is there any doubt ming must be the offensive focus?

A point guard-

Involves other players, gets them going, knows where they like the ball, reads mismatches, sees the entire floor, makes the good pass, gets assists, and scores when the door is open.

 

Yao Ming - The only player since Wilt Chamberlain to play point-center.

 

verse, excellent thread, I fully agree with your points. Going into the offseason, I felt this team was kind of at a crossroads in a sense. It was painfully obvious to me that Steve would never be the real PG this team needed, and a backcourt of Francis and Mobley would always be one of two SGs. This team basically had two choices imo and those were either to trade one of the guards and get a true PG or keep them both and get frontcourt players that can pass to run the offense through. Option 1 would have been unintelligent imo b/c it seems both these guys have the IT you want in your players to make big plays and win games. The answer then is to find some solution where the offense can run smoothly with both guards on the floor.

I think we are headed in the direction where Yao will have the ball in his hands via the high and low post and there will be more action away from the ball. Yao will then be able to use his basketball smarts and passing abilities to set guys up. You can already see Cuttino being utilized very much in this fashion and it has benefited his game. It is always much easier to give up the ball and receive it later in the play than have to dribble straight into the teeth of the defense and create a shot. This thinking has helped Cuttino a lot thus far; Im hoping Steve will follow in those footsteps.

In the summer, I thought it was going to take Yao a long time to get used to the NBA game in terms of getting position on the block, being able to make deft passes against NBA defenses and not getting pushed around in general. From what it appears, Yao's development will probably be much quicker than I had imagined. The guy should be able to do a lot of what we need him to do on offense by midseason at the latest as long as he gets the ball enough and teammates defer to him. The only real question mark Im seeing is the rebounding issue. Yao obviously has not learned the fundamentals of boxing out and position for rebounding but that can be learned in time. Right now, he grabs boards based on height. The rebounding issue is my biggest concern with this team; Im hoping the return of KT and Mo's better physical condition will enable this team to hold its ground on the boards.

 

Larry Brown is a big fan of Yao Ming. I think he pulled his punches, so to speak, by putting 6'9" Long on him. It will not always be that easy. Still, I am encouraged by Yao's showing last night. Unless China goes to war with Taiwan sometime soon, the Rockets made a good #1 choice.

DB

 

It's astonishing on how some of you guy's think that Ming is going to come in and average 14pts and 18rebs a game. Ming is not ready to be the focal on the team yet, hell he can't even stay out of foul trouble, he's to light in the ass right now. Give ming about 3 year's and the he'll dominate in this league.

 

interesting thought but i dont think it holds... look at the teams roster. who else would you play besides Long??

 

Art Long and Brian Skinner (who looked built) were their only real centers last night so I dont think Brown had much of a choice and he definately has no insentive to make Yao look good.

Does anyone know why Dalembert didnt play last night? I noticed he is near the top of the league in blocks.

 

I don't think anyone in the world believes Ming is ready to average 14 pts and 18 boards.

But I do most of us believe Ming, even with his foul trouble, is ready to average 14 pts and 8 boards immediately. And that, combined with his sight/agility/skills, means he should touch the ball on a regular basis... at LEAST every other trip down the court!

 

Im looking at Cuttino's assist to turnover ratio. Not good. Again, if this offense is going to become what Rudy says it is (5 man offense dependant upon passing), Mobley will be an odd fit if he does break some of his old habits.

 

Assists to turnovers should improve when he doesn't have to play with so many unfamiliar faces.

 

Ming is still a rookie. How many roks have led their team to the playoffs?
He has come of the bench for two preseason games and we are talking about running the offinse through him, please. He will be very good and, if he stays healty and shows what it takes, maybe great.
But right now this season he is a role player with a big impact. He is not the focal point. If he takes that role then great, but do not force it on a player when they are clearly not ready. He can't even stay on his feet. To be the biggest player on the court why does he spend so much time on his back.
Again, Yoa will be very good but our O should be ran through our all-star. Ming only needs to be an improvement on our previuos center to make us a better team. Ming needs to give us shot blocking, rebounding, good hands, and to make his open shots. We shouldn't ask him to be the dream.

 

The agreement in this thread is amazing. What are the chances that this line of thought is being tossed around within the Rockets organization?

Is there any chance that the team is actually thinking along these lines or relaying this type of information to Francis and Mobley?

And it still doesn't answer the question of whether or not these guys are mature enough to run a more team-oriented system.

 

Duncan, Robinson, Dream, MJ, Shaq, and Magic led his to a championship.

 

I read somewhere about a study that was done where they trained a monkey to do something over here in the US that monkeys had never done before. After a period of time they discovered that monkeys in the far east had started doing it as well. They attributed it to some animal telepathy.

Being that most of us resemble chimps on this board, and the Rockets brass has occasionally too, I would think there is a good chance they are tossing our thoughts around...

 

I think the answer to that is another question: Are they mature enough to fail at it and not abandon it, during a game or throughout the season? A "team-oriented system" is no sure fire cure, and it can cause a lot of busted plays when the defenses are better at cutting off the passing lanes and forcing the ball out of the hot hand than the offense is at making quick cuts, well-timed with picks, and well-anticipated by passers.

Not to say it is really tough to learn the basics, but that also means the defenses know the basics of what you're trying to accomplish.

 

Junior high players can run a system like that. These are multi million dollar prima donnas, that's the problem. You just have to be willing to and stick with it.

 

Verse, I am not trying to make SF a point guard. What I am trying to make him is the result of some tweaking most of which are subtle. If the end product is a point guard, then fine but that is not my aim. There are certain political realities that you have to deal with. That is why I call for subtle and deliberate moves. What political realities?

1. The team just signed WInk to the max contract.
2. He has made it clear that he does not want to be a full time 2, else he probably would have gone to Canada.
3. He was probably the last player to come to terms with the Ming selection.
4. No time for violent disruptions. It is time to sell some tickets and get the team going. A lesser team won 45 games two years ago and it cannot be that difficult to just improve and that and build some momentum.

Steve Francis is the point guard of this team. If you change that overtly, the team is in trouble. So I would change it, incompletely, in subtle ways, one of which is to get Ming more involved but not to the extent that you are proposing. For instance anytime Mobley has to get a rest or is in foul trouble I would bring in Moochie and play Francis at the 2. That could amount to as much as 16mins in a game. Assuming that Wink only plays 32 mins it could be that sometimes he plays almost half of his time at the 2. No harm no foul, there. If this is not all possible, I still believe it is easier to work with him to tweak his game than to get him to accept a secondary role in the team's offense. You might as well trade him if that is what you want to do.