i found this funny too. lol. rafer wants everyone to recognize him as the leader. lol. he's so stuck up. he doesnt even want to say that Yao should be the leader. he still thinks he's up there with the likes of yao,ron and tmac. lol. yao needs to be the leader. tmac's been telling him for years. yao probably needs to take a leadership training course because there aint no way we can trade to get someone with that strong a leadership skill with the trade assets that we have. VC isnt a leader, nor is amare.
exactly. rafer's been calling out people just because he has DM and RA's confidence. While the rest of the team has always been praises for him despite him sucking most of the time. he's so full of himself.
Currently, only coach change, bring back JVG or avery Johnson will work. Jordon/Magic are much more dominate and mean players. Yao/Tmac are their type. Rafer/barry/luis/shane/Hayes can lead off court but they are role players. Just can't be the ultimate leader.
you are wrong, Yao is thte leader of chinese national team of course maybe Yao is not a vocal leader in Houston Rocket now ,BUT I think he wiil be the leader after tracy leaving. Trust me!
No, Yao is too low key and too quite even when he is in CNT. He is just that kind of a person. Check out Yang Yi's blog. In Yao's more than a decade of serving in the CNT, he almost never ever pointed finger at any one of his teammates, whether in locker room or in public. In fact it only happned once, and that was 5 years ago.
Here is my take based on the article. Alston said one thing very important. he said there are guys who has been in the league for over a decade and doesn't want to be led and not a vocal leader. To me he is saying Tmac wants to be the leader on court, but off the court he is not and doesn't want to, and at the same time he won't lead by anyone else. Yao is a leader, but i am suspecting that due to his language barrier and different perspective in different cultures. sometime his idea just don't mix well with them. Yao may have difficult time reaching out to his teammates off the court. Yao doesn't go to club, party, drinking....etc where these rich players do off the court. There you can reach them in another level. JVG was right and Artest is that Bulldog, but Tmac is having tough time with him. PLus due to his history other players may not of listen too.
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While his offense is sometimes atrocious, I think Rafer is the true "floor leader" of this team this year. He "barks" out where to go on offense, and controls the rock on most plays. I really don't think the rockets should make a drastic trade. I think they need to work with the pieces they have...wasn't that the point of picking up Artest? At least give it a full season and round of playoffs before calling it broken. This lockerroom bickering could be a good thing in the long run.
Remember we won like 6 out of 7 games when von Wafer was the starter? At that time Yao was certainly the leader. He may have lousy leadership skills but a TEAM with the lineup of Yao+Wafer+Batter(Artest)+Rafer+Scola seemed to show good character and win games. Imagine if Rockets is an NCAA team Wafer would be starting instead of TMac. TMac is clearly a distraction of the team right now as Yao, Artest, Rafer, Wafer and even Brooks have all played worse off after TMac was back. We may or may not be able to get a good deal before the trade deadline. But the bottom line is that even if there is a trade it probably won't solve the leadership issue. At the moment I just wish Rick Adelman has the guts to sit TMac and let him earn his own starting spot, but I just don't see it happens at all. We desperately need a strong coach right now to motivate our players and get the team back on track. Oh God, I miss JVG.
If one of your primary options (Yao, McGrady) fails to lead, it's on the coach. Except in rare occasions (Avery Johnson on the Robinson Spurs), non-star players aren't able to command the locker room. Adelman needs to sack up and yank non-performers when they coast (McGrady) or go bonkers (Artest) and take the reins. That, or you need to either bring in a coach that will or ship out the guy(s) that can't keep themselves accountable. The dumb thing to do is keep going forward and telling yourself "we still have 30 games to figure this out" (Justice) or "McGrady may suck now, but he becomes Jesus in the postseason" (Denial) Evan
