Beautiful news: China vs Spain live on CNBC this Sunday!

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Gasol 21 pts
Yao 12 pts and 5 fouls

 

Damn, Yao should play better and dominate.
No excuses.

 

that was really just too bad. you can see how angry and upset yao was at the end.

they actually controlled turnovers a little bit better... but another glaring weakness got exposed.

besides Yao, no Chinese player crashes the boards, or even blocks out. The offensive rebound descrepancy was just too huge.

The defense stinks as well... not only the transistion D, but even the half court D, they don't rotate fast enough.

i don't like how pau gasol always looks so glib... that's annoying.

duenas... could he HAVE any more hair. they should play him more often in international games, in a lot of cultures, hair is viewed as really frightening... so nobody would put a body on him.

 

whats that ben stiller movie, where his face rubs from bellybutton to chest on a hairy sweaty guy?

not frightening, just nasty.

 

yeah... along came polly... haha.

 

Yao just dropped a bomb on his teammates by saying they are (and have been) hurting him over the years because they give up too easily.

http://2004.sina.com.cn/cn/bk/2004-08-15/66614.html

 

And he said he has lost a lot of confidence (on them or the game).

 

bigger pic

 

Our two Franchise players have developed the same attitude.

 

I hope JVG, CD, and Les were watching this game. Yao's fatigue is a little on the abnormal side if you ask me. In any event, we can not go into the new season without a legitimate back-up center.

Letting Cato go may have been a gigantic mistake. Even Deke may not have enough gas in his tank to spot Yao (20-25 min). I think the fall-off from letting any of our current PF's back-up Yao would take us out of the top tier in the west and maybe out of the play-offs.

Not-to-mention the 'unmentionable', TMac may decide to take his toys and go somewhere else if he has to play with another loser front-line.

 

Yao played 33 minutes last year. even if his minutes go DOWN to 30, there will only be 18 minutes at C.

Mutombo can definitely give us 18 good minutes.

Yao, I suspect, will improve by the time the season starts. Either he'll work himself into shape, or if it's something else, Falsone , who is in China, will deal with it.

 

Rox will slow down the game unlike the China National Team.
I think Yao can log 2 more min than last season.

 

Sane:

I respect you as a poster and you are usually right, and I don't want to get in a p1ss1ng contest with you; however, even though you noted Yao averaged 33 mins. last year you may agree that he did not PLAY 33 minutes. Hence the 'conditioning' knock on him.

I stand by what I said, we must have a creditable center to spot him or we may not move to the next level. Whether or not Deke is the answer is a ?, but I should think he is a minimum solution.

 

You sound that all other teams have good starting AND backup
centers. I wouldn't mind Howard and Badman taking the
backup center minute. It's a waste to play Howard and Mo only
25 minutes each.

By the way,
Only a few can PLAY 33 minutes. Even superstars take time off
in a game. As JVG said, Yao will be fine to imporve his 7 min PLAY
to 14 minute. I admit he needs improvement, but knee-jerk
action is equally as pathetic as Yao's stamina today.

 

Which is why I gave a 3 minute safety net.

He was 33 minutes last year. If he goes DOWN to 30 minutes, which is as unlikely as him averaging 38 minutes next year, then there will be 18. The MOST likely scenario is that he will go for 33 minutes again and there will be 15 left.

Let's say that he can't "play" 33 minutes as you put it... Let's say he can only play 30 minutes... Yes, 3 minutes matters, a quarter is just 12 minutes. Now if this HIGHLY unlikely thing happens, and Yao goes down to 30 minutes.... YOU KNOW WHAT? let's say he dips to 28 minutes, which is close to frikkin impossible... If yao plays 28 minutes, that leaves 20 minutes to back him up...

Last year, Mutombo averaged 23 minutes, shot 48%, scored 5.6ppg, pulled down 6.7 rebounds, and blocked 2 shots. Don't forget that he COMPLAIND about his minutes, which means he wasn't tired and could go even more. So we can VERY safely assume that he was not tired whatsoever in those 23 minutes.

HOWEVER, with Yao playing 28 minutes, that leaves only 20 minutes for Mutombo who played 23 minutes last year. Which means, he can expend even MORE energy and not worry about getting tired. So it's quite silly to assume that Mutombo, even at this age, can't provide 20 good minutes. Especially since it's more likely he'll play around 15 minutes.

I respect you too. However, your concerns are not valid. Mutombo is not a minimal solution - he's very likely one of the best backup C's in the league. Aside from that, this was Yao's first non-friendly game. The first competitive game. Most probably, his conditioning will improve. So we don't even really need a Mutombo if he just improves slightly on last season.

If he goes up from 33 minutes to 35 minutes, that leaves 13 minutes. You don't think Mo Taylor and...... Steve Hunter could split those 13 minutes, 6 or 7 minutes each? Kevin Willis? Scott Williams?

It's a hole we need to plug, but it's not at all as bad as you make it sound.

 

Yao picked a bad time to sneeze.

 

ROTFLMAO.