Does the Rockets management team regard YAO as THE Franchise player?

Death and Taxes. A championship is inevitable

 

Our situation is a lot like the Magic and Kareem duo in the mid 80s.

Even though the offense was built around Kareem and his 7-2 frame, Magic was the more assertive one and decided more on what will happen on the offensive end for the Lakers. He was the player who got the ball to make the decisions on how things would go down. With that happening, a lot of the credit went to Magic being "the guy" even though the offense wasn't built around him.

IMHO - it will be a lot like that situation. The offense will be built around Yao's presense in the middle, but McGrady obviously being the more willing and skilled offensive player, will dictate what happens on the floor. If Yao's desire to dominate was more like Shaq's than Kareem, I would feel differently...but Yao is a lot like Kareem when it comes to the mindset of attacking the opposing team.

Guys like Drexler and Pippen were "true" second options. The ball went to Hakeem or MJ without second thought in the post.

Like Oscar Robertson, Magic, or West when he had Wilt...I don't think McGrady is going to be a "true" second option. A lot of our offense is going to be McGrady handling the ball and attacking the opposing defense using PICK & Rolls with Yao.

 

I also believe thats what he meant

I really don't care as long as they work together and mesh well

 

Yeah - in the end, it won't matter.

To me...Yao and Mac bring an extra dimension than a lot of the duos in the past.

For one, they come from two different cultures. One is chinese and the other is african-american.

Next, unlike the past - this duo is very close age-wise. In the past, when great duos got together, they were either both on the closing chapters of their careers/or one was and the other guy was coming into the league or had a huge margin in age difference.

IMHO - I don't care who's the franchise player...and quite frankly, I bet JVG doesn't cares neither. He has a system that they both have roles in, and it's just going to be fun watching these two guys on the same team.

 

Yao is 7'5. T'Mac is 6'8. Therefore, Yao is probably Batman.

Of course, the opposite was true of Rik Smits and Reggie Miller. Though Smits was always underrated, and Miller overrated... so maybe not.

To be honest, we're probably going to have the same problem in miniature as with Francis. My guess is, right now...McGrady is still better. If Yao ever realizes his full potential, he'll be the better player. But luckily, there's no history. Francis was the man on the Rockets long before Yao could speak a word of English. There's no history here, and they're at least close in value right now, so I don't foresee any major problems.

 

I think the kareem/magic comparison is appropriate.

Even if Yao becomes a 24/12 player, he will not be the "leader" of the team, which is in many ways synonomous with "franchise". Over time, Yao will become more westernized and thus demonstrative, aggressive, etc. However, his mindset was developed in the east and no matter how great a player he becomes, I doubt that he will be the type of player that wants to thoroughly dominate, humiliate and destroy his opponent, ala Jordan, Magic, Bird.

Tmac will be the one to take that role. Ultimately, Yao may surpass Tmac as a player, but Tmac is the one that may have the mentality to dial it up and drop 15 on his opponent just to show he can. That is the "leader" whose confidence will feed his teammates. Time will tell and this is critical to the championship aspirations of the Rockets.

Will the Rockets become more like the Kings or Lakers???

I firmly believe that the Kings never made it to the promised land because Webber is mentally weak and Bibby was not gifted enough a player to carry the team all the way (even though he had the assassin mentality). The Kings had the Lakers down and could not close. (an argument can be made that the Lakers should have bowed to the Tblazers in 7 as well as the Kings). Webber has a history of caving in the spotlight (ncaa's).

 

Right now T-mac is a better player than Yao. That's just the way it is. Yao in my opinion has alot to prove. He's very very talented but he has to get more aggressive. He's to eager to give up position down low. He seems like he's scared to have a defender front him. Also for a man of his size and skills he's only a fair rebounder.

Yao has the potential to be one of the best centers ever but he's got to want it. T-mac's skills can't be denied and if Yao slips into old habbit's then Tracy will take over.

 

It's hard to say whether T-Mac has that competitive fire that Bird and Jordan had. One of the knocks on him last season that he even admitted to was that he has a laid back personality and doesn't feel comfortable getting in his teammates' faces. T-Mac admitted that Darrell Armstrong was the leader of the team before last season and that he preferred it that way.

There are times, like the Portland overtime game and the Atlanta overtime game last season, where it really seemed like Yao could take the mantle as the demonstrative leader of the team. He was the team's best player in those games and really "up" emotionally. The key will be to get him to play at that same level consistently and get him as fired up game to game.

I think it can happen. With all of these new players, Yao's attitude could be that he's the senior guy now and the buck stops with him.

 

The Rockets management team definitly regard Yao as the franchise player, even more important than T-Mac. If not for Yao, they wouldn't do this much change to a team, they ship out a all time Rockets Rudy T for not convincing the guard to pass the ball to Yao, they ship out their long time Rockets player like Francis, Mobley, and cato to bring in T-Mac to accompany Yao, they bring in Jeff to make Yao tougher, and they bring in Ewing to make Yao better.

There's no doubt about it.

 

while i agree that mentality plays a big part in things, to be fair, the kings had that series absolutely stolen from them by the refs. just ripped out from under them in the name of marketing. no 27 ft's in the 4th quarter for LA*, no game 6 win, kings in the finals beating the sacrificial lamb new jersey nets.



not only that, but there was a horrendous offensive foul called on webber as he hit a jump hook to put the kings up 4 with about 5 to go. horry threw himself into webber's shoulders and flopped and they gave the star, webber, his 5th foul, on a clear flop. that was a big momentum shifter as a few plays later webber did commit a foul but now, not wanting to foul him out, they gave it to divac and instead fouled him out. with pollard having already fouled out on 3 phantom calls, funderburke was left to guard shaq which made things pretty impossible for the kings. and they still had a 3 to tie it at the end even after the kobe elbow to bibby that got a foul called on bibby. that was the most bias reffed game of all time and the kings had a rightful championship stolen from them. pisses me off just thining about it.


edit: oh, and tmac is the franchise until yao takes at least one very large step forward and possibly another one after that. tmac can get 30/6/6 on any given night. so far, yao can get 18/10 on any given night. he'll need to be duncan or kg-esque, i.e. about 23 a night, before he takes over for tmac on offense and need to be a 12 rpg/2.5-3.0 bpg guy before clearly being the franchise. it took shaq being super-dominant, scoring 27+ a night to be ahead of kobe (and it was still close) and tmac is a kobe class offensive player.

 

it may show they view his development as more important, and it very well may be considering how valuable a dominant big man can be, but the fact they are having to do all this for him shows he clearly isn't there yet.

 

Tracy did indeed say those things, but you have to look at the circumstances.

Michael Jordan you saw in 1991 on up is not the same Michael Jordan in 1984. Michael Jordan himself said that around the time he entered the league - which was around the same age as McGrady - that he didn't feel comfortable being the leader of the Chicago Bulls. You can google the infamous 'Playboy' interview Michael participated in if you need the proof of him speaking about it.

Myself personally, I just don't think Yao will ever have that type of attitude just because that's just not who he is. McGrady is known to speak up and state what's on his mind. I've seen him get in certain teammates faces when things aren't going in the right direction. If he learns to channel that energy after he gains the respect of his teammates, it will be used in a much more positive way.

Is Yao the franchise player? More than likely yes. You take away Yao - you take away something no one in the NBA can match...and that's his height with his talent. But I'm just speaking on what might very well be the way the team performs on the floor...not behind the scenes.

 

I think Yao may well become at least a vocal leader on the team if not the vocal leader. I'm not terribly knowledgable on the Chinese National Team, but from everything I've read it's my understanding Yao carries himself as that team's veteran captain and best player. I guess it all depends on how comfortable he becomes being in the league.

 

i think Kobe did okay for himself for a couple of years there didn't he?

3 championships already.

 

Better leader:

(a) Hakeem
(b) Charles Barkley
(c) Scottie Pippen
(d) Sam Cassell

Guess which one spoke the least ?

 

If the league had a draft of all the NBA players to form new teams, I think most GM's would take Yao before TMac. While TMac is undoubtedly the more gifted and productive offensive player, Yao has a significant advantage at the defensive end. Teams change their whole style of play when they can't get to the rim, as evidenced by the Rockets defensive field goal percentage last year. TMac can't approach that, even as an lockdown perimeter defender, assuming he can regain that status.

As far as leadership, who knows. But Yao seems more emotional than Tracey, and I think he would enjoy the challenge of being the man once he feels comfortable enough to assume the mantle.

 

Hakeem led by example, I'm hoping Yao can do the same and we've seen some glimpses of it but nothing consistant

 

the problem is again yao has to take another step forward for that to be true (not necessarily to be ahead of tmac, but to be dominant on D to the point that makes up for his offensive lacking against mcgrady). last year yao was more the bark and kelvin cato the bite. yao keeps you out of the middle because you're scared of him (which is valuable because now you don't have to fight), cato does something when you get in there (which is valuable because your opponent doesn't wanna fight anymore). they blocked about the same per minute but cato would lay a hard foul on someone and control the glass more. even if yao's barking was a bigger factor in the D's success, at the very least he needed a secondary, great defensive presence next to him to make the defense work. when it was only yao and no cato, we went from an outstanding ~85 ppg team to a below average ~97 ppg team. if yao gets to the point that teams are scared when it's him and mo taylor in the game, then he'll be at that franchise level defense we all hope he gets to.

again, yao has the potential to surpass mcgrady and be dominant, but he's going to have to go to a new level on offense and defense before he's with mcgrady (or 2 levels on offense if he doesn't raise the D). there's a reason tmac is considered top 5 and yao isn't.

 

The difference between our duo and any other duo in the league is that they're both unselfish.

T-Mac is one of the best passers from the SG position and Yao is one of the betetr passing C's in the league.

Now combine that with the fact that they WANT to share, I think it's going to be special. JVG will make sure they don't get too unselfish, and the rest of the team has more than enough experience to put the pieces together and pick up the slack:

JJ
Howard
Ward