You played in your fantasy league and you didn't pay attention to his injury status? No wonder you were so frustrated. It must have been confusing to have Duncan sit out from injury, and not even knowing that he was injured.
Do you really think Yao can bring a Championship to Houston next year??? If so How??? Please explain that to me?? If he could not do when he was ahlf way healty, how will he be abel to do it after coming off of a major surgery??? The Rockets and Yao need to move forward, it was a great run but it's over... I love what Phoenix did... They got 2 young centers that concentrate on 2 things and 2 things only.... Rebounding and Defense.. and that's what Houston needs from their center spot... They need a taller Chuck Hayes or younger Deke.
Yeah, it would be all worth it. Financial hit? OKC has the same revenue as us in a smaller market. Rockets take a financial hit every year Yao goes down. If the Rockets get a lottery talent that can play 82 games, they will sell more tickets. If the Rockets got John Wall or Demarcus Cousins, sales will increase.
i agree, what we should try resting him as much as possible, when the timing is oportune. for instance, don't play him many fourth quarters when we are up big. he should never be in the game when we are up by double digits, we could shave alot of minutes over the season if we are just conscious of his pt. he is going to have to play 4th quarters or he wont be clutch come the end of the season, but he doesn't need to play 35+ min a night, i say 20 minutes a night for the first month of the season, i really don't want to see him get hurt again and i want him to be able to work his way into his old form.
Well if he was hurt fine I'm ok with being wrong, but I remember reading multiple occasions, Duncan will likely sit out tonight to rest up for the playoffs. I'm still sticking to the point that I think it would be good for Yao to skip some games, whether or not Duncan doesn't make me believe otherwise for Yao.
You're confusing me. Of course the goal is the championship, not a 2nd round showing. You explicitly said in your previous post that even with Yao, we would not be able to beat the Lakers. Assuming the Lakers don't get ousted by another team, the Lakers are probably a team we will face sometime during our road to the championship, if we were to win it. The topic was preserving Yao by limiting minutes and/or sitting out certain games to have a healthy Yao to make a run in the playoffs. Am I saying having a healthy Yao in the playoffs will guarantee a championship? No. Am I saying having a healthy Yao in the playoffs will help our chances? Yes. I was asking your proposal concerning Yao. Should we or should we not rest him? All you've said so far is that having Yao will not help us against the Lakers. All I've gotten from your plan so far is to acquire an elite level talent in the offseason, which is very unlikely.
You are butchering the English language. Also, you don't need to put 3 of every punctuation mark, one will do just fine. I'm not saying Yao guarantees us a championship. I think we have a better chance of winning with Yao on the floor rather than on the bench, like you are saying. I agree with you that Yao was not helping us halfway healthy, which is why I believe we should make him sit out a few games and reduce minutes here and there so we have a healthy Yao for a push in the playoffs. I'm sorry, did you just use Phoenix and defense in the same sentence? Phoenix allows the 3rd most PPG in the league. In other words, they don't play defense. As entertaining as Phoenix is, their system is not something we should try to mimic. It does not win championships.
Actually, let's do some research. I'm not taking sides here, because honestly I can't remember exactly how much/little Duncan played near playoff time. The last couple years are iffy. Sometimes Duncan sits out, plays reduced minutes or plays normal minutes. It's hard to say because the Western conference is usually competitive until the last day, which means Duncan gets played because the Spurs need to win. Let's look at the last time the Spurs won the championship (the 2006-2007 season). Duncan did sit out the last two games against the Grizzlies and Nuggets. I'm too lazy to post everything I find in here, but there is sufficient evidence, including multiple games that explicitly state Duncan sitting out to rest for the playoffs, that the Spurs reduce minutes for Duncan near playoff time.
They should work him in for the first 10 games with 7 min/game. /sarcasm I would limit his minutes to somewhere between 25-30. (An example of this would be Luis Scola's minutes before the trade) Then, of course, you would increase that during playoffs/big games late in the season. This was supposedly the "plan" last year, but he ended up playing 35 min/game which is too much IMO.
That's completely different than resting Duncan for 20 games. I remember when that happened. The Spurs were shooting for homecourt advantage in the 2nd round over Phoeniix, but lost against the Mavericks. once they lost to the Mavericks, there was no point in winning the last 2 games so they rested the starters. http://espn.go.com/nba/standings/_/year/2007/group/2 The Rockets situation was completely different. In 2005-06, Yao was injured after the 22nd game of the season on December 17th. http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/m/mingya01/gamelog/2006/ In 2006-07, Yao was injured after the 27th game of the season on December 23rd. In 2008-09, Yao was injured after the 55th game of the season, before getting injured. Yao is getting injured way before the playoffs. Sitting him in the 81st and 82nd game wouldn't have stopped the injuries earlier in the season.
They were supposed to have T-Mac, Yao, and Artest to spread the heavy lifting around. When T-Mac went down, it was just Yao and Artest. I think that may have had something to do with it.
for one, Duncan got good supportive casts around him. Even if Duncan would miss 20 games, spurs still got enough players than can fill in. Parker and Manu which each can take over the game and dominate. Who do we have? Tmac? artest? (in the pass) Hopefully next year with KM, who i think should be same level as Manu. AB hopefully he could be the next Parker.
The rockets will not be able to beat the lakers,jazz,nuggets,or mavs within the next 3 yrs without a major trade. As long as yao is on the team, they will never be able to beat utah in 7 games, but thats not just his fault. As long as kobe and dirk are still playing at mvp levels which it seems they will in the next 2 yrs or so, throw them out the window also. Carmello is always the best player on the court when the rockets play and its arguable that chauncey is probably next. Throw in the up and coming ok city and portland squad and the rockets sit right in the middle of not being good enough to win it with a aging,broken down all star. What do i suggest? If Tracy can bring back the compensation we got, yao can bring back more. I don't get this 4 or 5 yr plan that people complain ablout. I would rather have a young and emerging team able to compete against the ok city,portland,cavs,and magic teams in 3-4 yrs vs the chances they have now. Think about how quickly the magic,jazz,nuggets,and teams like that have turned around through the draft and trades. Howard was the top pick in 04 and 4 yrs later they're in the finals. Portland drafted roy in 06 and look where they are and their window. I can go on and on, but at its better to bottom out and start over again. Keep and trade for guy who will peak at the same time and make a serious run vs this mythical,minute limited, run based on the highest paid player playing 20 minutes a night. I've sat through and still followed in the bad years, soit doesn't matter to me.
Because basketball is not a one man sports? Yao never has the support that he will be next year, if he is half healthy, he can go deep in playoff no problem. Thanks to DM's awesome trades and picks, the team is getting better year by year to the point that we are still in playoff hunt without all of our star players. Now we get KM who is much better compliment than T-Mac, things are only going to be greater next year, even if Yao cannot come back 100% yet. If Jordan, Duncan, Kobe, Shaq, etc never could have won it all by themselves, why would you expect Yao to do so? Double standard much? There.
On the one hand a lot of Yao's injuries prior to this one were flukes. Infected toe due to improper cuticle trimming? Not exactly a stress injury. On the other hand there's no question that this last injury is definitely a concern. There's a ton of factors here. What are Yao's off season obligations to the CNT going to be? How well is he going to play coming off the injury next season? I think the responsible position is to wait and see how things shake out.
IF Yao did not have to play that BS summer tournament for China, there would've been JUST ENOUGH games in the NBA playoffs for him to play thru.... Then again, since this time the surgeons actually artificially flattened his left foot, I, as a healthcare professional, think the prognosis looks very good because without the arch, all the bones in his left foot will be able to absorb and evenly distribute the immense pressure from Yao's body and defenders' pushing, just like his right foot (born flat, that's why there was never a stress fracture in it) has been doing. Only time can tell. ROCKETS FOR CHAMPIONSHIP!!!
