Here is is people. No excuses. No one to share the ball with. No psuedo co leadership. No excuses about lack of talent. This next 2 weeks will tell a lot about whether Yao is a king or just another pawn. Now a lot of people will talk about he leads by example or some other shane battier type of intangible bs people want to bring up. No Tracy taking shots or control away. No Ron doing the same. I want to see some command of this team. The stage is his for the taking as well as the team. He's one of the better players or the team and your leader has to be in that category. I don't want to hear Rafer leading or scola or Shane, it has to be Yao. A couple of years ago, people said he was a mvp candidate or putting up dominant numbers, but the team was losing. The leader has to find a way to win those close ball games by any means necessary. When rafer shoots one of his dumb shots, I want to see him get on him and demand better play. When he makes trips down the floor without touching the ball, I want to see him holding people accountable and demand the ball. This team is better than the 1 tracy had to play with last year minus yao. Scola,brooks, and landry aren't rookies, wafer has been surprising and at some point, artest will be back. Yes this is the time. IBM and others who say he's a leader, I want to see it. Just like with the cnt, he needs to show it and keep this team in their playoff position or improve it. If he does that, when tracy comes back, there will be no doubt of who is the leader of this team is. If this team struggles and tracy comes back, then we're back to square 1. This is that point in Mobsters when Myers decided they needed to chose a leader. It was between Lucky and myers. Myers had another guy tell the little boy there was a powerful man in the other room and he had something for him. The little boy came in and looked around and chose lucky luchiano. From that point on, he was the leader. I think the rockets are at that point. They're the little boy and there are a few guys sitting at the table. Right now it Yao,Ron,and Tracy. These next 2 weeks will tell a lot of who will become the leader of the syndicate.
Yao's not a leader unless you count leading by example--working hard in practice, on the floor, showing up and giving effort, etc. He's too nice a guy, too passive. But he's got to step up starting today. He's got to play like he deserves the ball on the offensive end. He's got to start kicking ass. T-Mac is out and he might be out for a lot more than two weeks. The Rockets need some stability and they need some wins. Even if you're not the leader on a team you can still step up.
Teams are going to collapse on Yao now with Ron and T-Mac out. A lot is going to depend on how the other players respond. Brooks, Wafer, Alston, and Battier will really have to step up now. Landry and Scola pretty much hold their ground on a nightly bases. Yao may not be able to do much because of how other teams guard him.
ym has never been a clear-cut leader on this team. he however is the leader on his own china national team. even though i think that, in general, this leadership (as well as other perceptions such as "killer instinct" or "clutchness") thing is overrated, there have been times i've wished yao'd become a true leader on this rockets team. that's why i've said if he has the same passion that he has for his national team, the rockets will be a lot better team. i sense the op come from a slightly differently angle, but i agree the next 2-3 weeks are gonna be critical for yao (and this team's route for the season).
Ron and Tmac are out oh my..... thats never happened before. Yao needs to keep doing what he has been doing all year, keep being the best player on this team so far this year. The whole team is who needs to step up. No reason to pin it just on Yao.
Very true but if the team runs the RA offensive sets when Yao is not in the line up will be key to how they will compete and be able to win games. When Yao is in the team should just post him up and if doubled team pass it back out to the opened man.
if you say "step up or we lose", I agree. "sit down"? maybe you are saying that yao should also rest with other 2 out. otherwise, i want the stuff you are on.
It is time for Rafer to step up or sit down. Rafer will live or die with dump-the-ball-to-Yao, which is always dumbest offense.
Ya lets sit down the only bright spot we have on our team right now. Yao is probably half the reason were doing as good as we are right now.
You take away Tmac and his 21 million salary and Ron Artest and his 10 million salary, which is close to half the salary for the team, you'll have a hard time beating quality teams like the Lakers, Jazz, Nuggets, and Heat. When Manu and Parker were out, the Spurs had a bad record even though they still had Tim Duncan and they weren't playing against all playoff teams.
I see a lot of yall are making excuses already, except for my man ibm. The leader doesn't have to score the most points, he has to do whatever it takes to make people fall in line and get on the same page. Duncan was minus parker and manu and at least went .500. Is that asking too much? Go ahead and start talking about what he can't do vs what he can do. Go ahead and let rafer keep shooting 3's while yao is busting his tail getting position. Go ahead and let shane be a non factor on offense when he's the most senior player on the team. Go ahead and give Yao reasons why he can't or shouldn't lead this team. Do what you do as they say. Then when the season is over and the rox finish where they do, blame whomever for not leading this team. His teammates rally behind him for the cnt, what's the difference? Leaders are leaders everywhere they go.
wrong. They lost the first 3 games to start the season and they were just without Manu. They had Duncan and Parker http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/teams/schedule?team=sas Parker got hurt on Nov 7 against Miami and the Spurs lost with a healthy Duncan They lost to the Bucks with a healthy Duncan but no Parker and Manu on Nov 12 They lost to Denver on Nov 19 They lost games against scrubs without Manu and Parker.
It take 5, baby. But yeah, Yao will get lots of shots and attention in this stretch. It would be nice to win some games with both Ron and TMac down.
