Does the Rockets management team regard YAO as THE Franchise player?

I believe playing in International games during the summers improved Yao's basketball ability alot. Everytime he lost his confidence toward the end of NBA season, he found a way to dominate in the international courts. There he would take the time to perfect his skills/experience learned in the past season against the lesser players. Then at the beginning of the new season, he's confident again with a perfected new set of skills.

Sometime, it is hard to improve in team game while training alone.

In this latest article, Yao said he's almost at his best form for the Olympic and "Before, the 400m track on the track and field court always gives I headache even looking at. That won't happens anymore in the future!" I assume that him meant that his stamina was improved quite a bit under Del Harris in the past few months.

Article in Chinese of course, Please learn some Chinese and Slovenian!
http://yaoming.sports.sohu.com/20040809/n221440836.shtml

 

Pippen was never a leader. sure he was heck of af player, but you can never label Pippen as a leader.

 

Right now I give the edge to T-Mac. Yao still has to prove himself to be a dominate player. People throw out comparisons to Shaq and Kobe, but the difference is that Shaq has established himself as a dominant player/MVP candidate. When people talk about Yao they say he has potential to be the best, but he still has lots to prove. T-Mac has led the league in the scoring and has been considered an MVP candidate. I think Yao will get there but as of right now based on the past I think T-Mac is Btman.

 

The same didn't apply for Francis.... the better player is Mcgrady but I'd say they have Yao as the #1 guy only because he is 7'6.

 

Ummm.... Charles?

 

Agreed. If drafting a team for one year, Tmac is still better. Eventually, however, I think Yao will overtake him due to his defensive presence.

when it was only yao and no cato, we went from an outstanding ~85 ppg team to a below average ~97 ppg team. if yao gets to the point that teams are scared when it's him and mo taylor in the game, then he'll be at that franchise level defense we all hope he gets to.

Again, agreed. But to some degree the drop off was more due to Taylor's extreme suckitude, and less a knock on Yao. Let's see how Yao does with Howard in the game.

again, yao has the potential to surpass mcgrady and be dominant, but he's going to have to go to a new level on offense and defense before he's with mcgrady (or 2 levels on offense if he doesn't raise the D). there's a reason tmac is considered top 5 and yao isn't.

Just curious, who do you think will eventually be more of the leader on the floor, Yao or Tmac?

 

how about... The Incredibly Gay Duo?!?!