Toronto Raptors Vs. Miami Heat: January 5th 2014

[bryan colangelo]

That's a lame excuse. Yes he had a lot of responsibility, but he also never put the work in to be able to keep carrying a 2-way load. He became content being the offensive leader, and only showing up for Kobe-type matchups. He still deteriorated early physically. He's young enough that he could easily still be in the league today. People say injuries are luck, and that's true (some things can't be helped no matter what you do), but you also diminish the chance of them happening by your preparation, and I'm not convinced his was ever at the level he needed it to be for a guy with his talent.

Normally I would 100% agree with you, but Simmon's argument is pretty solid. McGrady's biggest mistake was leaving Toronto. Give it a read, it's pretty funny/sad.

Quote from the article:

"Remember when we kinda sorta felt bad for Kobe after he drove Shaq out of Los Angeles, when the Black Mamba was saddled with the Kwame Browns and Smush Parkers for a couple of years before Pau Gasol miraculously arrived? Here's a complete list of every teammate who started a playoff game with Tracy McGrady during his aforementioned 2001-08 peak …

Darrell Armstrong (three years), Bo Outlaw, Andrew DeClercq (two years), Mike Miller (two years), Pat Garrity (two years), Horace Grant (36 at the time), Monty Williams, Jacque Vaughn, Gordan Giricek, Drew Gooden, Yao Ming (two years), David Wesley, Bob Sura, Ryan Bowen, Scott Padgett, Shane Battier (two years), Rafer Alston (two years), Chuck Hayes, Luis Scola, Dikembe Mutombo (somewhere between age 40 and 52 at the time), and Bobby Jackson."

[The Great One]

does any team have anyone who can match up with LBJ?

None lol. Never seen a player like him.

[Rapstor4Life]

Awesome game the team is legitimate in my eyes those missed freethrows were huge. Really add up big game from the starting back court and Ross did a reasonable job on LBJ considering but man DWade has got to be the dirtiest player in the league guy gets away with Murder!

Amir will be thinking about that missed bunny for a while...

[white men can't jump]

Normally I would 100% agree with you, but Simmon's argument is pretty solid. McGrady's biggest mistake was leaving Toronto. Give it a read, it's pretty funny/sad.

Quote from the article:

"Remember when we kinda sorta felt bad for Kobe after he drove Shaq out of Los Angeles, when the Black Mamba was saddled with the Kwame Browns and Smush Parkers for a couple of years before Pau Gasol miraculously arrived? Here's a complete list of every teammate who started a playoff game with Tracy McGrady during his aforementioned 2001-08 peak …

Darrell Armstrong (three years), Bo Outlaw, Andrew DeClercq (two years), Mike Miller (two years), Pat Garrity (two years), Horace Grant (36 at the time), Monty Williams, Jacque Vaughn, Gordan Giricek, Drew Gooden, Yao Ming (two years), David Wesley, Bob Sura, Ryan Bowen, Scott Padgett, Shane Battier (two years), Rafer Alston (two years), Chuck Hayes, Luis Scola, Dikembe Mutombo (somewhere between age 40 and 52 at the time), and Bobby Jackson."

Meh. Read the article. Just another Bill Simmons bias piece. Doesn't do anything for me. He's an immature guy who made his own bed with poor choices, lack of ability to lead (critical in a guy wanting to be a franchise player) and sense of entitlement. He always thought everything would be easy, and the harder things got, the harder it became for him to make something of the situation. I'm supposed to cry for him because he had bad teammates? Maybe guys didn't want to play with him. Who would want to try and share the ball with him? Even when Yao was healthy he wasn't involved enough in their gameplan.

T-Mac shoulda stayed in Toronto if he had any sense at the time. He didn't. He basically never did until his career fell apart and he realized the poor decisions he made.

I like this quote, because it shows how ridiculous it is to talk about it like some crime was done against him with his streak of bad luck:

But McGrady wanted his own team, wanted to get out of Vince's shadow, and wanted to play closer to home. In that order. He didn't really want to be Pippen 2.0. Those are the conclusions you make when you're 21. In the months following his Toronto departure, an underrated McGrady-Carter beef developed that would have been 10 times more fun in the sports blog/Twitter era. (They finally made up.) All these years later, McGrady admits that he should have stayed in Toronto. But had Grant Hill just stayed healthy, and had Orlando never stupidly given away Ben Wallace in Hill's sign-and-trade,3 there's a 100 percent chance that Orlando would have made the Finals at least once. Ego + boneheaded management + bad luck. That's the Kobe/KG/T-Mac/Iverson era in a nutshell.

Four years later, Orlando could have teamed T-Mac with incoming rookie Dwight Howard; instead, they dumped him to Houston in a classic "two quarters for a dollar" trade for Steve Francis, Cuttino Mobley, and Kelvin Cato. (Make no mistake — we knew this trade was dreadful even when it happened.) T-Mac spent the rest of his prime awkwardly meshing with 7-foot-6 lane-clogger Yao Ming, a wonderful teammate and insanely hard worker who was probably the most overrated good player of that era. Howard would have been a much better fit.

1st paragraph: Do they get Grant Hill without giving up Wallace? It's still just a big "what if" argument. No merit to it whatsoever. There's also no telling that he breaks out if Hill is healthy. Hill was one of the best players in the league before injury issues. A great scorer who put up great rebounding and assist numbers. He likely would've been the #1 option over McGrady if healthy, especially with his proven ability to get others involved at an elite level for a SF (yes, he was a better passer than McGrady). So T-Mac's decision was to leave a situation where he didn't want to be the #2 option for another situation where he likely would've been the #2 option anyway if Hill was healthy.

2nd paragraph: How do we know Howard would be a better fit? And is Yao that much of a lane-clogger? Kobe won championships with Shaq, a very effective "lane-clogger" who would always be within 8-12 ft of the basket, but his man would have to stick to him. Yao may have been a bit overrated, but it's also hard to argue he was ever effectively used. And Howard? Howard is a big who hates to pass, and has a poor post-up game (compared to historically great bigs). They may have worked better, but it's still just a major assumption to simply say "Howard would have been a much better fit", especially if he's trying to suggest they would've been more successful in a stacked Western Conference. Simmons just "what if-ing" out of his ass again, pretending he's gotta be right.

Simmons is a sports entertainment writer. He even always acknowledges that. He writes his opinion, which is never objective, and finds what evidence he can to back it up.

[OldSkoolCool]

Masai could not have looked more bored. What is going on in that man's mind...

"How the hell am I going to get a superstar now?"

[Miekenstien]

The year T-Mac left the Raps to join Orlando, he was a beast on the defensive end. I think it would have been a fun game to watch T-Mac's intensity versus LBJ's tenacity.

i think lebron would just post him and push him around. t-mac was a good perimeter defender because of his length and speed but lebron does everything. that guy is fucking sick. pretty sure that alley oop could have been better if they just threw the ball higher because he would have went to get it too.

leonard did about as good a job as could be expected and he won finals mvp.
http://espn.go.com/nba/player/gamelo...3/lebron-james
25 points 11 boards 7 assists 1 block 2.5 steals per game.

that is enormous and people were complementing leonard on his slow down job.

[MACK11]

i think lebron would just post him and push him around. t-mac was a good perimeter defender because of his length and speed but lebron does everything. that guy is fucking sick. pretty sure that alley oop could have been better if they just threw the ball higher because he would have went to get it too.

leonard did about as good a job as could be expected and he won finals mvp.
http://espn.go.com/nba/player/gamelo...3/lebron-james
25 points 11 boards 7 assists 1 block 2.5 steals per game.

that is enormous and people were complementing leonard on his slow down job.

There is noone in NBA history who could shutdown lebron James right now (prime)

[OldSkoolCool]

I'm sure there are PGs who could help us as much, even if they played differently. None of them are likely to be availabe. And there could be a very good, deep PG crop in this year's draft. If we can get Lowry at a decent contract, and draft a potential future PG, that's becoming the scenario I'm hoping for. *cough* Tyler Ennis *cough*

I agree, I'm not a huge fan of Vasquez...he's too hot or cold, which would be fine if he was consistent defensively, but he isn't. I go into the fetal position when he step on the court.

____________

And whoever said TMac was a horrible defender needs to get their eyes checked, he was consistently considered one of the better defenders in the NBA. He may have looked lazy, but it is the same way that Wiggins looks lazy, he is just so fast naturally that he just glides at the same speed as people who are going all out.

[Masai Ujiri]

Here's the difference between the Heat and basically every other team in the league.

If they really want to/need to win a game. They make sure they do just enough to ensure they walk away with the W. They don't miss 9 free throws and lose by 5. They come up with big shots down the stretch to win by 5.

[delman21]

I thought last night was the classic example of running out of gas. And we were still there to the very end of the game. Yes we missed some free throws, took some poor shots, that is expected in learning phase. No one on this team has won before, therefore we will have some pains this season, but we competed right to the very end. I am not sure in a 7 game series, but after watching the game last night, TO is legit.

Yes there are still pieces to obtain for a good run, but the foundation is beginning to build itself very quickly.

And for all the DD haters out there, he played amazing last night, he is playing d, passing the ball, all of which he couldn't do before. Yes everyone will say he took some bad shots, but YOU TELL ME YOU NEVER SPED IN YOUR PARENTS CARS WHEN YOU FIRST GOT YOUR LISCENCE, I call bull shit on that one. He has got the keys and free to play, expect some mistakes, but we got a keeper here.

[iblastoff]

I thought last night was the classic example of running out of gas. And we were still there to the very end of the game. Yes we missed some free throws, took some poor shots, that is expected in learning phase. No one on this team has won before, therefore we will have some pains this season, but we competed right to the very end. I am not sure in a 7 game series, but after watching the game last night, TO is legit.

Yes there are still pieces to obtain for a good run, but the foundation is beginning to build itself very quickly.

And for all the DD haters out there, he played amazing last night, he is playing d, passing the ball, all of which he couldn't do before. Yes everyone will say he took some bad shots, but YOU TELL ME YOU NEVER SPED IN YOUR PARENTS CARS WHEN YOU FIRST GOT YOUR LISCENCE, I call bull shit on that one. He has got the keys and free to play, expect some mistakes, but we got a keeper here.

wtf are you talking about. how is missing free throws 'expected in learning phase'.

[MixxAOR]

None lol. Never seen a player like him.

[ST1R]

Here's the difference between the Heat and basically every other team in the league.

If they really want to/need to win a game. They make sure they do just enough to ensure they walk away with the W. They don't miss 9 free throws and lose by 5. They come up with big shots down the stretch to win by 5.

So the Heat didnt want to or need to win the other 8 games they lost this year? They didnt do just enough to win those games. And Im sure those the loss early to Brooklyn or recently to Indiana were games they really wanted. Raps dont have the talent to beat Miami in a series or most nights but playing like last night they wont be pushed around either. The losing streak to the big three soon too shall pass.

[magoon]

He won't go for an extension as he can get an extra year if he re-signs in the off-season outright. He'll be asking for 10 Mil, Raps counter with 9 so he'll get around 9.5/year for 4 years. Book it.

The problem with this scenario is the now very real possibility that Lowry makes the All-Star game. If he does, then he's asking $12m, not $10m, and he'll get it somewhere, and he's not worth $12m.

[ceez]

anyone else really impressed with Ross' defense on LBJ? He contested just about everything and was on him like a shadow most of the time.