Just when you thought that you could write off the Houston Rockets, we give a performance that shakes up the basketball world. Less than 24 hours after hearing our best player and leader, Yao Ming, will miss the rest of the playoffs with a foot fracture, most people did not think that we had a chance to even win another game in this series. The Lakers beat us handily in game 3 and without Yao, the chances of success were slim. People who did not really follow our team had already made up their minds on how this team would react. Those people don't know our team. We are a team of fighters, who don't like to be told that they can't win because of adversity. I am as proud of this win today as I have ever been of a win in my professional career. There is no question that the Lakers are more talented than us, they are bigger and more athletic. For us, those facts do not mean much other than the fact that we know we have to compete harder and be more of a team to make up for our lack of talent and athletic shortcomings. I don't know how many teams would have responded like we did today. When we looked over on the bench today, there was over 40 million dollars of salary in street clothes between Dikembe, Tracy, and Yao. You could not find another team in the entire league that could lose that much and still be competitive and take down one of the best teams in the NBA. No way. I was happy to be able to finally hit some three pointers to help my team win. The best way to make up for the absence of Yao is to shoot more three pointers, if it takes 40 three pointers, then we will shoot 40 three pointers (you don't need to twist my arm!). I don't know if we can win this series, the Lakers are very good, but I do know that we'll compete to the final buzzer and that will give us a chance at least. With a team like we have, all we want is a chance, no matter how small it may be. Go Rockets, Shane Link We definitely improved this team by a lot of good players. It was good win for us. A lot of people did not expect we come out and play hard because Yao was out. But we still have a lot of good players on our team, trying to play unbelievable game, defense and get rebounds. Brooks is amazing, he shots any possible way. Shane was amazing too on both ends. We are trying to keep going that way and the same way. Now it is 3-game series and we gonna be ready and this is really fun. We were 4-0 on Lakers when we did not have Yao, which means a lot to us. We always want to play with Yao because he is out best players. But we could change that since he is not playing. We should play the way that comes to us more. We run the small lineup and we can use that for a few things to become a better team without Yao. They are quickness and personality. scola Link
I believe the blog is genuine but it just doesn't sound like what Shane would have said. He's too classy to say something like that. It sounds like he's mocking Yao and TMac for not playing while receiving huge sum of salary. Well maybe it's just me.
Great read. Shane sounds really happy and proud of this win, and he really should be. This team's toughness and work ethic is really something special.
i dont think thats the case.. i think he was simply trying to find a creative way to express how much talent we were missing despite winning
I agree with this. They've been written off the whole year due to losing players, and there is no doubt they are aware of the talk related to that. Even someone like Shane is going to resent it.
That's how I read it too. Basically saying we have two of our main guys, our leaders, our top players out of the lineup, as well as the Cookie Monster, and we still topped the Lakers. I don't think he was having a dig at Yao or Dikembe, not even T-Mac either.
On the salary aspect from game 4. Kobe's salary is more than that of our starting 5 combined(Gasols isn't far off either).
You obviously do not speak English. Shane describes perfectly how much value we have lost and how in spite of that we never say die.
I think Shane's salary comment is genuine, because it's not the first time he used it. Before, he would say 'we have $20 mil (Tracy) on the bench'. Now it's forty. What if the Celtics lost KG AND Ray Allen? What if the Lakers lost Kobe AND Gasol? What if the Nuggets lost Carmelo and Billups? Etc etc.
Shane is such a great dude. And I didn't feel that he was taking jabs at all. As others have said, it was just his way of illustrating that, yeah, we were always the underdogs in this series, but with 40 million on the bench, look at what we can still do!
Gosh!!! I hated Shane when he was with DUKE and I was a Terrapiin, but man he is our unsung hero and I love this guy!!
For all this time people have wondered who was the leader of this team. Rafer ? Tracy ? Yao ? Rafer was always the guy on the floor leading the team and Deke has for 5 years been the veteran leader but we've never had a leader in the whole sense of the word. I think Shane can definetly be a leader and should lead us. He's a guy doing all the dirty work, guarding the best player, always talks on defense, studies his ass off so let's hope he can keep it up !!! Shane for Gay and Swift: One of the best trades in Rockets history, the guy needs to retire here.
