The offense should not run through Yao Ming next year

Crap, did I overeact on that post, I was saying we should sign Von for 2-3 million...never in a million years would he be a full MLE player.

Maybe that was after a Vonarrific game like the Boston one...sometimes I get overly excited.

DD

 

Usually, I don't respond to your post, but I will this one last time...

Yao Ming has been in this league for about 7 or 8 years and he has never led them to the second round... Not even last year, if you want to believe that he was the fearless leader... Please do so.

Yao Ming was part of a group, not the leader. Yao Ming cannot carry the Rockets by his self, that fact has been discussed over and over again. If you want to believe he can then Please do so.

Yao benefited big time from Brooks, Scola and Landry... But more so from Brooks... Brooks changed everything... But as I stated earlier the credit should go to Artest..

1) He was healthy and mentally carried the Rockets to the second round

2) He passed that confidence and mentality to Brooks, Scola and Landry and the young bunch carried that same mentality over to this year.

 

How can Yao have "led" the Rockets to the second round when McGrady was the leader of the team?

Next year's roster will be the first year that the roster complements Yao. Big men are most effective when they have good 3 point shooting teammates to space the floor. Who did we have in the past? Rafer? Luther? Didn't McGrady shoot 30% in his last "healthy" season?

It seems pretty clear to me that after Game 1, Portland made defensive adjustments for Yao which opened up opportunities for everyone else.

And of course Yao can't carry the team by himself. No one can. Nice call, captain obvious.

You don't have to carry the team to be the leader. But you know who makes the best argument for being the leader? The guy who led the team in scoring in the 4 games they won (as the first option) and who garnered the bulk of the defensive attention.

 

Typical YOF . disregarding Artest, Scola, Brooks to propup yao.

 

I didn't disregard them. I just don't see a need to include them in a discussion about Yao's individual skill set since they have absolutely no relevance whatsoever.

Unless you're referring to my comments about Yao and the Portland series. In which case I said nothing that was untrue.

 

This is the main reason I don't respond to his post....

First they want to make Yao the leader and go to guy... Well with that comes the good and the bad..

When things go bad they blame another player.. ALA Brooks, T-Mac, Rafer, etc...

When it goes good... It was all Yao and know one else...

Next year's team will be the most difficult team that Yao has ever played for, he will be more frustrated than ever. Yao will feel as if he doesn't belong on this team.

 

I guess Rafer and McGrady are studs, right? Btw, where are they now and what are their prospects for next year?

You can search through my old posts. I've always maintained that the Rockets teams of years past were led by and built for McGrady.

And for what its worth, I suspect another reason you don't respond to me is b/c I use logic and statistics to support my opinions, and its pretty hard to argue against that.

 

Quite possible!
It depends how good our Coach is and how he blends the players together.
On the other hand the Coach may do a Tracy Mc Grady on Yao and force him out of the team. For sure Les won't like it, so I think if Yao is fit we will play the team game.

 

Is this the way you regard a poster when they think highly of Yao. I also think highly of Yao and I will defend Yao from unfair criticism. Wow! I just realized I am a typical Yao fan.

 

Yetti,

I can respect that post....

I don't think Adelman will force Yao out like he did T-Mac, I have a feeling that Yao will force his onself out if he feels that he doesn't fit.

Also, Adelman will not sit there and be told who to play. He's been in the game to long to put up with anything like that.

 

The most important thing is Yao's health....will his body hold up.

I know they are going to limit his minutes but that screws them going into contract negotiations.

At some point they need to get him to 30+ minutes a game to see if he can hold up......otherwise, they need to move on...

DD

 

Very good point and that is one of the points I keep bring up.

Since a lot of people like to compare him to Big Z, look at how many games Big Z played when he came back. I believe it was only 24 and he had to shut it down. The next year I think it was about 62 or 64 games.

It will take Yao about 2 or 3 years to get back and now you looking at an injury proned center in his 30's and with other obstacles..

This is almost the same problem that Houston had with Hakeem.. At the end of the last contract the Hakeem then was not the same Hakeem that we all knew and unfortunately choices had to be made.

 

Why do you keep saying he led the team in scoring in the 4 games they won? He only led them in scoring in 1 out of 6 games.

 

I mean really Artest lead the way to the 2nd round........

Geez its been proven with out Yao in the middle, we have Swiss cheese defense and we all know Artest lost a step last year due to age and injuries.

I ain't stupid enough to say it was Brooks or Artest being the biggest factor on reaching the 2nd round.

The fact is, even if we replaced Ariza with Artest this year, we still wouldn't have made it to the playoffs.....our defense is horrible without a big center who can block shots............

 

Because its hard to argue his logic and stats as he said earlier.

 

I'm looking at averages. In the 4 games we won against Portland, he averaged the most points.

Granted, Artest only averaged 1 fewer point, but IMO, when the first option averages the most points and the team advances, then you can make a strong argument that he "led" the team into the next round.

 

uhmmm, last time I checked we didn't make the playoffs this year without Yao out there. the degree to which he's the man is open to debate. the fact that he MUST be an integral part of the offense is not.