Can that old offense still be run with the zone in place?? Even if it might get boring, I think giving Yao the ball on the low block EVERY possession is the way to go. The guy's 7'5 with amazing shooting touch, EVERY shot for him is higher percentage than any are for our perimeter players. He is the rare player whose shot efficiency should not dip with increased shot prolificity. When defenses collapse on him with double teams, Yao has that amazing Sabonis-esque court sense and passing ability to find the open man. Hack-a-Ming? That doesn't work with his abnormally good free throw shooting for a big man. Why wouldn't Rudy want to re-institute this old favorite offense of his. Shouldn't the current personnel be able to execute this offense effectively? The key is surrounding Ming with players who can hit the open shot. I also believe Mo Taylor becomes more valuable in his back-up role, because he can step in and command a double-team on the low block as he did last year. This is the year I believe Francis should hand over his Go-To Guy duties to Ming. It might be difficult, but it's been done before - look at Michael Finley. Francis can do alot more for the team and gain more respect from them if he focused on being a smart, disciplined Floor General, creating for his teammates when needed, finding the open man, running the break, consistently making good decisions. Would this really be out of his abilities??
IMHO Yao isn't as good as Hakeem was. Hakeem could score on every posesion. Yao can't. i do not mind if Yao takes more shots, even become our first option, but i do not believe in the 94 offense. Steve is a great offensive player we should take advantage of that
That offense was really about floor spacing, drawing a double (or triple) team, and hitting the open man. With the zone in place, I don't think you can't really get the floor spacing you need ... well, not for every play anyway. If we recognize a man-to-man defense, we definitely should feed the post ... and then not isolate him. Otherwise, I like the idea of leaving the ball in the hands of the point guard and/or someone who can break down the zone either with penetration or passing. One of Francis' problems last year is he tried to break the zone with penetration even when he was doubled.
yea . . it was the Seattle zone that was the Rocket's undoing in the olden days Also . . .we don't have the shooters we had then Rocket River
Yao is and will be very good. But there will never be another Hakeem. That was Hakeems team and Hakeems offense. I don't think Yao could handle the beating night in and night out like Dream did.
I don't think fans will be fully satisified until the Rockets go back to the 94-95 offense. No matter how many touches he gets, fans will want more...
That's definitely true for some fans. I went to a game vs. Sacramento where we killed them from the start, and yet there was some "fan" behind me complaining the whole game about Yao's lack of playing time & touches.
We do run the 94 offense still. However, Yao isn't as good as Hakeem, and Zones are legal to stop it now, so it fails. You know those plays near the end of the season that we started relying on, toss the ball to Yao on the left low block, have moochie run under the basket, then everybody else stands around watching Yao be unable to back down his man and settle for a contested turnaround fadeaway? THat was it. Not pretty.
The thing is, if you didn't double Hakeem, it was 2 pts. Everey team had to double Hakeem and even in his younger days it didn't matter. I remember dream hittin those fade-aways against triple teams in the early 90's when he didn't trust his teammates. I can't really seeing Ming being like that.
I can see Ming being like that. Yao can be unblockable because he has six inches on everyone. Dream couldn't make that fadeaway early in his career like he could at the end. So Yao may still be as dominant as we would all like him to be.
Umm, actually Francis's MAIN talent is scoring. So you either use him for scoring purposes, or trade him....
