[San Antonio Express News] Yao is biggest reason to pick Rockets

Jeff, I am a huge fan of yours, but lighten up dude!

This concerns me. I though it was a couple of months and we will see. At Sura's age, a season ending injury has a high probability of being a career ending injury.

Maybe the writter got this injury report from the afore mentioned Mr. Sunshine, JVG.

 

Good read.

Macfan, I understand that you disagree with some of what the Chronicle writers say, but that doesn't mean that they are not 'decent' articles just because they don't put a positive spin on things all the time. Would you rather have homers or some objectivity?

 

I thought I heard the Rocket's color commentators mention in the Jazz game or Hornets game that the Rockets expect Sura to return in January.

 

Did you think the Rockets were a good passing team to start the season last year? It seems like whining about what JVG says is the trendy thing to do this year.

 

"we may have been the worst passing team in the history of the NBA, just awful"

Reminds me of something Bill Walton would say... "That was quite possibly the worst inbounds pass in Golden State franchise history."

 

That's a good article. The whole time I was reading it I was thinking, 'It's easy to say nice things about everyone when you are the king of the hill.'

Let's see what they say after we beat them in the WCF...

 

I think this might be a worst case scenario.

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by macfan
Van Gundy said.— and at the start of last season, we may have been the worst passing team in the history of the NBA, just awful"

We were horrible at passing at the start of the season. Tyron Lue was horrrrrrible, and Jim Jackson was a walking turnover. We started winning when those 2 guys were shipped out and our offense was so much smoother. I like JJ alot but he didn't fit in.

 

I remember last year that when tmac and yao would do the pic and roll and tmac would throw a crisp pass in there, that yao would just have trouble hanging onto the ball. With Rafer, these crisp passes could be even more of a problem for YAO.

I hope YAO worked on his hands in the offseason.

 

I'm pretty sure this is an AP report, 'cause I've read it before. And not from the San Antonio Express News. I think it was a nat'l publication. Or maybe it was a Chronicle report and the quotes/analysis were kinda lifted from it. Not sure, but I'm 100% I've seen this before.

 

It's not lifted from anywhere per se. It's just that JVG blew up with these quotes at a press conference or conference call that all these reporters happened to be at, so they are all running variations of the same story. I've heard these JVG quotes defending Yao from the SF paper, USA today, and SA. I'm sure there are others that I'm forgetting.

 

Any particular reason you choose to put Yao's name in caps? I saw more than a few of wrap-around passes from T-Mac in the Mav's series at Yao's knees, and he fumbled a couple in crucial situations.

We obviously need a different 7'6 guy.

I've never seen a coach, scouting report or NBA-pundit-dweeb that has said Yao has anything but good hands. The beauty of the T-Mac/Yao combo is that they both figured something out very late in the season last year and they are still very much a work in progress (pretty much like the whole team is).

Crisp passes? Well, Yao's definitely fumbled many, but his teammates still are trying to appreciate what his eye-level is and what is clear to his teammates (and camera angles) is not the view Yao has. Additionally almost evryone who follows the NBA thinks Yao's had a dirth of crisp passes thrown his way in the last 3 years.

That's what disturbed me most watching Sura run the point last year. He'd throw a "great" pass and seemed to suddenly start ignoring Yao if it resulted in a turnover. I've said it before, but I thought James got Yao the ball much better than Sura when he chose to do so.

Alston and DA are more likely to figure out what a great (or crisp) pass is to Yao than any guards Yao has ever played with. T-Mac and Yao, well I hope they watch a lot of film together and are brutally honest with each other.

I can't wait to see T-Mac and Yao run the p'n'r to death because I think they're only going to get better at it.

 

Sorry. I wanted to bump this old thread because Yao's hands look worse this year than last so my concern was warranted.

 

Yao is Yao, he's a constant and doesn't change/improve much, he's more or less reached his potential given his exteme physical limitations.

Everyone might as well get used to it...

 

Yes, and from day one I have maintained that he can only improve his stamina so much, and this season is about as good as his stamina will ever get, so as you said it's inherent and not really something he has much control over. If Yao was 7'0" instead of 7'6", we would've been already comparing him to the all-time greats, because his skill-set is just amazing. The one thing, however, that will always hold him back from greatness is one factor: lack of speed/quickness. Just imagine Olajuwon without that athletic ability/quickness, and now you see what I mean. Even Shaq, for a man his size, has unbelievable quickness, and was quicker in most instances than his smaller opponents (that's why Shaq is just a freak that won't likely be seen again in our lifetimes).

Precisely. As I have mentioned in other threads, the only question/challenge that remains for this team is how to cover-up those weaknesses and prevent opponents from exposing/exploiting them.

Good post.

 

From watching this year's team, it seems like TMac is the only perimeter player we have that can run the pick and roll. I haven't seen one since he's been out.

 

I think head and swift did a PnR couple times. those two,seem to be in great sync with one another

 

Head is a quick shooter who can score, I would definitely like to see more picks set for him, with clear instructions to take the shot.

We need to develop a third scoring option out there, and Head seems to be the one player most capable of doing that on the current roster, so it makes sense.