Yao should sit the next two weeks

Yup... I agree with you from this point. Your reason is very convincing. Actually what I really support is to give Yao some rest. If he can recover from the fatigued situation, that's what I hope. I think 4 games in 14 days should be OK. Let's see

 

Is Yao a paid NBA player? Is Yao younger than Francis? Does Yao play less minutes per game than Francis? Is Yao as important to the team as Francis?

A "vacation" for a professional athlete is ludicris. If he needs more rest, then eliminate the personal appearences and charity obligations and let him rest.

 

Yup.. I know your point. Rox only notched 28 wins last year..
But I think things is geting better this year. I believe Francis and Cat will not allow 4 losses in row, even w/o the help of Yao.

And I don't really mean to totally spare Yao. I think 20 mins/game for the next 4 games can greatly help him to recover from the fatigue....

 

Plus he fell to the floor more and more. He got knocked
down by opponents more easily.

 

I assume Rudy T and the coach team know what's the
best for the team and Yao as well. So I will leave this
to rest or not to rest thing to them.

Post-game Quote:

Yao: Look at his arms, and those legs. Doesn't he
look just like a spider? (comment on Garnett, and Garnett
take this as a compliment without misunderstanding."tell
him I'm a poisonous one". he said.)

Yao:It's really a long week. Back-to-back plays are really
exausting. And I have to deal with more media pressure than other rookies do. I'm so tired.

 

weight training.
learning english
practice.
Yao does more than any others
plus.. he play all year long
after CBA , world cup and NBA now

 

Thanks, GoWithTheWind22.


The Cat,

I am glad I got your attention. I am honored. I am not being sarcastic here. I hold the old BBS fans in high regard most of the times. You guys are knowledgeable basketball fans; I respect your opinions. (That is why you get a good amount of reaction from me this time. I was disappointed becaue I am used to seeing high standard posts from you guys.) That is why I don't post much. Most of the times, I say to myself: yeah, he has a better point.

BUT, this Yao Ming fatique thing is really a big concern to me sicne day 1. (Remember Ralph?) I am not going to pretend that I am a doctor of medicine. I am an engineer who studied lots of stress/strain on materials, as well as spending a good portion of my youth training soldiers in the army. So here is the story from my limited knowledge:


(1) Stress:

Steve's height is 1.91 m, Yao's is 2.26 meter. Suppose their bones are proportional to height. That makes Yao's bones' strength (2.26/1.91)^2=1.4 times of Steve's in a highly ideal case. (There is very a big IF here. Quite likely, Yao's bones are not so big. Then there is also the bone mass/density factor.) Yao's weight is 295 while Steve is 195. The weight ratio is 295/195=1.513. That means the stress on Yao's bones is 1.513/1.4 = 1.081 times of Steve's.

For most materials, the lifespan is inversly proportionaly the the square of the stress. That means Yao's load time can only be about 85.5% of Steve's, even when he is fully trained physically like Steve. So if at the limit, Steve can play 42 minutes a game for a NBA season, Yao can only play 36 minutes. Throw in Yao's off-season obligation with China, Yao should not play more than 32 minutes a game even when he is fully trained to NBA standard.

And I truely doubt if the coaches and teammates in the Chinese team will treasure Yao's health. While 1.4 billion Chinese love Yao like crazy, the Chinese national team will be an exception. Unllike Rudy, China' coaches need short term success to retain their positions. I am sure that every coach in the Chinese national team will use Yao as much as possible. Rockets are the only team that wil treasure his health. Yao's future depends on the Rockets and belongs to the Rockets.

(Ok, for completeness sake, let me add this: Steve jumps higher, so the stress is greater. However, since he probably has quicker reflex than Yao, he probably has better body coordination to absorb the shock.)


(2) Fatique-induced injury:

I am not sure if there is a similar medical term. In the army, we are very cautious with this type of injuries. That is why all of our physical training programs are cyclic/seasonal.

There are 2 types of injuries a layman like me would consider as fatique-induced:

(A) Body under prolonged stresss:

As illustrated by the previous long winded calculation and description of Yao-vs-Steve, have you seen the rocks under a water fall? A rock can be penetrated by water over a prolonged period of time. Load time is a big factor to injuries. (Another example is a spring. Even under the recommended load limit, prolonged load time can make it lose its elasticity.)

(B) Improper posture due to fatique:

For example, when you are very tired, you don't land as properly after a jump as when you are fresh. (We are supposed to land with the ankle/knee/waist all absorbing part of the shock.)

I was quite active in sports when I was a teenager. When I was exhausted, I did not carry out a motion properly, with every joint/muscle doing their proper share of work. I twisted my ankles severely in a basketball game because of this. I landed toe first on another guy's foot. If I were fresh, I could have reacted quick enough and had enough muscle strength to adjust my posture in time. Instead, my ankle did not flex fast and my knee did not bend as desired. I twisted my ankle hard. That is how fatique can cause severe injuries.

In one of the army training programs, soldiers have to jump down from a wall. When they get tired after a long run, they land with most of the shocked abosrbed by the spine because they don't bend their knees properly. That is the most damaging exercise and I was not willing to ask my men to carry that out too often.

We had many stress/fatique-induced fractures. In fresh condition, most of us can carry 200 pounds of load and run. More than once, we had to call helicopters in to carry away injured soldiers who broke some part of their body (usually leg bones) because it was done after a few days of training in the wild. And trust me, we had done our best to avoid these types injuries, because such injuries made us lose a soldier forever. (Not that he will die, just that there is a high chance that he won't be qualified to be one of us anymore in his life time.) The training was not that tough actually, except that we did not sleep well and tended to get lazy muscles and bones.

I am sure if Barkeley had as good a stamina as he had in the 80s, his career-ending injury would not have happened a few years ago.


So now you ask me, don't I think that Rockets' trainers know all these? Yes. they do. But they cannot always tell, just like I could not tell in the army, when a guy's bones are going to get fractured or broken. That is not really a gradual process which you can observe well, unless you want to have weekly X-rays. Furthermore, I had the full autonomy to stop a training, while the Rocket's trainer have to consult Rudy and a whole bunch of people. Not to mention that the whole coaches/trainers/doctor combo is under fan and management pressure to let Yao play.

Why do you think the Magic and some specific teams always have injured superstars? I don't blame their team doctors. Most doctors are not that bad, but I do think there is a good chance that their trainers just don't have the guts/authority to tell the coach: hey, stop using this guy.

Thank you for reading.

 

Hey, I am sorry for getting so long winded here. Just one more thing to add:

Many of us know that we need 48 hours to "fully recover" from a vigorous exercise. However, this "recovery" refers to the metalbolic recovery, not the growth of bone mass and and muscle mass, which takes a longer time. That is part of the reason why cyclic trainging is used, instead of making a man tired like hell every 48 hours, as in the NBA situation.

(I hope I did not make too many mistakes in the last 2 posts.)

 

Okay first of all........why do NBA players to get paid? TO PLAY! I mean who wants to pay a player to not help us win ball games. If the fans ever want Yao to be a great player then they have to let him struggle through adversity. He's has to stop being babied and let loose. Isn't it obvious that he likes being on the court and playing, it seems to me like he lenjoys making a difference in games. We're not hot stuff yet so we don't have any reason to "throwaway" games, and by having Yao rest thats exactly whats we'd be doing.

 

Not trying to be expert here, you guys are, but I want to say one thing, and that is, more rest doesn't mean no game. In fact more rest should mean less practice.

Remember what Iverson said: 'Practice? Are you talking about Practice?' A 3 hour practice could be as exhausting as playing half a game non-stop, assuming that you finish all the requirement. So, if you skip 1 day of practice (could be as much as two 3-hour practices), you basically skip a game. What I want to say is, Yao could participate less in practices or even skip some practices to gain stigma back. Of course that would slower his development, but that's a tradeoff you have to make. Skipping games should never be considered because winning is always the most important thing in sports.

Just my 2 cents.

 

i do not think yao should sit the next two weeks.yao is a nba player,although he is a rookie.it is absurd that the player who feels tired should go out of match.yao is not a dastard!he will come up .
btw,we don't care what he will play if he is really tired

 

To me that IS rest.

Playing hard 35 minutes every three days should not be considered overworking Yao.

Not playing at all during 2 weeks is a bad idea. He would get cold and the Rockets will need him to win. He needs to stay involved. I'm sure if we were able to blow out a team or two, then he could play less minutes.

I can't believe you would rather go 2-2 and have him rest, then win 4 straight games...especially given how tight the West is from 3rd to 8th seed...

 

thats my point exactly. he hasnt even been able to acclimate himself to a totally new culture and lifestyle. he needs to go to the st. james. they would love him there!
unfortuanately, the reality is that the rockets really cant afford to let ming have time off. he is way too valuable to the team. a reduction in minutes will have to happen to save him for the duration of the season.

 

I'm surprised this hasn't been brought up yet, or maybe it has and I just missed it. If Yao were to rest, do you know how much respect he would lose among his NBA peers? The answer is probably a lot. You can talk about the special circumstances of Yao all you want, but do you think other players would care? There are lots of guys who play in pain and through injury all the time. You think those guys don't want to rest too? I'm sorry but to even suggest Yao should rest is crazy because he would instantly damage his image and lose the respect of all his NBA peers. The fact is, professional athletes do not rest or sit out of games unless there is an injury.

To take a couple of examples, Tracy Mcgrady shouldn't really be playing with all the back pain he suffers and he himself says he plays in pain. Yet, he goes out and plays as much as his back will allow him. Also look at Kevin Garnett. He leads his team in points, rebounds and assists. You don't think he is tired? Imagine he came out and said he would take the next two days off. He already gets ripped for the wolves not getting out of the first round, imagine the reaction that would bring.

 

can't edit post, the garnett thing should say two weeks off, not two days.

 

I might be wrong. But it's my understanding that the CBA schedule is much lighter than the NBA. So to say that Yao has worked harder (played more basketball) in the past two years than a typical NBA player (especially if he plays on a team who went deep into the playoffs) is probably not true.

In fact, it is probably the opposite. Maybe the problem with Yao's fatique is due to him not being worked hard enough during his CBA days. That is, he is not use to the kind of vigor required for the NBA. So giving him back a lighter schedule is not likely to help him much.

Just my speculation. I'd leave it up to the professional training staff of the Rockets to deal with this issue.

 

Easy good point here! Even though Yao has been playing constant for the past two years, I think the intensity of those games do not match a regular NBA season. He is very young, 22 years old. Playing on the court is the best way to improve his stamina. Yes, back-to-back games make him tired. But I think it has more to do with his lack of stamina than the wear-and-tear he had. Sitting him out for 2 weeks would be a bad idea.

 

"You can't just judge one person by the standards of others. Just because a certain player is tired doesn't mean Yao will be. If it comes to the point where it affects his play, or if Yao says fatigue is an issue to the coaches, then is the time to think about giving him a rest. "


I agree with this..