Let Yao rest another year or at most just here and there a bit this year. Tank city and we will be back next year. With another year of rest Yao might actually become a Hall of Famer. Resign him to a reduced base contract with major incentive clauses for games played etc. Think of how Bill Walton's career was largely ruined by rushing back repeatedly too soon from major injuries. Only a couple of years of rest salvaged a bit at the end. Rocket fans can take one more year of mediocrity, but not 10 more years.
We have now entered the realm of the absurd. If Yao needs this much time to recover from an injury that the Rockets indicated was nothing terribly serious, how much time would he need to recover from something more severe? Wait, don't answer that.
What good is it having a jaguar if you can't even take the thing out of town? I'm the resident hater, Yao is done! Not next year, not 2 yrs from now, now. How can any franchise build anything with the highest paid player up and down,in and out of the lineup? Yall can fool around and wish the guy luck, but he's done. Bone bruise will turn out to be something even more serious and thats a fact. Playing 24 stinking minutes, gets hurt and have been out a month, but the faithful said when he gets healthy. Wasnt he out for over a year to get healthy? Yeah, whatever. Its a wrap folks, get over it.
I was willing to give Yao one more chance, but this recent garbage is getting ridiculous. We all love Yao and I'm sure we would all agree that the ideal scenario would be for Yao to fully recover and play out the rest of his career injury free, but how realistic is that? Hate to say it, but if doesn't take a significant pay cut to resign with the rox, than it is time to part ways.
This is the problem, even signing him to be a backup. You can't count on him. It's not his fault...but you just can't. We tried limited minutes and he still got hurt...with an indefinite timetable for return. This is nothing new....it's old news. We've seen enough to know this guy can't stay healthy. If he wants to play ball, I'd prefer he play it for someone else and not take up any space on the Rockets roster/payroll. That's not because I believe he's a bad player when he's healthy...I think he's a very good player when healthy...but it's because he's so rarely healthy, and I don't think that's going to get any better as he continues to age. Another problem is...he doesn't exactly fit the "big man, roleplayer" mold. He isn't quick enough to be too impactful defensively. He's not a big shotblocker. This isn't a Mutombo situation, where he spent the latter years of his career focusing almost entirely on the defensive side of the ball and rebounding. Yao's an efficient scorer and because of that they look to him when he's on the court...he becomes the focal point of the offense because of who he has been in his career. I don't think you can expect a guy like that to just fit in as a roleplayer. That jacks with chemistry. It's difficult to be a different team over and over again during a game. I feel like we've learned that lesson already. But even if I felt differently...and felt we could make that work....the man simply can't stay healthy.
Did he get injured when Mcgee ran into him @ the Wizards game??? Or was this injury from other times he played??? What I remembered it look like Mcgee ran into him with his knee into the thigh area...
that was the event that caused the injury, yes. remember that night...there was confusion about what got injured. feigen kept tweeting it was a leg injury. immediately after the game, worrell called it a foot injury. then Yao said ankle in a post-game interview. i don't think it was just the knee in the thigh...i think it might have been the fall....what happened to his ankle during the fall. that kind of thing. but i certainly don't know that.
If he is in and out of the lineup throughout the rest of the year, for extended periods of time, then you might be right. It would probably be best to cut ties. But if he comes back next week, and stays relatively healthy the rest of the year, leading to some level of success in the playoffs, we should sign him. No one is talking about "the highest salary on the team" or "a franchise building around him" besides leebigez. It would be to a reduced salary and role(and reliance), of course. This is his first year back from a major injury, so I am inclined to give him a little more rope than his first setback. I don't think Ilgauskas came back and played 82 games right away either. Either way the ball is really out of our, and the Rocket's, court. How it plays out will all depend on how Yao pro(re)gresses from here on out. If you think about it, in a way that is some relief.
Ilgauskus wasn't over 7'5" either. Injuries have been the story of the careers of every player playing at Yao's size.
