldnt trade tmac for rip unless tmac was guaranteed that he could play the whole season without him getting injured. tmacs never gonna have to play more than he needs to because we have reliable bench now.

I'd take a healthy tmac over rip 10/10. He provides much more athleticism, a killer instinct an d much better overall game. can take over the game if our offense isnt working, but we got so many options now that isnt even necessary for that. If stuckey can come off the bench and score when hes given the ball, we dont need tmac.

maybe this trade needs to be reconsidered at the deadline wen we can get all our trading pieces together and reevaluate stuckey but for now, keep rip and billups in the back court.

If I could have anyone's jumper, it would be Tmac's. Allen's might be truer and their might be others with a better one but no one looks sweeter when their J is on then Tmac.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/5412360.html


T-Mac could miss up to three weeks
Rockets star says knee rehab likely to take more time

By JONATHAN FEIGEN
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

Though officially listed as "day-to-day" and out tonight against the Warriors, Rockets guard Tracy McGrady said his time away to rehabilitate a sore left knee likely will be measured in weeks rather than days.

McGrady, 28, said Sunday he has been told he could miss three weeks because of a "deep bone bruise." He missed games last week against the Grizzlies and Raptors and doubts he will play Wednesday against the Celtics or Friday against the Magic.

"I'm the same," McGrady said. "They told me three weeks. I don't have a timetable. I can't do anything about it. It's not tendinitis. It's a deep bone bruise. I'm just doing therapy every day. I lost the strength in my leg. I'll see how I feel toward the end of the week, but Boston, doubtful, Orlando, doubtful."

McGrady, the Rockets' leader in scoring and assists this season, has been able to start and complete just one of the Rockets' past five games, going out at halftime Dec. 19 against the Magic and early in the second half Dec. 23 against the Pistons.

"He's making good progress," trainer Keith Jones said. "He's got the pain out. He's gotten stronger. We'll just take it day-to-day after tomorrow and see how he's feeling."

tonight made it 21. 8 of which sans YM. i was getting ready to say maybe its yao that will become available, but i thought he missed the entire winning streak.

after this one, im thinking any opportunity there was to steal t-mac is now gone.