Rockets will win the NBA championship- some day

I take your idea of "greatness" from the angle of human characters, not stats or pure basketball ability. I agree with you on this.

if only considering size, ability, basketball IQ, shooting touch, work ethic and efforts, Yao is definitely great. but considering leadership, the impact on teammates, the intimidation and awe casted upon rivals and refs, the control of his own team, Yao is way off the "Kobe, Lebron..." list. and he will never make to it. maybe a little closer with the right casting.

I think the reason is simple: he is international and he is an Asian. Don't take Duncan as a contest. Duncan went to college in US, and he is from a place with litte alienation towards US culture. Hakeem same story. He is just like Nowitzki. started career and established in his own country, came to NBA in his best time, doing very fine, gained a lot of fondness and respect, labeled "soft", never a leader, never great. there is just too much pressure, alienation and people's natural reluctance to accept them as a leaders. maybe their own, too.---and Nowitzki is at least a German, much less language and cultural problem.

It is not that Yao is not the material. He was the Hakeem+Jodan in his former Shanghai team and functioning at a leader perfectly. He can't achive that in Rockets, not his fault. sad, but can't help it.

I am so sure about this because I am a Chinese spent quite some years in US, had a lot of expereince of the same nature.

 

I didn't say it sounded good in the short term....but at some point teams have to rebuild. And if you dont think you have the right guys on the bus, you get those guys off the bus and try again.

 

No...I think the formula is getting the very best players available. Great players. And not building your team around really good players and expecting that will be enough against the great ones.

 

So Yao and Duncan both draw double teams and make other players better? Ok, even if I buy that, I've NEVER seen Yao assert himself and dominate in the playoffs. Hell, we all jump up and down with joy if he does it for one freaking game in the regular season. Like I said before, when the game is on the line, Duncan can and will win the game. Remember when we played the Spurs at the beginning of the season? They came back and then Duncan made every crucial play down the stretch to win it.

I agree about teamwork, etc. Yeah you gotta have that to win, and yes, you have to trust your teammates, and all that. That's very important. But when there's a minute left to go and you need a bucket, grab a loose board, or a key stop--I'm not convinced Yao can do that. He couldn't do vs the Jazz 2 years ago and I've seen little to make me think he can do it now.

We need Yao--but we need another star player. Morey can see that. Hakeem was SO GOOD that he could win a ring with a bunch of role players and great chemistry. Yao is not that good.

I like Yao. He's a great guy. But he can't carry a team. That's why I think we needed TMac AND Yao because they could make up their deficiencies by playing together. I guess that wasn't the case, but it was the right move.

We need another star player to compete AND we need the current role players we have now.

Stop being silly.

 

Yes but you would wreck the bus already, instead of looking at a team that is FIFTH in the Western conference with tons of injuries and drama.

Me, I see a team that has just had a cloud lifted from it in Tmac and upgraded at PG.

It may not produce a championship, but you never know what can happen to other teams, and to be in a position to take advantage is WAY better than hoping some 19 year old kid coming out of college as the number 2 or 3 pick in the draft is going to become a superstar player.

Even the Rockets 2 championship seasons we did not have the best team or players in the NBA......we had Dream and role players in season 1....my way.....then Dream and Drexler + role player in season 2...again...my way.



DD

 

I honestly don't know how good this Rockets team can be building around Yao. My hunch is pretty good. Adelman is the perfect guy for coaching the current roster.

The doom and gloom is premature though. T-Mac's salary is going to be used to bolster the team, some way, some how.

Also, don't sell the current roster short. The NY Times article on Battier last week made a great point. Basketball is one of the few sports where individual selfishness can torpedo the team as a whole. That 22 game win streak last year was no fluke--it was the natural result of building a roster of blue collar professionals who played very, very unselfishly.

 

I know Badger, why do we have to dump Yao? The guy that is working his butt off and is VERY productive and a mismatch every single night.

Why not dump the drama queen that quits on his teamates, and announces he is out in the media?

Use his contract to upgrade the team.......that is the smarter thing to do.

Let's not all quit on the productive players......

DD

 

We had Dream. Yao isn't Dream. We're going to need a GREAT player to complement Yao....or better stated...we're going to need a GREAT player for Yao to complement.

 

Yao is good enough, we need good players around him......maybe the problem and disconnect here is our definition of greatness.

You see, I think having Manu (not great) and Parker (not great) would mean the team is good enough.

Because as I read your words, I keep hearing Kobe, Lebron, etc....but to me, getting GOOD players is good enough.

DD

 

I think they can be pretty good too. But we're talking about a championship in this thread--and I don't see enough on the current roster to honestly believe they can win it all. I'll still cheer as hard as ever, but I don't think a ring is in our future with this squad. Morey feels the same way--hence they went after a star. They'll try again in the summer.

 

LOL, somebody's actually advocating getting rid of Yao?

There's only one other guy in the league that compares to Yao. It doesn't matter who you have on the team--LeBron, Wally, whoever--anybody will benefit from a guy who draws a consistent double team in the low post and opens up the perimeter.

Is that good enough to win everything? I don't know. But it's a huge, huge weapon no matter what and it could be a big, big piece of winning everything.

 

DD, I think thats exactly what the team will do next season. T-Macs contract is going to be extremely attractive during the draft this summer and before the trade deadline next season.

 

Tmac never took over games (in the final minutes) in the playoffs. Rockets
failed to get out of the first round because of that exact reason. He had
great numbers in the playoffs. But I don't recall many games he took over in
the fourth quarter. Maybe one or two games he hit winning shot, but that
was it. I'd rather give "team effort" a try this year than leave it to one man's
heroic action (for Rockets any way, I wouldn't mind if we have Kobe or
Lebron on our team).

 

I'm not dumping on Yao. I just don't think he's in the same class as Duncan and Hakeem. He's not even close.

 

Yes, but ye Gods the current roster's missing $21 million dollars.

Bottom line, Magic was right. The Yao/T-Mac experiment has failed and it's time to reboot. Next season it's going to be the Yao/somebody else experiment. I think Morey's done a pretty good job so far and, unlike the OP, I'm actually pretty optimistic that he'll be able to put T-Mac's salary to good use in acquiring somebody new.

 

Trading Yao for Picks -- this discussion just shows how rare it is to find elite talent. You'r enot likely to get a very good player like Yao with draft picks, nevermind elite playerss. Indeed, you're very likely to get stuck in lottery hell for a while, which can really be painful to watch and is a trainwrek from a buisnes perspective.

Letting yao's contract expire to get other FA's - i don't see us getting better players in the "very good" category than yao. arguably, we could avoid giving yao the Max, and pay anothe rplayer at his level a little less. but i think that's unlikely also.

Which brings us back to Yao - the percentage play is to keep Yao and build around him. the good news is that we have Morey, who seems to know how to find and get value. We need to continue to get players that perform beyond their contracts, and hope they mesh. We do that until we can strike on another "very good" player to replace T-trash. Then we keep pushing.

All this said -- it would do wonders for the psyche of this team and city to make the 2nd round. It means a lot and i think Morey knows it.

 

Hypothetical: Is the MVP-candidate-25ppg-10rb-Yao from the past good enough to carry a team in the near future? Don't forget, the West is a little weaker now.

And I know Yao is older, that output was not over a significantly long period of time, etc...but hypothetically?

I agree that Yao is a fantastic Robin, not a great Batman right now.

 

Me either, he is not as good as them but he creates the same scoring opportunities for his teamates.

DD

 

I didn't say we had to dump Yao. I think you can win with Yao. I don't think you can with Yao as the focal point.

I said it's an option. Particularly if he's going to tie you up at max dollars for 6 years....making the 7'6" guy with foot problems 36 years old when it's all said and done.