Do you feel confident building around T-Mac and Yao?

With health, yeah, I'm very confident. However, if we suffer crippling injuries again next year something has to majorly change.

As it is now I would find a way to increase our chances to be healthy next year more than anything else. Reducing minutes, finding valuable backups, whatever it takes. We need Yao and T-Mac to be peaking at the right time, healthy and ready to go.

 

Eh? Neither have played that few games.

The fewest games Tracy ever played was 47 and that was the year he had chronic back spasms which he seems to be over. He played 66 out of 82 games this year with a knee injury that will probably require surgery, he has my confidence.

The fewest games Yao has ever played was that same year at 48 games when he had a broken bone in his foot.

 

Optimistic, but no great confidence. I agree no choice. We don't want to go total rebuilding. Tracy does not attack the rim like the great swingmen of all time, but he is a better passer so he is still a very good player.

Actually the roster looks better than after last year and it is a relief to be rid of Van Gundy, but the health concerns, at least with Yao look worse. Tracy is doing as well as to be expected health wise.

There is still a chance with Steve's operation and recovery. Rafer is doing better than to be expected. Scola and Landry will be as good or better and for the whole season.

It all gets down to health. With health we have a good chance at the Western Conference Finals.

 

Yao's injury last year was just a freak accident - broke his leg under the basket. The stress fracture this year was from over-working. That is why we need a very good back-up center to take some of the regular season minutes from him.

Tracy is frail, and is oft-injured, several times a season now. The big difference between Kobe driving and McGrady is Kobe seems to be able to wriggle out of injury trouble and Tracy takes more hits.

I am giving it one more year although he has two left on his contract.

 

I wasn't confident 4 years ago and I'm not confident now. Health is obviously the major concern with chemistry being not far behind. Kobe and Pau Gasol have had better chemistry/looked better in their half season together than T-Mac and Yao have for FOUR seasons. Enough is enough. Next year should be the last year we spend on T-Mac and Yao.

 

i think there are things the team and the medical staff can do the reduce their chances of injury. things like reduce their avg. playing time by ~5 minutes, more frequent and closer examinations, etc. but with modern and advanced medicine, there are also reasons to be a little optimistic about their health in the next couple of years.

 

Chemistry is better than before but we lack the depth of a Championship team. Can Yao and or Tracy close out tight games when we need them to even if we do have enough talent/experience surrounding them is the main question in my mind. Based on their past performances I think not but we shouldn't try to trade them right now.
I agree if we can't go deep in the playoffs with a healthy Yao/McGrady and a better surrounding cast next season it will be time to trade them.

 

There's another issue, which is how well will both guys work with the coach and the new system? The process of rolling out the motion offense this year has been a frustrating one. My big concern is T-Mac. He needs the ball a lot to be effective while the Rockets as a whole have looked their best when they share the ball and get everybody a lot of touches. To me it's the story of the 22 win streak versus the playoff series.

What really worries me is that the Rockets will make some decent progress next year in rolling out the new offense and then throw everything out the window when playoff time rolls around again. If they regress to Yao and T-Mac doing everything on offense again while the rest of the team watches they could easily end up casualties of the first round again.

 

I always trust both of them.

But we must keep them healthy. we need another C to help YAO, and we need a better PG

 

One more time, if Tmac doesn't fully adapt to the motion offense just like we were doing when we won 22 games, this team will collapse in the playoffs.

 

sadly, that is right.

we weren't using the offense, and we just gave the ball to the man. there was nothing he could do about it. i guess missing rafer and yao took away some of the sets or tmac wanted the iso. in the last interview, yao said, it was easier for him to play and that all averages are up except for scoring, which is pretty good. but i still don't feel like that with tmac. i think he plays the same way like with jvg.

also, it could be tmac not believing his teamates. so... as always, we have to upgrade more. alot more. like previously staten, tmac and yao is not the best duo at all, they are not those alpha males that lead teams.

 

I'd stick with them for one more season after the 22 winning streak. That was heart.

With health problems being major concerns over these years, I wonder if we are building around Keith Jones and the medical staff.

 

Hell yea.

Injuries are a b!tch, but if we go into the playoffs fully healthy we go all the way. The only team I think is a legit threat to us fully healthy are the Pistons. The Spurs might have been but they are looking kinda mediocre now. The Suns demolition never swayed me because I no longer considered them a threat to us after the Shaq trade.

 

If "building around" means to bring in a third scorer, a near top-tier player to take the pressure off our stars, and then make other smaller but significant moves, then yes, I think with the right pieces, we can definitely compete for a championship. We'd still have certain flaws stemming from our current players, but they would be compensated for.

The thing, though, is that you can say this about a lot of teams. And given the limits of the salary cap and our lack of big expiring contracts, I'm not sure if making a major move is going to be realistically possible for the Rockets this summer. It's not like Artest, Maggette, Calderon, Jamison or Andre Miller is going to fall onto our laps. At this point, even Josh Childress seems like a reach as we won't even have a full MLE to work with after re-signing Landry.

So unless Morey's able to make a magical off-season move, I don't see this group having enough to win it all next season. They'll compete hard but with this roster, they'll likely fall short of the prize.

 

just give them one more year...

 

without the injuries, we'd be money...

 

with yao we wouldve won at least 3 or 4 more games, that puts us up agaisnt an easier team. even if it didnt we would have to totally slaughtered the jazz. we gave them a fight with 3 starters who were extremely injured

 

Of course yes, Yao is one of the best guy in the paint, McGrady is one of the best shooting guard in the NBA...

They just gotta stay healthly and if that happens I'm sure something good will happen