If Yao can put up 25 minutes a night, and (assuming things progress well) bump that up to 30-32 minutes a night, that would be awesome. 18/8/2 would be a great statline.
Why is 25 minutes the expectation for him? Why can't we expect him to play 30 minutes? I don't know who the writer is but to discredit Yao and say he can only contribute barely two quarters a night when we haven't even seen him doing full workouts is beyond me.
It's not that he is discrediting him, but rather playing it safe, if you will. Sure, no one knows how many minutes he can produce. The author states that in the article, where he could contribute more minutes than 25, or even less than 25. 25 isn't a bad starting point.
the writer made it sound like we can't expect Yao to play more than 25 minutes for the rest of his career or something. I'd use Illgauskas' career post foot surgery as a way to predict how Yao and his feet will hold up. I'm sure Z played more than 25 a game.
well kick me in the mouth because you're right. He came back and played 21 mpg as a backup for that year. Then the next year he was on the all-star team.
It's going to be tough on Yao if he is measure by Ilgauskas' standards. Yao can't just play 20 minutes a game for us; we literally need him to produce at least 27 minutes a game.
How about Marcus Camby, he can be great defensive backup for Yao, not to mention he lives in Houston in the offseason and he always kept saying that he wanted to end his career in Houston, he would be great pickup.
Not only that. Z has said it took a full two years before he was confortable again (or something to that effect). Two more years from the season opener, and Yao will be 32. Damn injuries. Sigh...
20 minutes per game. Bump it up to 25 MAX 30 in the regular season. Then hopefully 30-35 in the playoffs.
It'll be interesting if Yao has played his allocated minutes and we need more to say win a game. Hopefully management and the coach can figure out and agree on the right mix of playing time for Yao and under what situations to extend it. Last thing we would want is an incident ala Paxson-Del Negro over Noah's playing time.
I was wondering, instead of limiting yao's minutes in the 20s, would it work to actually make yao playing only HOME games next season? just scratch all the travelling and playing in hostile environment, and let him play regular minutes during home games. Wouldn't that give him much more rest instead of the reduced 10 minutes per game?
“We feel comfortable with Chuck on anybody,” Shane Battier said. “Three-fourths of the world is covered by water. The rest is covered by Chuck Hayes.” Awesome quote , first time to know it
The risk factor in this situation is as big as Yao. Logic points away from a "rebirth" of this career. The Rockets are putting most of their eggs in one basket. If this experiment fails (again), then surely they won't resign him. If they pull a "Texans" and resign him to a multi-year contract before the season even starts, they will be making a huge mistake. I remain unoptimistic. Yao's "body physics" are working against him and the Rockets. Great guy, great player, not likely to work out.
Because the foot injuries he has had in the past have been stress fractures and D. Morey himself has said himself in interviews that the Rockets training staff have said that 25 minutes a game should limit the stress on the bone quite dramatically.