Your timeline and facts are incorrect. 1) Ilgauskas broke his foot Dec. 22, 2000 vs Miami. 2) The reconstructive surgery was performed by Dr. Mark Myerson in Baltimore in February of 2001. 3). Ilgauskas was in training camp in October of 2001. 4) Ilgauskas was held out the first 16 games and then began playing in game 17 of the 2001 -2002 season. 5) This particular surgery was very new in 2001. 6) Yao broke his foot in May of 2009. 7) Yao's reconstructive surgery was performed by Dr. Tom Clanton in Houston in July 2009. 8) Yao will be in training camp in October of 2010. 9) Ilgauskas had previously broken bones in both feet multiple times. So, what does that mean? 1) Ilgaulskas had a history of foot problems in both feet, while Yao's problems have been limited to his left foot. 2) Ilgauskas had his surgery at mid season in 2000-2001 and returned to training camp in Oct. 2001. He was back in camp just 9 months after having the surgery and began playing in the team's 17th game. Yao sat out an entire season and training camp will be a full 15 months following surgery. 3) In '01-'02 the Cavs limited Ilgauskas' minutes due to the unknown nature of the then-experimental surgery and from fear of Ilgauskas injuring his other foot from overcompensating for the repaired foot (remember "Z" had foot problems in both feet). He ended up playing in 62 games, so that means that he only missed 4 games the remainder of 2001-2001. Sice he played in 62 of the final 68 games, then I don't see how they could have been holding him out of back to back games (they would have had more than 4 back-to-backs over 68 games). 4) The second season following reconstrucive surgery, Ilgauskas played 30 minutes a game and played in a 81 games. Obviously if he played in every game except one then he wasn't being held out of back to back games. BTW in Ilgauskas only full season prior to the reconstructive surgery he averaged 29 minutes per game, so his second season back he actually played more minutes that his rookie season. The situaions were entirely different with Z and Yao. Z had two bad feet, the procedure was still new and unproven in 2001 and Z came back much faster than Yao.
I agree with your concerns, however I do not think the number 8 seed in the west will have 50 wins this year bc I feel the balance of power is shifting a little more to the east and some of the western conference teams are going to exp a drop off
Ilgauskas' reconstructive surgery was performed in February of 2001, so the fact that he missed most of '98 to '00 is totally unrelated to his surgery.
u mean where yao started to get fronted and doubled b4 he even touched the ball? now that we have some people who can attack the paint, can you imagine how much they are going to enjoy playing with yao and his ability to draw fronting defenses ... considering .. we have martin instead of artest (who just wanted to dribble left and shoot) .. ariza (more of a slasher) instead of battier (spot up shooter).. a more confident brooks..
It isn't surprising that we're not getting much national attention. ESPN and the lesser-rans tend to stroke their meat over the teams that are already popular---know your audience---and will crawl onto a new and exciting bandwagon once it appears in the "wins" column radar. Kids like to see dunks (Amar'e, Dwight Howard), Kobe and the Lakers, et al. I don't know how much interest Les had in Amar'e the last year, but did he try to trade for him because he's just That Great or because he'll also get you on TV?
Good job OP. Good thing you posted that video to remind us about Yao and how he's going to make this team a better one. If Yao stays healthey this season, well what i meant is, if nobody hurt him intentionally, we'll be facing Miami in the finals.
LOLOL. Here's the latest in the PointForward looney tunes series, which began with the great Colt McCoy conspiracy and then the epic Kevin Durant is secretly a complete jerk thread. Now, Utah upgraded big time?!? Was it replacing Carlos Boozer - he of the 19/11, TS of 60%, PER of 21, perfect chemistry with Deron Williams - with Al Jefferson? You know, the 17/9 guy, TS of 52%, PER of 19, no experience in the Utah system, major defensive concerns and a balky knee? Was it replacing Kyle Korver and Wes Matthews - two very capable and younger wings - with Raja Bell? You know, the 34-year-old with declining defensive skills and coming off major surgery, essentially not playing a game since 2008-09? Oh, wait. That argument only works against Yao. Biased much? There's a debate whether the Jazz declined a lot or a little, and I see cases for both sides. To say they "upgraded big time" is homerism that I'm pretty sure no one in the entire state of Utah would even agree with. Then to Phoenix. Despite Nash losing Amare Stoudemire and Leandro Barbosa - the rocks (alongside Nash) of the PHX team all these years, he will "somehow manage" to get the Suns in the playoffs just because. Wow, what an argument there. It's not as if a Nash-led team, even with Amare, was capable of missing the playoffs just one season ago. OH WAIT! http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/standings?year=season_2008
If the Rockets are lucky, they won't have many tough road trips early in the season. That way Yao can be brought back slowly. But this team is still one star away from getting any respect. That's just how the media operates.
We have been out on 1st round once in 13 years. Yao has been hurt the last 4 seasons. The team has a lot to prove. we didn't need people to hype up the team and jynx them.
This is the Key for Yao when he is playing, having the other players drive and dish, or spotting up and actually hitting open shots will keep other teams honest when guarding Yao. IF they are hitting? Then Yao gets the single coverage, he can rebound easier, can score more effectively, and doesn't have to pressure his game or feet as much. To be honest it isn't about Yao, especially in RA's system, it's more about player movement, cuts passes and hitting the open shots and easy layups. If our players are doing that, Yao should fine.
To me, it's not so much that the Rockets aren't getting respect, I don't really care about that. But rather, even the local media knows jack squat about the team. They really are simply ignorant of our players and our organization in general. But then again, this is a football town. So what do you expect?
He was wrong about the 2nd season. Z played 21.5 mpg in his 1st season back from the surgery. He's off by 1.5 minutes. That's not a big difference. http://www.nba.com/playerfile/zydrunas_ilgauskas/career_stats.html
That's funny. I have video footage of Yao Ming in 2009 playing against the Trailblazers. <object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/xa6AEtNj3kc&hl=en_US&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/xa6AEtNj3kc&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>
"yao ming has a great first half going 9-9fg and breaking his big ass foot, lets see what he has in store for the 2nd half."
my friends feed me enough sugary kool-aid. i don't mind the hometown media being critical & objective. which station(s) though? been listening to 610 recently and they don't seem too critical of the Rocks' offseason.
Agreed, it was near correct minute-wise but it was a totally different circumstance. Ilgauskas' minutes were limited due to a) the unknows surrounding the new surgical procedure, b) his history of repeated foot problems in both feet and c) the fact that he was just 9 months removed from the reconstructive procedure. Additionally, he wansn't prevented from playing in back to back games as earlier stated.
