Yao has to get better. I was a big yao fan, but watching his games is getting really difficult for me.
Often teams don't guard Alston and they don't guard Hayes. 3 on 5 basketball is pretty hard. I thought Adelman believed in getting easy baskets!
All those mentioned can foul him but usually PG guard PG and hard foul can be made without much suspicion of intentional purposes which may lead to flagrant foul. Flagrant foul caused us to lose a point and a turn and may lead to suspension if serious. Steve is vet, he can foul Harris in way that his play would be disrupted i.e. no more drive (hard foul that can cause contusion, strain or fear but not seen as flagrant).
I know Boston is red-hot right now. Don't jump on the bandwagon just yet, it takes a little bit more than 82 games until we know for sure how the 3-headed monster experiment works. And you also assume Tmac and Kobe will be compliment each other very well, which is a huge question mark (I know they look good on paper, remember what happened in the late-90s Rocket history?). Plus, they will be in a salary blackhole for some years, look what happens in Miami. They bought one title and now they are swallowing Shaq's huge salary.
No one's complaining about his offense, buddy. When a scrub like Brandon Bass is burning you, then you know there's a problem with your defense. It's not for lack of effort, he just can't move quick enough to defend those guys, even if they are scrubs.
Thanks roxfan123, this thread was long overdue. I say at the end of every game, why do 6 foot nothing guards have the stones to take it to Yao at every game. Why does that not happen to Shaq, even T-Mac said he would think twice before taking it to Shaq. Yao needs to get away from the internatinal mentality and get in the NBA mentality. All he has to do just foul someone hard, knock them down on the floor and give them a little jolt so they think twice before doing it the next time. SEND A MESSAGE! There is a reason every team in the nba has a hard time playing the Jazz, cuz they play physical. I'm not saying play like Stockton and Malone...but don't let people walk in the lane with ticky-tack fouls!
u go to shaq, even for those that have the balls to do so, will get knocked down HARD one way or another. and it's not even intentional by shaq. he's just strong. yao has got to start intimidating other players. when i watch games, i don't see one player intimidated by yao's size/body at all. if harris tried that on shaq, he got a bloody nose probably and knocked out of the game.
I doubt Yao will do any HARD foul simply b/c hes not a normal NBA player. He's practically an "ICON" for a billion people. Yao may be in America, but he isn't really "Free" to do/say whatever he want like other superstar.
Bottom line with Yao is he does not know how to manipulate the officials the way American superstars do. American players recognize what the officials are calling and force them to call it both ways. Yao whines and complains but he doesn't force the call both ways and then throw a fit the way American players do. Everybody in the arena knows he ain't gonna fight anybody so they know they can beat on him and get away with it, and the worst thing is, THE OFFICIALS KNOW HE WILL TOLERATE IT AND NOT MAKE TOO BIG A SCENE THAT THEY HAVE TO DEAL WITH. Just one time, I'd like to see Yao come up steaming off the deck after a hard foul and really go after somebody. He don't have to swing. All he's gotta do is go tearing after them and then go tearing after the ref. Let them ring him up for a T. Then go down to the other end and just flatten someone when he gets the ball down on the block. And it all has to be in succession. Not 10 minutes later. You crank up the heat and force the refs to call it tight. That backs off all the monkey business and then he can play his game, which is essentially the finesse game. Does anybody remember Kareem? It took a lot to get him torqued off but when he did, that was enough. He was too big a star, the refs had to start tightening up the calls because they knew he was going to explode if they didn't. Yao never does that. He just takes, takes, takes, and then he will go have a conversation with the officials. The last game against the Heat, Haslem and Ricky Davis were doing take downs on him. The refs finally warned Haslem they were going to call him for a foul if he didn't stop it. Boy o Boy, talk about losing an advantage. Yao should have forced the action with Haslem way before that and made them call it, not whine and complain for 3 quarters before the refs finally "warn" the opponent to quit the monkey business. We still do not have an enforcer on our team, an Oakley type that will just lay the wood on somebody. If Yao can't ever learn to do it, then we really need to get a guy out there that will flat hammer an opponent. The other night, Deke could have gone out there and hacked the living daylights out of Shaq. Shaq makes issues of the contact to the point where the refs have to step in. Yao has to learn to retaliate. Or we have to have someone out there that will retaliate.
so RA talk about how he will make yao and tmac's work easier this year and he runs the same rotation as last season rofl. When hayes and alston are playing, teams and ignore both of them. When mutombo and alston are playing, teams can still ignore them. In other words, no matter who is playing, there's a rocket that opponent doesn't need to guard under the current rotation, and I dont think tmac and yao's work got easier besides Yao shoots some low chance 20footers now
