Do you consider Yao Ming to be in the top five greatest Rockets?

Maybe he has said that but I have never heard it. I just remember with Ralph he just wasn't the same after he fell in Boston. Yao still looks the same, maybe just not as agile because of the weight he has gained since he was a rookie.

 

So you think he was the same guy as he was in 2006 when he came back from stress fracture in 2008? I don't really.

 

Agree with you. He wasn't quick to start with so it's harder to notice, but when comparing videos of past years side by side, he has gotten slower and sloooower each season.

 

Top five? No. As much as I like the big guy, he isn't up there. Now, in a top ten Rockets list, I can see him being near the bottom. Not only has he been the face of our franchise for quite some time and been a multiple all-star and one of the best centers in the league, he's also done a lot for the community and brought the Rockets to the Chinese audience.

 

that b!tch always spell wrong cause it's typical dachuda86.

 

Definitely top 10. He is #6 in pts and reb and #2 in blks and roughly tied for #3 for FG %.

He is somewhere around 4-8 in my opinion.

 

The top 5 that I personally have gotten to watch....

1. Hakeem
2. Clyde
3. Tmac (I except the endless amount of crap I'll take for this) :grin:
4. Yao
5. Kenny/Mario/horry

 

Of course we do, that's T-Mac's dad.....right?

 

1. Hakeem
2. Clyde
3. Moses
4. Murph
5. Rudy/Ralph

No Yao yet.

 

He is the most famous/popular rocket ever.

 

I remember reading this article before; I think their franchise team shows top 5 positions pretty well.

Top 5 Rockets Player

 

Naw man... the Yao Ming era has been a big disappointment. I wouldn't put him in the top five. He's about on the same level as Steve Francis.

 

Terrible question because its obvious he is not. Never finished a full season. Injury prone. Like the guy and he is good when healthy but no way top 5.

 

He finished full seasons his first three years, until '05.

But yeah, it's been FIVE f'n years.

 

Four of the top five Rockets of all time includes

Hakeem
Murphy
Rudy T
Moses

Those IMO are locks and pretty much impossible to argue against. Calvin and Rudy were Rockets lifers, had long illustrious careers here. Plus both have all the intangibles: Rudy as a coach and Murphy as our 5-10 intimidator/color commentator. Moses was simply too dominant and awesome, even if he didn't have a Hakeem-like long career here.

The 5th spot is much more debatable. But I have to give it to Yao in a slight edge over Sampson. Sampson had the better peak team-wise(86 finals), but lesser overall body of work. Drexler had a great 2.5 seasons, but he was really a Blazer and truly gave them his best years. Hayes was only here for 4 seasons, and quite frankly, was basically our T-Mac in the 70s. And I don't even know where to begin with people mentioning our championship roster after Hakeem/Clyde. By their logic, Yao's biggest deficiency is that he didn't play for the Rockets in the mid-90s and create a possible dynasty with Hakeem as Twin Towers.

To me, Yao makes the top 5(as #5) for similar reasons as Rudy and Calvin. Because he's a Rockets lifer who gave his career to us. I know you'll never see tinman making gazillion posts about how awesome Yao is, and generally older posters will only look at his deficiencies compared to our 80s/90s rosters, but the guy really was our workhorse who did his best to help us win.

Then again, I like to think of our best players as Rockets lifers. So sentimentality definitely factors in.

 

If Yao leads the team to a championship he could crack the top 5.
Without that, there are too many legends ahead of him.

Yao has the potential to do it.
We will see.

 

If Yao leads the team to a title, he immediately goes to number two.

If he even leads them on a deep playoff run, he moves to number 5.

The Rockets really don't have a large selection. When you just go through the teams individual best players, only a few names pop out. And during the title years Dream and Clyde were the only players I would call an All Star level player. Yao hasn't led us anywhere but he's clearly better than all of the other title players.(Maybe OT, he was pretty good)

It depends on how much you equate the titles with place in history. If titles are the only thing that matters when judging how good a player is, than Eric Riley and Pete Chilcutt were better rockets.

 

In terms of basketball, Yao is not a top five Rocket. What has he done?

In terms of promoting NBA basketball to the world, he's probably borderline top five.

 

I put Haynes over Rudy T, and possibly Yao at 6th spot, if he can get us a championship. If not, he doesn't crack the top 5. Hype and popularity is that going to work in this post. We should have a another thread for top 5 injury prone great Rockets players. Yao, Sampson, ....

 

No way. Unless we get back to back titles, He's not cracking the top 3.
The Dream - no doubts here.
Moses - top 7 centers of all time
Murphy - HOF Houston guard (career)