i absolutely remember that. i'm not suggesting yao should be exactly the same as tim duncan. i'm suggesting that if we're gonna throw out max salaries, he might wanna do better at establishing position and find a freaking way to impact the offense beyond 6 shots.
I'd like to say fronting is a really big problem... But I saw many times where Yao had the position and for whatever reason the guards just ignore him. Is fronting a problem? Yep. But then you add to the fact that our guards seem so hesitant to give him the ball...and you get this...6 shots. Hell maybe if Yao had 4 more shots we'd win the game...
i totally agree that yao should have more attempts but more importantly touches. he's has the best shooting percentage on the team. good things happen when he gets the ball. it seems most of the time that yao plays well with a 20+pt game we win. the cavaliers game this year at home and the game one against portland shows that with a good yao game we can dominate anybody. yao may not have the best hands but he needs to get involved. if you can't get him the ball on the low post do a high PnR. get him the ball so that he's contributing. this team should run through yao be it ron on the PnR or AB or Von. the rockets have to use his size to their advantage.
1) Yao had problems with fronting many times before, and the team had trouble getting him the ball, that is true, I don't argue that. 2) For this game, that was not the case. It was not simple front. I don't care how great you are. If they double team you before the catch, you can't not get the ball. 3) If they double Yao after the catch, the better percentage play is pass-out. Even in the days of Hakeem, the better play was still to pass out. There were many times he scored against double team but many times he forced bad shots and missed. 4) If you watched the Rockets as long, you should remember Seattle and the long standing complaint from the Rockets that Seattle played illegal defense against Hakeem to beat us. That exact defense is allowed now. 5) Of course the rule change has put big men at a disadvantage, you just have to play the hand you deal. You should beat it going 4 against 3 somewhere else. That is the advantage you gain. If you can not beat them going 4 v 3, the solution is not to remove the big man. You do that and you have to go 5 v 5, that is not a better choice so the big man who draws double team (even if it shuts him down completely) is still valuable.
4. right. post me some box scores of playoff games from 1996, when we got swept, and i bet they still don't include hakeem managing only 6 shots. great big men impose their will at some point. again, i know yao isn't hakeem...but he also shouldn't be rendered so ineffective, either. 5. all fair points...my concerns are for the franchise going forward. if the value of a big man is diminished, then we should spend accordingly.
Would you say that Yao had no impact on the offense? What about the easy looks he allowed his teammates to have? As for Duncan has better range and can face up, which renders the front useless.
yao does have range also. It just when he hit it it's great! however, if he miss one than it's done. He dont need to be shooting another one until three games later.
1. good point. it's not fair to say he had no impact. but at the point of the game where you're looking for your star to carry you over the finish line, he's not to be found. 2. totally and completely agree with regard to duncan.
This is the biggest negative to me. Ultimately it doesn't mater how many touches he gets, but I would be apprehensive about signing him to a max contract if I were Morey. Surely Yao would be willing to take a pay cut to try and go for a big talent to replace Mac? More on topic...Things might have been different if it weren't for the foul situation. I have also seen Yao pass up shot opportunities, which should infuriate the entire squad, but I don't think it does.
Are you serious? I don't think anyone is dumb enough to believe that he has really done that. It's almost as believable/unbelievable as his real name is Marcus Bryant, which he foolishly hoped that we would believe.
QFT Our offense wasn't bad last night. If Scola hit some of the midrange shots he usually makes, we could have won.
Wasn't even that. If we could've slowed Roy down at least a bit, we would've won. Oh yeah, and FTs. I'm looking at it this way, it took us missing 10 FTs, Yao being irrelevant, and Roy to have an unbelievable game for them to win... by 4. I expect the boys to come out better on Friday.
Fronting existed since D'Antoni Suns and Golden State when they had Harrington. Now, everyone fronts Yao even when they don't go small. All you need to do is play Yao physical and front him because he's too slow to seal his man and he can't venture out too far from the paint.
Rick Adelman on getting Yao more shots from Jason Friedman's article: Basically Yao has to get better position, but we also gave up on trying to get the ball to Yao. Link
there was also a pretty nice play at the end of the game where a series of screens allowed Yao to get his man sealed in the middle of the paint, but the pass was a little off and a little late. I think Adelman has some ideas to deal with the fronting, but he probably doesn't want to show the defense too much early on.
I think both offenses got bailed out by the number of fouls called last night. If the game hadn't be so tightly officiated, the shooting percentages would naturally have gone down. And without our 22 free throws made and Brooks' insane 11 points in the last half minute in a desperate last attempt to close the gap, I doubt we reach 100. Regardless, this is an issue because you can't expect to win consistently in the playoffs if your best player isn't involved in the offense. You might win a game or two but trying to win the series like that is a serious uphill battle. Imagine what the Blazers chances of winning would be if we held Roy to only 10 attempts.
