I'm out of here but one last thing I wish I would have posted while the game was on. I absolutely can't stand Steven A Smith and he said at halftime " if someone sneezes on Yao he'll fall down," what a Dick...Hey, only us Dang'ol Roxs can hate on our players...Why does ESPN have Steven A Smith anyway...He is the worst commentator and a cocky *******...I take Clyde over him...Okay Goodnight
Wow. We suck. we really do. .....but I'm still optimistic this thing will be completely turned around by January.
Hey man. I missed not doing it. My fingers were calling me to do PBP, but I'm not home and didn't have cable here. I'll be back this weekend after thanksgiving. In the mean time, I'm going to enjoy some football, beer, and hmmmmm Turkeyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. Happy Thanksgiving man. .....BOOOM
Yeah, we may be. But McGrady and Van Gundy had to come to a meeting of the minds last year and Van Gundy did decide to let McGrady have his own head offensively which worked out great. Why won't Van Gundy consider Yao more, with less screening activity and more flexibility in where he lets him play, let Yao have the opportunity to decide from set to set whether he wants to play the low block, or play one side or the other, or move up to the elbow. Yao should be priority #2, and he is as far as shot count goes. But he should be #2 in Van Gundy's mind and Van Gundy should let him have more responsibility for his own actions on the floor by allowing him to find his comfort zone and what is working for him at any given moment. After all, even Hakeem would bounce up to the high post and shoot the face up jumper when the defense packed it in too much or started fronting him down low. Yao should have the freedom within the offense to decide where he can be most effective at on that possession with the exception being down the stretch and after timeouts when there is a set play called. I just don't think we have gotten the best out of our 2 stars yet. I think both of them will be at their best, when they are allowed the freedom to think and create themselves and the ability to come to a meeting of the minds between them when they are on the court as to where the biggest advantages lie for us offensively. Van Gundy has proven to be an outstanding coach. He's just got the tendancy to overcoach in my opinion and try to force his players into too much of a mold instead of letting them use their entire skill set. He showed flexibility last year with TMac and we took off as a result of it, after TMac had struggled early on with Van Gundy's 24.5 second offense. When he took the shackles off TMac and let him jack those 30 footers with 20 seconds left on the shot clock, when he started trusting TMac to make decisions on the court, when he let TMac do his thing, even though it was contrary to Van Gundy's basketball philosophy, this team took off. He needs to show Yao the same kind of consideration. It should be obvious to all of us by now that the refs aren't gonna officiate Yao correctly. It should also be obvious to all of us that Yao isn't afraid of contact, he isn't scared of physicality in the low post. Even with all the Stephen A. Smith comments about him being pushed around which he does get pushed around. Even with all you so called fans who are screaming for him to be traded because he's a wuss in your eyes. Even with all the 2 hand pushes and rooting out of the pivot that is not called and all the good positioned defense that Yao plays is. He can't help it that he's 7'6" with a high center of gravity. Since it is obvious that he ain't gonna get fair treatment down in the block, then it should be obvious that he should be allowed the freedom to move around the court and find the softness of the defense. Heck if they are gonna sag the paint and front him, and surround him with 3 defenders in there, just let him step outside, face up and start raining jumpers, until they have to come up on him and cut down the spacing. Yao is smart enough that after that happens, he will go right back down into the low post and chew them up from there. And he's skilled enough offensively to do just that. And he's also skilled enough to run up high to receive the pass, and turn with one dribble and step and go right past the defense chasing him. The opponent should be chasing Yao around the court, not Yao chasing down the opponent on the court. When Yao sets those picks out in 3 point land, the opponent knows they don't have to chase that. They know he ain't getting the ball back out there. They know if he does get the ball back, he ain't gonna dare fire up a 20 footer. They know they can sit in the circle and wait from him to come back into the paint. In my opinion, Van Gundy has spent 2 years trying to mold Yao into something that he is not. He is not Shaq. He is not Moses Malone. He is who he is.....a new breed of player, foreign born, who has been taught the fundamentals of the game, and has an extremely developed, multi-dimensional skill set that will dominate in international competition where the game is called more in line with the rule book and contact is a foul, not the no harm-no foul concept that the NBA has developed into the last 15 years or so. He's a player that can move around the perimeter and be effective as well as go into the post and be effective. Consider this. Shaq is probably the ultimate in a physical post player. What if when he had come into the league, Hill and the coaching staff had demanded that he learn the sky hook shoot, ala Kareem, and play that finesse style??? Do you think Shaq would have struggled? What if they had asked Shaq to play at the high post in a Princeton style offense and learn how to pass like Vlade and his shots had to come from the faceup and most of them would be further out than 5 feet? What if they had made him do that ad nauseum game after game, season after season? What kind of player would Shaq have been? Would he have struggled? What if the Magic didn't let Shaq play because he was a poor free throw shooter and told him that he was costing them games and he couldn't see the court or when he was on the court his touches were severly limited until he proved that he could hit 7 out of 10? (He is still a horrible FT shooter and he is a liability in the offense outside of 5 feet from the bucket or at the FT line.) How about Vlade? I can't remember too much of his early years with LA, but it is obvious that if they tried to make him a classic low post center that he would have struggled mightly? What if the Knicks insisted that Ewing learn the sky hook and only shoot hook shots, layups, and dunks? Or what if the Knicks had insisted that Ewing play the high post and pass from out of it because he was talented enough and he could have gotten so much more out of his career if he could have developed his passing more. (Obviously, he should have done something different, he never won the ring.) What if the Spurs insisted that Duncan play the center position night in and night out? What if the T-Wolves insisted that Garnett become a classic low post PF? Garnett is obviously a top 5 player.........although he hasn't won squat, and now we are hearing in the media that his game has weakness because he takes too many jumpers and runs around the perimeter and doesn't stay at home in the post. It's just ridiculous. Garnett is who he is. He needs help up there. But he's still one of the top 5 players in the league and every team would trade for him if they could. What if Dallas told Dirk he couldn't shoot the 3 ball because he was supposed to be a classic post up player? What if San Antonio had told DRob that he needed to play the classic post up game and quit taking all those jumpers? The Wolves let Garnett play HIS game. The Spurs go get Duncan a big man because he's not comfortable playing the 5. The teams that Shaq is on live with his horrid FT shooting and his lack of a jumper. They let him play where he is comfortable. The Lakers lived with Kareem's timidity, his quirky personality, and his lack of physicality, and his lack of a post up jumper. They didn't have Kareem setting 5 screens on every play and wearing himself out. They let him do his thing, go down, get position and get the ball. Dallas lets Dirk do his thing and put players around him that help him. They don't take away his long distance game. And they don't take away his post game and make him a spot up shooter. The Knicks lived and died with Ewing's jumpers. The Spurs lived and died with Robinson's jumpers all the while his detractors were saying he'd never win anything because he wouldn't post up. The Rockets, 76ers and the other teams lived with Moses being effective only when he could tap the ball off the glass 2 or 3 times before he put it down. They lived with Malone's lack of lateral foot speed. He wasn't setting screens for his teammates, although with his body type he would have been the ideal screener. They let him use his skill set to his best advantage. The Celtics lived with Russell's underdeveloped offensive game and let him do his thing on defense. Great players shouldn't have coaches and teams taking away from their game. When it reaches that point, it is detrimental to the development of a player. If a player is a good jump shooter, let him shoot the jumper. Oh, you may add the low block hook, post up, whatever...............................but don't take away his jumper. If he has range, let him use it. And don't keep him busy with activities that can be accomplished by lesser skilled players and take away from his ability to effect the scoreboard. And if he can't learn a skill (like Shaq with the free throws) then live with it and work around it (like Shaq's teams do). By the way, Yao has shown much more ability to expand his game than Shaq ever has or ever will for that matter. Asking Yao to set all those perimeter picks is like asking Jeff Bagwell to bunt every time there's a runner on first. Now, there is a time and a place that Bagwell should bunt, and there's a time and a place for Yao to set a pick......................but not every time down the floor for every perimeter player on the team. Van Gundy, in my opinion, needs to set Yao free like he did TMac.
Gundy needs to set Everybody free. Have you seen how timid everybody looks. They are mortified of him. They play like a bunch of scared chickens out there. Luther has to look three times at the bench before he moves into the frontcourt. How about just letting Luther use his speed and go all the way to the basket instead of calling some freaking play that will result in a turnover? I am so mad with the notion that Van Gundy tells his players to push the ball after a rebound. That's BS. What happens is: They push the ball, stop at the 3point line and slow it down again and grind the possesion out Gundy Style. I know why he tells them to push it, because he thinks we might get an easy opportunity, but how many times has it happened? 0, Nada, Never. How about teaching them how to run a fastbreak? We have players than can thrive and play better in more of an uptempo style (Swift, Anderson, Tmac, yes even Yao can get a few wasy baskets, Barry, Wesley). Even the Spurs and Pistons have incorporated fastbreaks offense as a big part of what they do. What happened to getting easy baskets to help your rhythm in offense? Gundy is like a mad scientist trying to disprove all the laws of basketball. If he had his choice, he would swim upstream, he would run with the wind in his face, he would try to ruin anything that is beautiful. He would do as many unnnatural things as he could. Man, basketball is supposed to be fun, it's not some drill you run everyday. Every fu*king play looks the same, we are so predictable. Where's the spontaneity of just playing ball? For all the discipline that Popovich demands, he lets his players play. He guides them by just telling them to penetrate, kick the ball out, set PNR and move the ball, but other than that you don't know who's taking the shot at the end of the possesion. He gives his players so much opportunity to create and maximize their skills. Every possesion looks different. I can understand grinding it defensively , but you don't have to the same thing on offense. Hire Don Nelson as an assistant or set Gundy free
You guys are making it out to be some damn chinese conspiracy run by JVG... Its pretty simple. Yao only sets picks when he has trouble getting position, or the other team starts to front/double-team him in the post. We can say that he should try and try and try to get position all we want... but the bottom line is that he will NEVER be able to seal off a quicker, and most of the time stronger, smaller player who is just simply too fast for Yao to try to get in front of. JVG recognizes that the best way to keep Yao from being completely neutralized is to keep him in motion, make defenses try to adjust to him on the move, and then maybe... they'll end up being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some of the BEST games of his career have been when he's been all over the place... not just sitting in the low post (which he's basically unable to get position for anyways, unless the other team is stupid and decides not to front him). Those games include his rookie year in Dallas, and last year's playoffs against Dallas. Finally, its not like when Yao has gotten good position this year, he's been unstoppable. His turnaround has been off, his jump-hook is inconsistent... honestly, the only confident part of his game is the one where he just overpowers the other guy and gets an easy layup (a strategy that many of you here are against... trying to turn him into another Shaq). But, alas, Yao is the victim of his own personality. He is so agreeable that he will never say what his preferences are. He is so amenable sometimes that he'd rather be double-teamed and fronted because it creates wide-open shots for someone else on the team.
i pity yao. he is in the worst possible position right now. TMAC injured, swift and DA sucking, rafer starting slow and the team shooting bricks. Unlike amare who will relish this opportunity to pad his stats by doing everything that he wants, with yao's nature yao will be yao. He will be great in one game and suck the next. It would be an agonizing year for the rockets comparable to the year we lost steve for half the season and missed the playoffs. that year we had the longest losing streak in franchise history 12 i beliv. Well, right now, we lost 5. 8 more and this team will break the record. I will not bet on that. Especially if tmac's back will not heal fast. Houston, we have a problem.
Post of the year, jopatmc!! The irony is, with a healthy TMac, we wouldn't be having to endure this collective misery. Despite a schedule conjured up by none other than satan, we'd probably be no worse that 7-5. It's without him that the other players, and coaches shortcomings get exposed. All our offensive and defensive schemes are built around him. He's the guy who turns the games around in the fourth quarter. Without him....well, it's just a domino effect. All I've got to say is "get well soon TMac." And JVG, I love Ryan Bowen but it's not necessary to start each game with five defenders guarding our other four players. We have enough trouble getting out of the blocks. Just start DA at the 3 spot and live with it. D R
Sometimes Yao come out and set a pick when he gets position down low, and somehow the guard won't/can't pass him the ball, as the guard is hesitated what to do, Yao come up and help him out. WE must been watching different games, when Yao gets good position, he has almost always scored (not counting the times when he's out of gas in the second half). JVG is just having a brain fart right now, as far as designing plays to use Yao better. Play guys like Luther Head more, who can pass and be a good threat from outside, also athletic enough to drive inside, also has good handle, and getting better every day defensively.
No one else is a better passer that Yao in this team except T-MAC. Last night's game, our guards just let Yao run the floor and refused to give him the ball when he got a good position, instead, they, quite a few times, passed him the ball when he did not. Luther was a loser. He forgot who he is after getting 28 in the game against Mavs.
