Looking at teams like the Phoenix Suns and the SA Spurs, who seem to turn every player there into iron man, and tall guys like Big Z, who managed to function even after multiple injuries.... And then look at Yao Ming. He came into the league fully healthy, played all his games in his first 3 years. But during this time, he went through the Rockets "training program" and then proceeded to re-injure himself over and over and over. He keep seeing Rockets doctors who tell him how to rehabilitate but never seem to succeed. If only Yao were drafted by, say, the Suns or the Spurs, I believe he'd still play at a high level today.
Nope...China took care of that and his own destiny. Although not realizing he was more Rik Smits a bit earlier didn't help.
What? How many of the Suns and Spurs doctors have helped keep a guy over 7'3" healthy for more seasons than Yao has been? Yao is a freak of nature...someone his height should never play basketball in the NBA...the schedule is too tough for his body. I think he is a lesson to all NBA teams that are looking to draft someone his size...the lesson is DON'T DRAFT HIM! The human body has limits regardless of his discipline. Yao was a nice guy and really hard worker...but he wasn't cut out to be an NBA player and the Rockets paid a price for their gamble...it's time to move on.
How about the year-round useless training in China? So his team could all try to be Michael Jordan and never pass him the ball in the Olympics?
Thread not meant to be taken seriously and sarcasm meter tells me this post/thread is dripping with sarcasm. Amirite?
Not this kind of threads when we just finished trying our very best to match the Heat with the 3 bigs. And we are fighting for dear life to stay in the hunt. You can easily say on the flip side Yao costs Rockets a few championships. Sarcasm or not, not very necessarily.
When he has a fracture, the Spurs doctors could tell him to rest instead of telling him to keep playing until the fracture gets larger like the Rockets doctors.
Yao Ming and TMac brought the Rockets and their fans many years of disappointment. They were two of the most physically fragile players in NBA history. Whose fault? Natural stresses and strains on physical bodies not made to hold up to the abuse. Just the way it was.
This. Yao Ming was/is a freak of nature. Tmac had always had something wrong with his back. The people I blame the most are the people who put really bad players around those two guys. I really beleive if Morey was the GM from the start of the Tmac-Yao era we would have had a bunch of good role players around Tmac-Yao and that would have made all the difference. Then we had the superstars but no support and now we have the support but no superstars.
The commies did it. Not only they take good american cars but they make 7'6 center play all time! for what? meaningless games in horse stables. Now both no have yao. Alzo, Yao never hurt under little dictator JVG.
Coach RA definitely has some responsibilities. He overplayed Yao for sure. He also burned down TMac during 22 win streak. SA coach Popovich is much better on utilizing his players. He intentionally rest his players during some stretches of the season. NBA has some responsilities too. Centers in NBA are like WWF and how many of centers/bigmans can play through the season?
So you're saying we should have played a player who makes close to a 1/3 of our cap less than we did?... That is just insane... Those players broke down, but to assert to one aspect or another is hard to do. If we did play them less, and managed to win the same amount of games fans would be in an uproar... You can't win either way with some fans...
