The reason for this thread is practice patience with the up and down performance of Trevor, Aaron, Anderson, Lowry, Budinger, and Shane etc... We want Trevor to be the 2005 Tmac. Not going to happen anytime soon. It took Tmac being on a bad Magic team and getting his chance to make mistakes and hoist up shots. From my perspective, even though we make a big trade splash it will take for the team to gel. Bottom line, give Ariza, AB, Anderson, Lowry, and all our other up and down performers a chance to gel and become consistent. Dream and the championship Rockets went through up and downs (Kenny, Max, Horry - we traded him/got him back, Elie, Sam etc...). Our microwave age wants instant results and have zero patience to see them grow and put in the work required. Patience young Jedi's
This team needs more than Yao to contend for a title. I'm afraid it will be a long ways before we are there
Even with Yao healty, we will not win a championship with him as our main offensive scorer. I just about gave up on Yao leading the Rockets to a championship. He and Tmac had their chances.
Don't give up them yet. We have to make decisions on Scola and Shane though. Carl is definitely pushing Scola and Shane production is dropping and will continue to do so after this year.
We have the role players, we don't have the go-to guys. I love Yao, but He's not the most reliable player in the 4th, He's not a choker either. Usually in the 4th, teams begin to start fronting Yao and nobody on this team is capable of passing him the ball except Battier. We have no slashers either except Ariza but he's an off-ball slasher. We will need another player to compliment Yao, preferably Joe Johnson.
A lot has to do with what we can get for T-Mac and IF Yao can stay healthy for a full season. Give me Iggy and a HEALTHY Yao along with this current roster minus Ariza or Shane and we have a good shot.
It would be highly unlikely but not entirely out of the question(We would have to shoots lights out for the entire playoffs and finals). In the playoffs easy buckets are hard to come by. It becomes a half court game, your teams weaknesses are exploited. Our lack of height, interior presence and a closer would be an even bigger issue.
its not going to take Yao almost 2 yrs to get back to where he was, assuming he's physically able to at all. Remember he should technically be ready to go late this season, but isnt coming back so he can take it slowly. That means he'll be playing ball starting this summer. By the time training camp rolls around it should be just like any other camp. He'll need camp and the preseason to get his timing back and learn how to play with the new guys, but physically he should be ok by then. Maybe they'll have some issues early as they adapt, but i dont see why it would take Yao past next season to reach full strength himself.
I don't know if this team will ever win with Yao as the focal point of the team. You can't build around a player only for him to go down during the most crucial part of a season. We have no reason to believe that he can come back and won't just get injured again.
Too many variables to say for sure. We'll have to bring in one or two major players through trades or FA signings. Also, as others have said, it's not certain whether Yao will return healthy and productive. On the bright side, the bulk of our best role guys - Brooks, Lowry, Landry, Ariza - are in their mid-20s or younger. So Morey will have a few shots at getting the right pieces in place.
Yao will come back healthly but the question is for how long? And btw Yao alone will not solve our problems. So my answer is we are not gonna win the CHampionship in the near future.
If we can land Iggy and Dalembert for Tmac... I thinkthis goes a long way to helping Ariza develop. Allowing Shane to fade to the bench, give us some presence on post D with him and Yao. As a result, I'm looking at 2012
