They never made it past the first round together. You could say they had bad role players, but Shaq and Kobe's supporting cast in 02' was pretty weak as well, and they made it all the way to the Finals. If T-mac and Yao were all they were suppose to be, you'd think at least a 2nd round appearance was in order. Right now, the Rockets are 19-13, compared to 20-12 last season. A lot of my friends who are non-Rockets fans ask me how we're winning despite the fact Yao, Artest, and T-mac are gone. The only conclusion I can draw is: perhaps Yao and T-mac were not as valuable as their contracts or numbers suggest.
Dude Yao and Mac played a total of 4 games total together. In those 4 games refs were asked to take Yao out of the games vs the Mavs. Incomplete. Now Hill and McGrady... different story. I think they played a total of 5 games together.
Shaq and Kobe's supporting cast showed up when they needed it tho. in the game 7 L of 2007 vs the jazz mcgrady and yao both had 29 points each while rafer shot 3-11 and our bench got outscored 17-10
Both are terribly overrated. Neither of them is a franchise player nor a superstar. We should have stopped building around them 2 years ago.
As good as 1-11 were, they were never clutch enough when it counted. Hence, the losses '05 to the Mavs, and the Jazz a couple of years later. In both series, we had a pretty good lead, and still lost the series. You can only blame the supporting cast so much, they were not making $20 and $16M bucks.
Shaq >>>>>>>>>>>> Yao Kobe >>>>>>>>>>>> T-mac So called superstars are supposed to lead the team in the playoffs and don't blame on the support casts for not showing up. Together Tmac and Yao played in2 series of playoffs and both they lost 4-3 (to Mavs and Jazz) and both they were leading the series and yet they both failed to close out the series. Blame it Rafer? Sura? Wesley? Juwan Howard? JVG? Conclusion: T-Mac + Yao = Guaranteed Playoffs Failure!
Had McGrady not had injury issues last season, I really believe that team - with McGrady, Yao, & Artest leading the way - had enough to beat LA and win it all. Ah, what could have been.
you need a TEAM to win. t-mac and yao are not supposed to account for 50% of the teams total points each.
First of all, the teams they first played on together did have very bad supporting casts and don't make the '02 Lakers argument because not a lot of duos EVER are as good as Shaq and Kobe. Its not fair to compare T-Mac and Yao to them. Now, I would not call them overrated only because they both have a lot of critics but they definitely did not live up to potential and I blame that on injury because last years team could have been scary good fully healthy....
I think they're a championship caliber duo if they had the surrounding cast the rockets have now. Before Morey started running the show, who did Tmac and Yao have to play with? Rafer Alston, Ryan Bowen, Juwon Howard, Jon Berry, Luther Head ... The list of scrubs around them is pretty much endless.
Yes. But Great Players will elevate his teammates to next level. Something Duncan, Shaq , Kobe, MJ have done. Yao and T-mac were both horrible at it thus their team always fail!
I don't know about you, but I always thought Yao was UNDERRATED. I'm tired of all this talk about how Yao is only an all-star, not a superstar. Granted, he is not Hakeem or Bill Russell, but damn it, he was the best man in the 5-spot for the past 3 years in my eyes. There's no doubt in my mind that he's a superstar. As for TMac, give credit where it's due. He's part of 22, and 13 in 35. Many people regard the level of his talent to be at the level of Michael Jordan. If there's anything to blame on our playoff runs with the duo, blame the lack of chemistry and the friggn Utah Jazz who have yet to win a friggn championship, and kept us from getting out of the first round for two straight playoff runs.
Regular season stats between Kobe and T-Mac from 2000 to 2005 averaged out. Remember, T-Mac was even better in the playoffs. T-Mac: 74.6 Games | 44.3% FG | 35.2% 3FG | 6.8 rpg | 5.3 apg | 1.6 spg | 0.9 bpg | 2.6 topg | 27.6 ppg Kobe: 72 Games | 45.2% FG | 33.3% 3FG | 5.9 rpg | 5.4 apg | 1.7 spg | 0.6 bpg | 3.2 topg | 27.1 ppg
Both Yao and T-mac are extremely talented, no doubt about it! Yao is the best skilled big man this decade and not a single Centers in the league today come close to Yao's post skill(Duncan is a PF to me). But his physical limitations plus the new stupid NBA rules really minimize his impacts. T-mac has all the skills to be one of the greatest SG ever to play. But his heart, immaturity and laziness stop his to reach the elite status.