To me it is a conundrum, if they baby him too much then his contract comes up and they may not know whether he is truly healed or durable. In contrast if they run him into the ground, they might destroy his career? What would you do? Me, I would start slowly around 20mpg, and then ramp him up to 36 minutes by February/March, all the while getting X-rays and checking up on both of his feet. I think the team needs to get him some serious minutes before offering a new contract, but needs to be smart about it. What would you guys do? DD
probably the same,start with 20 mpg, then slowly raise it to 35 around Febuary, if there's any close calls we start to limit his minutes again unless we need to make a push to get to the playoffs.
Or at least sign one! If we go into the season with Chuck Hayes and David Andersen backing up Yao, I'm going to be pretty confused.
Hah I was gonna say a similar thing. Bring him back like you did #3. Slow, slow, slow; limited minutes.
I can see bringing him along slowly, I agree with this to a point, but because it is the last year of his contract, the team just has to find out if his foot is going to be durable, or not. Or conversely do you limit him all year and then offer him a much lower contract? The possibilities are endless. DD
If he is healthy and they purposely limit him, so they can low ball a contract. Nobody in their right mind will want to sign with the Rockets as a free Agent......
Dr xiki says: Limit minutes, 5-6 at a time; 4-5X/game. Do not play him in both ends of B2Bs. Thus, he should be fresh and healthy for a long p/o run. This requires solid back-up at the 5 (hmm, Brand and #2 might be a start?).
Start him off slowly, maybe 12-15 or 15-18 minutes per, probably the former. Then ramp it up, again slowly til he gets to the minutes they are comfortable with. Though with this all said, I think the Rockets will just push it. I know we the fans have said throughout the past, "No more than [X] minutes per game!" We'll see though. Hopefully they play it smart.
I think it should be decided on what team we play. I wouldn't play him back to back until we get closer to the end of the season. Also, I wouldn't play him with the "easy win" teams, even though it might cost us a win or two.
The problem with that is that his stamina would be shot and he won't be able to play those 35 minutes.
Its a contract year so I wouldnt worry about anothing Not that Yao is that type of players but he's a Pro and Pro's have great preformance in their final year contract ..
I'd trade him now,early in the year,or at the deadline considering he's an expiring contract,injury prone but could say healthy, plus would be a cash cow/face of the franchise guy....... and we would get plenty. I don't want to keep gambling that Yao's going to stay healthy. Yes, it's true that Les has banked bigtime but he should have been dealt 3 -4 years ago.
I do not have ANY doubt about Yao Ming and his attitude, his body or rather his feet, I have a lot of concerns about. DD
After 82 games, I'd be surprised if we don't know how durable he can be. He may be able to play more minutes in subsequent years, but there's no way of knowing that. Morey will know exactly how much he's worth, will probably give Yao good reasons why, and Yao will surely take it. Aside: Can you imagine the news uproar if Yao decided to opt out this summer and attended the Avengers meeting?
