I wonder if Rockets fans on this board are the only people in the world who would blame the player who is the leading scorer, leading fg%, leading rebounder, leading shot-blocker in the game for losing the game. It's just unreal. I understand some of the posters here are trying to say that Yao has a share of the blame for not getting the entry pass. I totally agree with it. But he is the REASON we lost the game--as the title of the thread and some of the posts suggest? OMG! Oh, do you guys know that Dunleavy scored 28 poinsts in leading the Warriors winning over the 76ers? Maybe we made a mistake drafting Yao over Dunleavy. CD and Rudy blew it, comparing their respective performances last night.
1. LAST GAME, Yao almost fouled out. He was criticized for this. 2. THE NEXT GAME, he is less aggressive, more passive. See the correlation? I'll go even further....the guy is in his 2nd year of pro basketball. Hell, his second year of NBA basketball, period. OBVIOUSLY, he's got more to learn...about positioning, adjusting to defenders, being aggressive without overly so. This should go without saying. But considering we couldn't get the ball upcourt until we had 10 seconds left on the clock, weren't really looking for the pass anyway... ...the 'blame' is probably a little more deserving in other areas than trying to pin it on Ming.
I been trying to say this about Yao after seeing several of his games. One thing I wish he would do is to play with attitude and stop being so nice to players. Being Asian i can see where he's coming from, he tends to be nice and not really feel like he wants to dominate, it's the same thing like being shy and not really speak up. Everybody know if he speaks up and be a little angry and demand the ball more and use his 320bls and height to his advantage, he's going to be really unstoppable. I want him to change his way of thinking or attitude, whatever you called it, which i think can be difficult because of the culture. When i watch him play, i wish he would play with the attitude of "**** you BEN Wallace or **** you shAQ, you piece of shYT, you're nothing to me." But instead he approaches the game with a different attitude, a cautious humble and "let's see what's going to happen" approach which is good but at some point he needs to change to an attitude of "i am da MAN, give me the ****ing ball". He should play with a vicious attitude wheather he fails or not, just do it and he might realize his potential can be greater. If he's going to continue with this "wait and see approach" attitude, he's not going to dominate like people envision him to be (a la shAQ or whatever). But then I might say too much because he's never going to change to this attitude because of his culture. It's his personality, you just can't change someone's personality, it's probably innate. It's true if Yao has any weakness is his stamina. If he has the stamina of Shaq, then I think he will be even better. I also think one other problem to his game is his approach to rebounding the ball which is all wrong. He DID box out his man as always (which is good), but it seems like he boxes out to let his teammates rebound for him. He should know that he doesn't not have to spend so much time worrying about boxing out and not rebounding the ball. You only need to take a few seconds to box out and then prepare to jump for the rebound, that's why he never got much rebounds and only seem to get the ball if it bounces his way. He needs to understand there is more than just boxing out and because of his height he should have no problem where the ball bounces to get the ball. I don't know why but the coaches need to tell him this and change the way he approach rebounding. This is the only way to improve his rebounding: change his way of thinking.
Last season there was a game in Piston's homecourt where he went one-on-one against big Ben, out muscled the NBA 2-time defender and slammed the ball over him. Hehe, I still have the video clip. I can still hear in my ears the shocking reactions of the commentators "Oh!!! He slams it over big Ben, baby, did you see what I just saw???"
first Yao needs to get MORE AGGRESSIVE!!!!!! Like last night Stromile Swift is 6'9" Yao is 7'6" HE NEEDS TO DUNK MORE!!!!!! He needs to stop fading away! Other than that i think he's good!
we lost our first game of the season, I say we gut the team and start all over. 1-1 guys, we're gonna look like JVG if we don't calm down.
reptilexcq - yeah..I could not agree more. it's related to the culture , and to the way that he is thinking. But I do believe that time can change this, especially he is just a second year Rocket. I think right now , he is still trying to let the coach design the play instead of yelling to Steve "Give me the ****ing ball". But sooner or later, he will get that.
Its just one loss. Chill out, and lets look forward to game 3... stop reminicsing on something that has been done, cant be changed.
Codell I apologize, but the Nazi reference wasn't serious - it was my gut reaction to an uncharacteristic post from you. Go back and read my original post which you responded to. I didn't say Yao couldn't be criticized, I was just pointing out that one day the big guy can be blamed for any loss the Rockets suffer. He's going to be that great IMHO, and that goes with the territory . This thread is about blaming Yao for last night's loss. And it's a joke, right? (Great post Easy) You did sound as if you were Rocket's management, which I wouldn't object to normally. We're not even arguing here, I think. But I will react to bs insinuations that Rudy & CD held kindergarten camp around here for the last 4 years just because Rudy didn't do what you and I wanted him to. And that's how I somewhat laughingly reacted to your statement. "Everyone will be held accountable for mistakes that contributes to losses" sounds like we didn't even have a pro-sports franchise here last year. But moreover it's wrong. If Yao needs to commit 8 TOs to put up 25 shots, I don't care. If Yao needs to play minutes when he can barely stand (like last year) in order to improve his stamina, I don't care. Yao still needs to be pushed, but it's not in the best interest of this team to set him up for failure then blame him for it. So Van Gundy's in the same dilemma Rudy was, only with real pressure, mostly from within his own psyche. But again, I really didn't mean to offend you. I want the Rockets to improve and I think they will. However, blame is a dangerous thing - you have to be certain. And that's what this thread is about.
Stromile Swift played rather the power forward position. L Wright was at the Center position. You forgot to mention Yao each time he touched the ball he immediately found himself surrounded by defenders. It's rather easy for you to say to go "more aggressive" while he was still able to put the ball 7/11 times into the basket. If your big man gets double team, than your shooters out there should be open & be able to knock down the shots, BUT if you look at the rest of the Rockets' shooting, it was just terrible.
Omega must have been watching tapes of last year because when I've watched Yao play this year, I've seen a much better player that makes few of the mistakes Omega has tried to pin on him with this thread. He's no Dennis Rodman, but Yao has improved physically and has been able to stand his ground in the post better this season. The thing he has to improve is his tendency to get in foul trouble. Yao spends too much time out of the game in foul trouble. When he's on the court, I start to believe some of the MVP hype Yao gets on these message boards and I certainly wasn't waving his banner even half a year ago. The other problem when Yao leaves is that the ROckets revert back to Mobley/Francis iso and that has got to die and die now.
I understand your point Codell. My issue is that Yao has become the focus as to why we lost. We have a thread entitled, "Blame Yao for the Loss". I agree that it's fair to lay some of the blame on Yao, but I think it's absurd that he's become the focal point for the loss on Saturday. I'd hate to see this board when Yao has a bad game because he'll definitely have worse nights than this.
its not just yao's fault, but yes he should shoulder the blame, we win as a team and we lose as a team.
