Same thing can be said of Wade the last 3 years. He also broke down in the playoffs and that was the primary reason the Heat was eliminated. Yet you don't hear Miami fans saying we need to dump Wade or saying Wade doesn't deserve a max contract. Yao will get a max contract either with the Rockets or another team.
Totally agree! Look the Yao haters here. If Yao reads all these posts, it will be stupid for him to stay Houston. Some people are so mean here. Maybe the only way to check Yao's real value is to let him go, and see what happens for this team.
Sugerland, What u didn't post are the mins per game. Shaq was averaging 38 mins per vs 31. Not to mention, shaq always finished the season.
stop this kind of threads , just let him go , ok ? I think most of REAL FANS of HOUSTON want see YAO go , right ?
Leebigez I'm not a regular here so I don't know all the politics here on clutch. There seems to be warring camps. You seem to dislike Yao from the few times I come here. All I'm saying is there is hope Yao will be injury free in the future. He isn't playing this summer because of his injury and he was relatively injury free this season. Imagine if we trade Yao. He is injury free and leads his new team to championships. How would we feel then? Kind of like seeing Brad Lidge win a WS for the Phillies. Just consider that. That's the point of this thread.
Sugarland, yao will never be the best player on a championship team. He's a pau gasol type of all star. I'm sorry to break the news to you.
We all got your opinion. You are not god of basketball intelligence, nobody on this board except Maybe Clutch.
It doesn't matter if Yao is the best player for a championship team or the 2nd best player. That's not the point of the thread. It seems like people who dislike Yao are trying to hijack this thread and make it something it's not. It is not saying Yao is as good as Shaq either. All it is saying is Yao can be injury free for the next few years. Yao is who he is and the professionals today declared him a top 10 player and the 2nd best center in the NBA. Yao can be the 2nd best player for a championship team and we will still kick ourselves for letting go of an all nba player. Brad Lidge is a closer and only pitches in relief but he was very important to their championship. Yao could be integral to another team's championship then we will be stuck here looking like fools for letting him go.
Add in an extra 33 games Shaq could have played in '99, its Yao: 481 Shaq: 488 Still even and makes the comparison valid. What does greatness have to do with rate of injury? Injuries take down HOF's and scrubs alike. Its a very nice comparison stat meant for encouragement. BUT... Yao's injury situtation is still different than Shaq's.
What makes you think Shaq would have played in ALL 33 extra games given his injury history? In any case, Yao and Shaq played in close to the same number of games in 7 years of the NBA. Relatively close. In fact go look how many games Amare played in. He entered the NBA with Yao. Amare 434 games Yao 481 games Both will get max contracts in 2010
U think the rockets regret trading 2-time league mvp moses who won a ring the first season andleague mvp in philly? U think La regret trading shaq? What about Kidd from nj,dallas,phoenix, and dallas again? Every player is tradeable or has a value. In 99 Dumars traded a top 3 player in the league hill, for ben wallace and chucky atkins. U think detroit and dumars regret that. Its better to get rid of a guy a yr early vs a yr late. I'm just saying.
What you say is true if the player is at the tail end of his career. Now you are finally talking about the purpose of this thread. I think Yao is in his prime and will go through a healthy stretch of years injury free. That is why I think it is foolish to trade him or let him go. The same question can be posed to Wade. Is he at the tail end of his career. Clearly Miami doesn't think so. Wade has been injury prone for the last 3 years and he has played us the USNT every summer too.
I understand ur point about the injury thing, but when you're determining a guys contractual value, you take into account everthing including risk of injury. If yao can only play 30 mins a game and theprospects that he has lower leg problems, you don't want to give a guy like that 6 yrs and 20m per. Now 3 yrs and 139 per is cool, but no way u give him the max with max increases for 6 yrs.
They are not comparable. Nobody on that list makes money for owner like Yao. Just face the reality, Rockets will sign Yao MAX unless he suffers a career ending injury. But the final decision maker will be Yao himself. He won't let what fans think to be a part of his decision making process, and rightfully so.
There is no what or what abouts. You are not the owner, otherwise you'd be willing to pay more than MAX to keep Yao. Because in the end, the money Yao makes for the owner each year exceeds what the owner pays for him, the owner gets a top 3 center for free, then some.
Only thing is Yao bring in way more money for the Rockets than what he makes. Without the money Yao is making for the Rockets, Les would be as cheap as the owner of the Clippers. We all know Les lost a bundle in the stock market. We would be at the league min for salary cap instead of right at the luxury cap and Les spending millions to buy draft picks that turned out to be Carl Landry. Imagine if you worked for a company as a salesman and you brought in 10 million in profit every year. Your boss pays you 2 million. The company is net positive 8 million having you on payroll. Would you be willing to take a paycut to $1 so your boss can make $9 million in profit. More likely you would want 3-4 million instead especially if you are indespensible to making the profit like Yao is for the Rockets. Think about life without Yao. Think about Les watching every penny.
Sugarland, despite his age, yao isn't in his prime. He's like a high milage bmw, still a good car, but not what it was. Yao is declinin but at what rate? I think if yao played 30 mins a night, he would be 18-8-1.5 blks. I think he could do that for 3yrs or so before he really starts to slide. If he produced those kind of numbers I mentioned, what would his contract look like?
