WHY would anyone want to see less of Tmac and Yao?: tmac will continue to wear down during the season. yao's body is also taking a beating and with his obligations to his homeland coming almost every summer, he plays competitively year-round. his body will also start to wear down. cutting 4 minutes per game from each would keep them playing 33MPG for the season. the saved minutes add up to 32 minutes over 8 games (like one game off every 8 played), and 328 over the course of the season... the equivalent of 10 games played at 32.8 minutes per game. imagine how much fresher they will feel with the equivalent of 10 less games a year? less PT = less wear and tear = more games per year, fresher legs for the post-season, longer careers. HOW can the rockets afford to do this without compromising their W/L record? the amount of production lost will be difficult to replace. still, i think the rockets are closer than most people realize. scola can take over the post scoring duties for an extra few minutes each game, along with landry to a lesser extent. however, neither can replace yao's shot blocking. finding a shot blocking center worthy of playing 12-15MPG would be one of my top priorities this summer. i love deke but he can't play that much anymore. replacing tmac's extra minutes is much tougher to do. that's where the rockets need to find the much talked about perimeter scorer. again, the rockets have the assets needed to do this with $12M in expirings, young expendable players and draft picks. -------------------------------------------- in the end it's only a mere 4mpg, just one minute per quarter of each game, but it adds up to so much rest by seasons end. the rockets won't even miss a beat if they add just two players: 1. perimeter scorer. 2. shot blocking center worthy of 12-15mpg.
Their minutes should definitely be monitored from now on. Yao's injury was directly due to "wear and tear", not just a freak occurence. Tmac just hasn't been the same since his back issues at the start of the 05/06 season, yet we keep asking him to carry more and more of the load. The spurs have done this; we haven't had the luxury. I think with Scola and Landry here, Yao's minutes will be the easiest to limit. He missed 27 games and we did ok with Scola getting the bulk of backup C minutes. Tmac's going to be hard to replace. We're hardcore fans, so we're naturally going to whine and b**** when Adelman sits Tmac for Head too long and it costs us a game. It'll be worth it in the long run, though.
Yao minutes HAVE TO be reduce. The same think about T-Mac. Adelman just needs to understand Yao can't play that many minutes, he is too weak, his body is too weak. That's why we need good backup center. But I agree. Their minutes should be reduced
It just doesn't work like that. Basketball isn't a game where the coach has a stopwatch in his hand and counts how many minutes his star players are playing. Coaches keep or substitute players in and out according to the flow of the game, if the game is a blowout from the start, then star players are likely to sit more. The game is extremely close, then star players play more. It's not as easy as saying, cut 4 minutes off Mcgrady and Yao's time, it depends completely on the game situation, and how good your team is. Look at the Spurs, Duncan 34 minutes, Ginobili 33 minutes, Parker 33 minutes. Pretty much what you are suggesting is trying to turn the Rockets into the Spurs, but it's exceedingly difficult. If it was easy, wouldn't all of the teams in the league have done it?
Sorry for the double post, but I just reread my post and I didn't mean it to be directly like that. I meant that in order for McGrady and Yao's minutes to be cut, we need to have good role players like the Spurs to be able to fulfill it.
No, Tmac runs out of gas as is, if we were to cute 4 milles per gallon he'd have nothing in the tank. Yao too.
Next year, when they become familiar coach RA's system, more blowout games will be. Then the starters' minutes will reduce naturally. In this season Rockets struggles a lot. coach RA doesn't want to be fired in his 1st season. He had to play Y/T more.
that's an awesome idea !!!! how about we sit our TWO BEST SCORERS down and subsitute Head and Brooks and pray to sweet baby jezuz that they turn the page and finally realize that putting the ball in the hole will get you points...i'm sure we'll be fine but yes, i agree, we need a permiter scorer and a decent inside presence (refer to sig)
Just whip their asses into shape this offseason. Yao will be in shape because of the Olympics... McGrady is coming off of surgery, someone needs to watch him to make sure he doesn't blow up like he did the year before last. If it only were as simple as cutting 4 mpg.
exactly right. its about role players being able to manage for a few extra minutes without their stars. haven't the rockets role players proved anything yet? add the two pieces which i suggested and the team won't miss a beat when either star gets an extended breather (or misses an extended amount of games). as per your first post- no, coaches don't have a stopwatch, but they do monitor each players minutes very closely. it's usually one of the assistants job to keep track of the substitution patterns during the game, and make sure that the players are (roughly) where they are supposed to be regarding PT. i understand that most teams play their stars more than 35 minutes a night... probably closer to 40, but that doesn't mean it's difficult to keep a guy's PT in check.
though yao will play in the olympics, and be in game shape at the start of the season, he will tire as the season goes on because he would've been playing all summer. i'm not suggesting cutting minutes because they are out of shape. this is as a precaution to keep them healthier. and i know that keeping them healthy isn't as simple as cutting 4 mpg, but it is a very simple way to help a lot.
Certainly Morey will do what he can to bring in a more competent backup for McGrady. He seems to mention that any big deals the Rockets make will be through trades so I imagine he already has a few deals in mind if not already in place. I think Yao's situation is easier to deal with because of the emergence of Scola and Landry. I think Scola is going to get almost all of the backup Center minutes with Landry coming in to fill the void at PF. Of course, Chuck will still see minutes but we know they will be reduced. Deke is still an option but I expect him to not even play on a lot of nights.
Yes, yes, and yes...at least 4 mpg. Don't let Deke rot away on the bench and to only be used if Yao gets injured. Give Deke 5-10 mins of Yao's pt during every regular season game. T-Mac is another story. You gotta bring in more talent to cut his mins.
i don't think playing 35-36 mpg during the season hurt tmac. what hurts tmac is if that he has to do a lot of the playmaking also. i just saw her usage rating for the playoffs and he led the entire playoffs at 33.7. you saw when rafer came back and did the ballhandling, tmac played fine throughout the game. but that's def. not the case when rafer doesn't play. what we need is another playmaking PG to come off the bench so if rafer sits, tmac does not have to do a lot of the playmaking and just look to score. with yao, we have some depth at the bigs position so we can afford to play him 30 mpg in the first half of the yr and gradually increase his mins up to 34-35.
exactly. it's easy to cut yao's mins b/c of the depth with scola/landry/hayes/deke. we have head to back up tmac. nuff said. tmac will play the same minutes if we bring the same team to next yr.
