you're comparing the talent pool of a college team [12 or so] to the talent level of an entire professional league. tim duncan wasn't just the best player on his team. he also happened to be the best player, by far, in all of college basketball. this is not a good comparison at all. another thing that makes this invalid is that, even if rusty whoever was the second best player on Wake Forest that year, that doesn't mean he was anywhere near Duncan in talent level. I don't think that Ming is as much better than Wang as Duncan is than Larue. do you?
The ironic thing to this statement, is that Odom, will turn out to be the one who provides the chemistry, and the character, you say the Rockets are so-called lacking. He is a natural leader, and a guy who will bring out the best in ALL of our players.. not to shabby for a drugy, flaky, underachieving player.
Perhaps I'm being a little insensitive with my wording, but I'm remembering when the Vancouver Grizzlies were looking to draft him. First he was in the draft, then he was out, then he disappeared for a while, then he was back in, and all this right before the draft!? Word on Grizzball from an insider was that the Grizzlies had checked him out and felt he had a "major drug problem." Since then he has been suspended for drugs. In the NBA he's played well in spurts, but he hasn't set the world on fire by any means. Talent wise he is arguably more talented than Francis, but he hasn't done nearly as much. Yeah I know, he plays on the Clippers, he has no veteran support … There are a lot of factors that are hard to quantify. My point is that there are far more character questions about Odom than Yao, and those character questions worry me. …and the question of character in general is very important for us right now. Do these guys want to win, or are they just going to become paycheque players who want to live the life of a NBA star? I'm straying off topic a bit, but I'm just not confident that Odom is a character guy with his head screwed on right. Yao, I think, is.
There are many ways to screw this up. I'm hoping for the best, but there are many down sides and we are not in a "no lose" situation. I too am strangely serene, but only because I don't think we could get much worse.
A little. The thing that scares me most is if we pass on Yao and he turns out to be the real deal. Him possibly being a bust doesn't scare me as much. Worth the gamble imo. getting vets ready to take us to the next level now is awfully tempting tho.
