Rockets should be getting half of the 17 million of Yao's salary as a medical exemption once they apply for it. Question can it be used in a trade or just to pickup a player? As per Yao I hope he can get his foot heal for his family sake and he enjoys his time with his daughter. Also, as owner of his basketball team.
isnt that what they did last time and after a while it still had not healed? I imagine with surgery it still heals the same, but the timefram is much more exact, rather than waiting anywhere from a few months to several to let it heal on it's own.
From my limited knowledge on the treatment of fractures I think that if Rockets/Yao opts for the surgery route they still have hope that he will play again some day. That is what worries me -- the Rockets still count Yao in their plans.
If resign him it'd be a much cheaper price, and no it's not gonna be a minimum, as that would be one of the lowest move one manager could ever do. T-mac is playing like a 7th or 8th man right now and he ain't accept a minimum. Maybe they'll resign him with a very low price and short term, maybe they'll just let his contract expire. Seems to me that they rushed his comeback, and ultimately it's done bad both for Yao and the team.
lol on PTI.. Kornheiser "what has Yao ever won?" Wilbon "what have all those Knicks you ever loved, won? nothing."
They did wait...much like Kenyon martin was told he didnt need knee surgery last season....and then he was still forced to have it. People are assuming they rushed to surgery, but the team actually tried to wait first. Doctors won't be making alot of money by being wrong either. They took the most logical option and changed their recommendation once it was no longer logical or appropriate for what Yao needed and that was to continue his career. Waiting even more could have meant Yao missing half of this season, maybe more. That means no playoffs and no point in yao returning for the second half because his minutes would have still been limited. And lets not forget Yao has a say in all this. It's actually better for the doctor for yao to take it as slowly as possible. The team probably wants to take it slowly, but not too slowly. Yao, however, is the only party that probably wants to get back on the court ASAP. He probably was the one pushing for surgery the most. If there's anything i've learned from following injuries across the league, it's that an overwhelming majority of the time it's the player moving up return dates and trying to rush, while the coaches and team tells them to slow down.
my doc recommended that to me with my knee. yes, yao is a completely different case, but not all surgery is successful. yao probably could have let it heal (if it would have healed on it's own) and he probably could have led a normal life not playing basketball again. this surgery was done so he would have a chance at being able to play basketball 9 months out of the year. it was my understanding that his career was going to likely be over without the surgery. maybe clanton is a sociopathic freak who enjoys performing risky surgery on his patients, but i'd just guess he isn't. surgery doesn't fix everything and the body doesn't always heal even with surgery. i know this and i just deal with it.
you are right about yao - i remember him giving an interview saying he was going to choose whichever route was the fastest back to getting on the court, even if it was only a difference of several months between options. in any case now in hindsight, it's looking like that reshaping of the arch simply transferred the force and shock to the bones further up the leg
It will be interesting to see what Les does with Yao, the bball business move would be to let his contract expire and have the team move on from the Yao era but in hearing Les comments it seems he still holds out hope there will be some kind of role for Yao. I don't see that Chinese money continuing to come in if Yao isn't playing so my bet is this will be Yao's last days as a Houston Rocket.
15-minute video of the full press conference is now up on the story... http://rockets.clutchfans.net/1168/yao-ming-is-done-for-the-year/
