Let me simply say this, Yao Ming hasn't played a full season in over HALF A DECADE. It is crazy if you think that he is going to somehow improve past the age of 30 and magically stay healthy. The guy is one of the most injury prone players the game has ever seen. Its cool to be optimistic but the odds are stacked against Yao. And "fluke" injuries or not Yao is always injured and very unreliable. I don't see how people still can go with the Yao experiment after is has drained this team of nearly the past 10 years. We need to get younger and less injury prone. Yao is the complete opposite.
Over the years, things change.....in general you have a lot more negative comments from forums, comments in articles. Just a trend I am noticing. Hell, just browse these forums...
Your post relies on the theoretical scenario in which Yao does play 36 minutes. But he doesn't since he plays 23mpg so therefore, he is not at full strength.
My post explicitly states that he's NOT at full strength. He's still got a ways to go before his conditioning and confidence with the new foot structure are at 100%. The point of my post was to rebut all those people saying that he's a lesser player since his return. He's not -- he's just as good offensively as he was before.
If he was as good offensively as he was before he would have enough endurance to play 30+ minutes, not take 10 seconds to run down the court and have the team wait for him to set up the offense, and not be near as slow. He is nowhere close to being as good offensively as he used to be. A lot more to look at beyond stats. By just watching the games you can see his problems.
He is not done compeletly. I'm confident that he dcan still be a 15-7-1 block TYPE PLAYER, but as a franchise player he is done.
The key is to sign Yao to a small contract, that way the Rockets won't feel "obliged" to build around him. Who cares if he is not playing if he is only costing us what JJ makes.
This. Yao isn't losing his skills....he's losing his body. 1st reply in the thread answered it all...
So Yao was able to play a grand total of 90 minutes this season before he got injured, posting career lows for field goal percentage and fouling at 1.5x his normal rate, and you think he's still the same player? LOL
You know why he is fouling at a higher rate? It's cause he is limited to 24 MINUTES and doesn't have to worry about fouls like before. Do I need to make a graph for you too see? And I thought a statistical genius would know something like that... BTW, his block %tage is also up because he doesn't have to worry about fouls.
Also he might be shooting a career low percentage at 49% but that can happen if you miss more than a year off from a career threating injury. Plus 49% isn't bad if look at guys like Tim Duncan or Griffin who are shooting a similar percentage from the field.
With big men its not just about numbers, franchise big men not just post up amazing production but they also have good intangibles, namely on D and in help rebounding. Yao Ming anchored the D and helped increase the rebounding rate of his teammates when he was fully healthy, its part of what made him special. Clearly this "intangible" part of his game is missing this season, so even if you extrapolate his numbers you should be able to tell Yao Ming just isn't the same. Also the problem with extrapolating is you tend to ignore the reality in front of you. Although the rate of production may be the same, Yao at 18 mins is infinitely less useful than Yao at 36 mins.
I was never trying to claim that he's been nearly as useful to the team as in years past. I'm just trying to set straight those that say he's "done." When you have a talent like this, you don't give him FIVE games back after a year off, then proclaim him useless -- you give him time to get back in shape and see what kind of minutes he can give you. And unlike certain superstar ex-Rockets, you can always count on Yao to rehab diligently. Is this latest injury (the ankle sprain) just a fluke -- maybe caused by him still not being 100% comfortable with playing normally on his newly reconstructed foot -- or is it a sign that he's no longer able to give us any meaningful minutes without breaking down? Nobody knows, but with a big man this skilled, you certainly give him more than five games to find out before you relegate him to has-been status. Talents like Yao don't come along that often.
IIRC the Rockets said the latest sprain was the kind of minor injury they expect when a player is coming off a major surgery and is getting used to playing again. They might just have been trying to sound optimistic, but it sounded like it was just part of the process of returning to full strength.
Yao is like that 94 jaguar xj. Looks great,very unique, and a great driving vehicle,but the amount of times its in the shop and the money spent just aint worth it. I dont think yao is done, but he's done from being anything higher than a 3rd option. When he gets backs, if he just plays defense and stick open jimmy's, the team would be better off.
