Put our star player...a national hero...our biggest matchup problem..on the bench,..i sincerely hope your joking.
of the suggestions, i like this one best. but just as with the okafor comment earlier, legit big men like biedrins don't fall off of trees like some people on this board think.
Some of the posts on this thread are absolutely ridiculous.. People want to Bench Yao??? He's making like 16 million. I'll sit on the bench for 16 million.. People wanna play him 20 min a game??? Again he is making 16 million, I don't want him only playing 20 min a game. He either needs to stay on the floor or we need to get rid of him. Simple as that. We are not that deep of a team to just let our best player play 20-30 minutes a game....What if it's a tight game and our offense is just out of sink with him on the bench but he's already played his 30 min for that game??? Has anyone thought of that??? Are we not supposed to put him in and just hand the game over cuz god forbid yao play 40 minutes a game. He's an nba player and this is a business where you must produce or you get shafted.. Yao should be no different, neither should tracy nor any other rocket... I'm not a Yao or TMAC HOF...I care about the success of the rockets as a whole and am a rocket HOF...Yao's priority should be with the rockets, no if's ands or buts... We are paying his salary not the freakin CNT.. Someone should slap some freakin sense into him.. W/o the rockets, he wouldn't have that bad ass house that he has or that bad ass car or all the video games in the world.. He needs to realize who is paying his bills..
Yes play him like normal..if not, then he needs to take a pay cut so we can get deeper and put more pieces around him....Come on Yao, the choice is yours.... Play 35-40 min a game or take a pay cut.
I wanted to add one more thing... Say Yao's minutes are reduced to around 20 min a game... Who's to say that he can't get a freak injury in that 20 min span.. All i'm tryin to say is that you can't predict when injuries are gonna happen so why even hold him back?? The rockets would only be hurting themselves.
you're right in that we'd play yao normal minutes. i personally would like to see both yao and mcgrady play in 32-33 minutes range per. "I don't think you can ever plan on injuries," Rockets coach Rick Adelman said. "You have to assume these guys are going to be healthy, because you can't find another Yao or another Tracy. I wish you could, but you can't." adelman speaks the truth. but your last one was way off. it never has been, and will not be an viable option in the nba. you can't say "tracy, play 75+ games or take a pay cut", either. if yao breaks, then our time with a 7'6 center is over. experiment failed. simple as that. money-wise les will get most of his back from the insurance company.
No? That's not how contracts work? He's going to play out his entire contract even if he wants less money to sign more people. That's how professional sports work. He can't just rip up his contract; his salary is on the books even if he returns 25% of it to the team.
I have to agree to keep Yao's minutes down in the regular season games. What 'bout make him into a player/assistant coach type that he can teach his teammates on how to make free throws?
Get real, the best idea to get the most out of Yao is to trade him now when his market value is still high. We can basically ask for anyone except a short list of the premier players in the league. Flame me if you want but I state the truth here.
That's more realistic than the number I used. I'd like to see the 30 minute average for the entire season, however. Play less than that until the stretch run and then start ramping up his time. Same with McGrady. We really need an long athletic wing who can hit an outside shot and a long athletic backup 5. And a point guard. Heck, we don't need much, do we?
All this team need is a new road color in jersey sales change the team theme. More profit in jersey sales with new colors. Black jersey with red letters and silver for road uniforms. White jersey with red letters and silver for home uniforms then the truditional replica stayes the same. Who knows might be a great idea profit wise. Then with the right trade think more profit ??
I love Yao. But it's time we let someone else deal with the headache of an unfortunate combination of a 7'6" 310 body frame and serious foot injury in three consecutive seasons.
Getting decent backup center is a good way and by the way a decent big is always useful in playoffs. Saying that, it's not easy as it seems. A decent centre would usually like to start and not play as backup.Is there any decent center who is available and is willing to become a back up?
Honestly, there HAS to come a point in time where the Rockets sit Yao down, and point blank ASk him what his plan is for the rest of his career. Does he want to go down the same career path as Rik Smits, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, and Bill Cartwright, who all had to call it quits, or drastically change their games in order to be successful? Like someone earlier in this thread said, if he feels ANY obligation or loyalty towards the Rockets, he will DRASTICALLY diminish his role with the CNT after the Olympics.....like to the point of telling them he's done playing with them in meaningless tournaments in the off-season. I have no problem with him playing for them in the World Games or the Olympics and things like that, but he doesn't need to play in the Asian Games or whatever they are. His professional career HAS to enter into his list of priorities at one point or another. Even though it's a little dramatic, there is a ring of truth to the fact that he owes the Rockets organization, and his teammates (especially T-Mac) the prime years of his career. I don't even want to bring up what he owes the fans of the city of Houston.....I mean, there are literally thousands upon thousands of Houstonians who live and die by what he does. I understand that there are BILLIONS of Chinese people who do the same thing....but in the end, it's OUR CITY that pays him millions and millions of dollars to do what he loves.
Agreed. Seriously, after the Olympics this summer, how could he continue to say yes to the dinky little tournaments they make him play every year? It's actually amazing he's held up this well so far, considering that those other injury proned centers never had to deal with offseason commitments. Also, some people might hate this idea, but Yao would also benefit from actually making that midrange jump shot. That way, he doesn't have to bang for every bucket he makes. Did anyone catch the beginning of Game 2 of the Cavs-Celtics? They ran a few plays that got Ilgauskas open and he drained midrange jumpers like they were nothing. If we could just get Yao to do the same pick and pop with McGrady, it would be a pretty decent option.
