1. While people here do believe that the real value of the trade was the future when Yao hits his prime, that doesn't mean the Rockets can play at a lottery level this year. 2. Are you kidding me with this no talent thing? How can any team with Yao and T-Mac be considered "not as talented as most of the teams in the league?" 3. Nice of you to ignore age, type of offense, and stats of previous years in favor of stats from the past 10 games or so. If you go by the 1st ten games of the season as your measuring stick, the Seattle Sonics are one of the best teams in the NBA the past two years.
Whether he deserves it or not, he WILL get the max. Nowadays, max contracts are given out to players who put fans in the seats of arenas. Ask Jerry West Pau Gasol has done to deserve the max. What has Andrei Kirelenko done? Allan Houston? Kenyon Martin... Yao is easily more of a franchise player than all of those guys on any given day of the week, and you really think that he shouldn't get the max?
Good point. I agree with everything in your post. If Gasol and Martin can get the max than Yao will too. As much as it's going pain me to see, the Rockets will give him the max and in so doing will cripple this franchise for the length of his contract.
I wouldn't pay Yao the max if the decision was based solely on production on the court. However, NBA teams are not non-profit organizations. They are in business to make money, and I think Yao's impact on Les' pocketbook is tremendous. There was a post on ESPN from who quoted BusinessWeek Asia. Will you Trade Yao away after reading the following facts?(Quotes from Business Week Asian Edition Oct 2004) 'Yao could be the most effective messenger yet to help American blue chips build business in an economy (China)whose GDP is growing at a robust 9% annual clip.' 'More than 200 Million Chinese are expected to watch the (China) preseason games on TV - 70% of the entire U.S. population. "Nobody was more of a global icon than Michael Jordan,"says NBA Commissioner David Stern"Bust Yao is different....He is a symbol of this Chinese renaissance and their determination to compete on a world stage."' 'Pepsico (He's a spokesman in China): Sales rose nearly 30% there (China) last year.' 'Reebok (sponsor of Yao): sales in mainland China will grow from $30million this year to $300million by the 2008 Beijing Olympics' 'McDonald's (Yao pitches for the fast food chain and could replace old ROnald McDonald as its global symbol): The 100 new restaurants it plans to open there next year will be the most for any country.' AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST....... 'HOUSTON ROCKETS: REVENUE FROM SOPNSORS HAS RISEN 300% SINCE YAO CAME TO TOWN, AND THE NUMBER OF COMPANIES PARTNERING WITH THE ROX HAS MORE THAN DOUBLED TO AN ESTIMATED 40 THIS YEAR.' I think his impact on revenues would be at least 25% greater in a Bay Area or SoCal city due to the demographics. I know Toyota wouldn't be paying for the naming rights if not for Yao. I also am pretty sure no Chinese beer company would be paying Les a $1 million a year to be associated with the Rockets. Maybe all this additional money will allow Les to shell out the money for a full MLE contract for the next couple of years. This would definitely increase the depth. Full MLE brings in good players nowadays.
Would any of you be kind enough not to quote Amed's quotes? His idiotic thinking is making me laugh. Les's bank account must have re-doubled after Yao arrived. He is going to pay Yao the max even he is on injured list for his whole career.
I don't give a damn about Les' bank account. All I care about is this team winning games and championships and if Yao is here and getting paid the Max, this team will in the lottery at the end of every season. With Tmac and Yao getting the max all the that they can afford to sign would be guys like Ward and Sura and we have all seen how good Ward is.
Let's face it, Yao is going to get the Max if he wants it. There are teams out there that are willing to pay him the Max for sure for his game impact as well as commericial interest. but since Yao is too nice, Rox might be able to pay him below market price but still not too different from the Max. The biggest problem of the Rox is from the EG fiasco as well as all the bad drafts. This makes the Rox bench extremely thin, and more importantly, Rox now has no trading assets to use. Nobody wants our role players, they have no trading value. Rox might be better served if they tank the season and get some good draft picks or use the high draft picks to trade for good players, but from past history, how can you trust CD to make a good decision?
