Just as Jerome Dyson's knee surgery injected question marks into UConn's NCAA title hunt, the Houston Rockets' playoff standing and championship aspirations took a hit when Tracy McGrady announced he will have microfracture surgery on his left knee, forcing him to miss the remainder of the season.
Even though McGrady is the team's third-leading scorer and has missed 18 games because of his sore left knee, which he had arthroscopic surgery on in May, he is still a dangerous player that opposing teams need to respect.
Houston currently sits in the fifth spot in the Western Conference at 33-21 overall this season and will need to keep up that pace if it wants to secure a spot in the playoffs.
Without McGrady, who was averaging 15.6 points and 4.4 rebounds this season - far below his usual career numbers - the Rockets will need Yao Ming and Ron Artest to continue to be the focal points of the team and Shane Battier to become a bigger part of the offense.
It will be interesting to see if the Rockets can buck their losing trend without McGrady in the lineup. Houston is 33-52 in the 85 games McGrady has missed since 2004.
Either way, microfracture surgery is very serious, and the future of Tracy McGrady's career is definitely up in the air.
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