Miami is too predictable, either give the ball to Shaq in the post or iso Wade. I mean, did they get Walker, Posey, and Williams just for their spot up shooting?
I will certainly hope so. It is a shame that the 94, 95 Rox team is still the only glory the Rox fans can be proud of.
Yes, they had plenty but they couldn't make them. Walker is a big fat joke. Two people is not enough.
If we start looking at the last few champions they have all been teams as opposed to 2 superstars and some scrubs. Its looking bad for us.
I'm telling you guys, we can do this. Follow the Dallas/Phoenix model, with Yao at the center to create mismatches all over the place. Having 4 speedy, skilled athletes/shooters around Yao, would be impossible to contain on offense. And don't give me that crap about Yao not being able to keep up with a high powered offense. The Mavs aren't primarily a fastbreaking team. They're a halfcourt team that's looks to create mismatches. All we need to do is to find, a combo-forward type like Robert Horry, or Boris Diaw (or Rudy Gay, hint hint.), who has the length and athleticism to guard both big and small, and who have the offensive skills to create mismatches on the other end. Once we get someone like that, everything else will fall into place.
Maybe if they did have players who could make wide open 3's... like Dallas does... they'd be in better shape. Payton, Walker, and Posey are all the same player... they're chuckers. They really don't have any pure 3 point threats, whereas Dallas has Stackhouse, Terry, Howard, and Nowitzski.
T-mac provided that last year, when healthy... he was unguardable. If that's no longer a given, the Rockets don't have anything in place for the forseeable future.
If Mavs sweep this I wonder how it'll effect the reffing for next season. Cubes will probably be more intolerable than ever.
I think its pretty obvoius now that wade has a ways to go before he deserves to me mentioned in the same breath as kobe and mcgrady and possibly lebron
My prediction: Mavs will sweep or win in 5. Game 3: Close Heat win. Game 4: Close Mavs win. Game 5: Blow out Mavs win.
Tracy would be perfect if it wasn't for his back. I wouldn't want to test him there that much (probably only in crunch time). We've got the draft coming up. There's the usual suspects in Gay, Carney and Brewer. Along with sleepers that might fit the bill in Shawne Williams, Marcus Vinicius, or Thabo Sefolosha. And maybe a guy is sitting at the end of someone's bench. That's where Diaw was this time last year. This is the kind of stuff that we brought in Morey for. To scope out some kind of competitive edge in evaluating players. Let's see if he's worth the money.
I'm not saying Yao is totally obsolete. He's still a great player, but can he run with these small ball teams without a respirator? The Spurs sat Big Shot Bob to play small ball. It's not out of the question that JVG would be forced to sit Yao. If for no other reason he would have to give Yao more breathers just to keep him as fresh as possible and that's giving Yao credit for the great strides he made with his stamina this past season. Our role players failed in game 7 last year and they were better role players than we have now. All I'm saying is the one two punch of Kobe + Shaq or T-Mac + Yao is to shallow to compete with a team with the talent dept the Mavs have. We have major overhauling to do a.s.a.p.
The difference is that Yao is a center, and a low post monster. Dallas still needed Diop and Dampier to bang with Duncan. And Yao's not going to have a problem keeping up with those guys, especially Diop who really gives them nothing on offense. Like I said, small-ball does not automatically equal an up and down running game. You can most definitely use it to primarily create mismatches in the half-court set. And it's not like we can't fastbreak with Yao on the court. Late last season we were out-scoring the likes of Phoenix and Denver in transition. All it took was a couple of our guards pushing the ball and passing it to Tracy or firing up open jumpers in transition. If we add a guy that can run the floor at the PF position, then we can definitely have a dangerous uptempo attack without Yao even crossing halfcourt.
I agree we could veer off our current blueprint and model our team after the Suns/Mavs. To do it Yao would have to become a spot up perimeter shooter at least some of the time like Dirk is for Dallas. The good news is that Yao's range is almost as good as Dirk's. He can spot up and knock down shots something Shaq could never do. Not playing so deep in the post would allow Yao to get back quicker and not clog the lane for slasher like Rudy Gay and T-Mac. I just don't know if a guy like JVG is flexible enough to make the changes needed?
Yao's stamina was concerning last year even when we played slow... it just always took him a little longer to get his second wind. With the off-season conditioning, he completely got over that by the second half of this past season. Also, even though he didn't have the improvements in his stamina that we saw this season, Yao wasn't "winded" in last year's series... where Dallas may have been an even more uptempo team than they are now. Anyways, this thread is definitely going off-topic...
That's one way of looking at it. But based on history, all-around teams will only give one championship. If you want a dynasty, you need superstars.
