hopefully this thread doesn't die now b/c i like it i guess we're saying the same thing. you just wanna get there quicker. i still think we lost games last year trying to use yao too much when he wasn't ready and don't want it to happen again as long as we have an all-star pg and 20 ppg sg who can take over when needed. ultimately, it's yao's team if we want the title. but it's still steve's team until yao gets better. i just don't think it will be next year.
I can't agree more, but how many more wins would have the Rox had if Rudy hadn't been putting dream on the bench every 4th qt and playing matt or kenny at center? Had Rudy used Hakeem like Sloan did Stocton, the Rockets could have made the playoffs. Also goin back to that season, the Rox were just avg to below avg until the guards decided to give Dream the ball and Hakeem made that run for about a month. After Dream went out with injury, the team kind of went into the tank. Francis and Mobley should look at that and say, if we get 17ppg and 8-10 rebs from the big guy, we will have a better chance of winning. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out.
There offensive numbers were very similar but Dream's defense even the decline was better than Yao's last season. Yao should be better this year and so will our team. If Yao can average 18 and 10 we are a lock for the playoffs.
Reading the article on ESPN Magazine makes me excited for the upcoming season! JFG for Coach of the Year!!!
A really great discussion I'm enjoying reading. Here's a quote from francis 4 prez I think is dead on: haven: mythical bb iq taken into account in my reasoning. however, it's harder to take advantage of bb iq if the double teams stop and people can outphysical you 1 on 1 like people did to yao the whole last half of the season. i loved december. yao seemed fresh, he could score on people, and when people doubled, he knew what to do most of the time and he played a big part in the offense and got 17 ppg. but as soon as he hit the wall (and for all games from that point forward), the doubles stopped and yao had to show he could beat his man and earn a double and he couldn't and he became far less efficient. but the calls to get him the ball never stopped, as if we was still at the level that got him all the hype. again, yao smartness will one day be very good for this team. and yes, his decision making vs steve's will be very good one day. but until his physical play can get to the point that his physical + iq talent overtakes steve's, he still shouldn't be the focal point. An interesting comment from JayZ750: As for Yao - heck, if any of our guards were able to effectively use the pick and ROLL play, then Yao would have had about 10-15 dunks a game. Even if he sucks in every other area of basketball, he would still score 20-30 a night on that play alone. Given that he doesn't suck, it should be undefendeable - Yao is too big and rolls to well. Another defender HAS to rotate, and a good/smart offense will be in position to take advantage of that every time, meaning relatively uncontested layups or wide-open jumpers. The Rockets got neither last year. Haven with good stuff: Fastest way for Yao to gain in skills and develop: let him try. I'm not saying that the offense should run exclusively for him, but the more opportunities you give him, the more he's going to improve his skills, and figure out how to succeed. Steve is young, but he's not really at the point where improvement is going to be dramatic anymore. We know what we have there: an excellent player who's not quite good enough to carry a team. Maybe he'll be one of the players who continues to get better... but I'd rather play the percentages and bet that Yao's more likely to become the player who can dominate. francis 4 prez with the topper: i guess we're saying the same thing. you just wanna get there quicker. i still think we lost games last year trying to use yao too much when he wasn't ready and don't want it to happen again as long as we have an all-star pg and 20 ppg sg who can take over when needed. ultimately, it's yao's team if we want the title. but it's still steve's team until yao gets better. i just don't think it will be next year. Like I said, good stuff! All good points... Yao WAS great in December until he hit the wall. It WAS great for him to get the experience, even after he was ineffective. But at the cost of the playoffs and possibly Rudy's job? That (Rudy) isn't something I want to get into, due to the emotions involved, but I think we would have been in the playoffs if we had quit going so much to Yao. It cost us games. In the end, how many more wins did we need?? And our guards COULDN'T run the pick and roll to save their lives. And that reflects on their decision making. (hell, a lot more than that reflects on their decision making) But ultimately, I think Yao coming to the team after the season started and the team adjusting on the fly resulted in more than a little chaos... more chaos than the key players could handle. Yao, because he was a rookie without a sniff of camp or anything... that he did as well as he did was amazing. Steve and Cat, because they weren't at a level to adapt quickly enough... either because they just weren't mature enough, or smart enough, or as well coached as they could have been. Take your pick, or perhaps it was part of all three. Now we get to start from scratch... new coach, new system, hopefully a better, stronger, fresher and more seasoned Yao, 2 new and valuable role players. Steve and Cat with a much better idea of what to do and new tools in Pike and AGriff and a healthy Taylor to work with. I'm excited about it. I still think we'll make another move for a player... before camp or by the deadline, but I can't see us missing the playoffs again. Not for the next several seasons. Of course, I tend to be optimistic. Although I'm not quite the optimist I used to be.
response from Francis 4 Prez: Francis 4 Prez, I don't disagree with your post anywhere except the above. It makes me wonder how many people here are just really glad that the center position has gone the way of the dinosaur in the NBA. Yao's better than most centers in the NBA now, but his remaining critics seem to agree with you. Almost everybody (including myself) expect Yao to improve this season, but his strength/stamina will still be limited compared to where it will be a year or two from now, and teams are going to beat him up pretty good this year too. He's very tall and very far from the prototypical "great" NBA center. Our guards last year, if anything, magnified his weaknesses and the team didn't take advantage of his greatest asset: court awareness/passing. I know you've read Hey Partner's posts on the subject and that a guy with a monicker "Francis 4 Prez" disagrees blows my mind. Francis is a unique talent, and his improvement has been steady but not great as a point guard. Every team in the league this year is going to say "make Francis beat us". They're not going to take chances with Yao. Steve will beat those teams many times, but nowhere near enough to contend this year for the WC title. The Yao comparisons to Walton are, unfortunately, the best most of us can do that have been watching the NBA for 30 years or so. Walton was unique then. Yao's unique now and what's different about him needs to be exploited. His strengths could virtually negate Francis' weaknesses as a point guard - and no matter how good anyone thinks Francis is - there's a reason he didn't make the top ten PGs in a couple of preseason mags last year. I like Van Gundy, I'm glad we have him. Though his quotes since he arrived have seemed to me all over the place everything I've seen or read about the guy sounds myopic: just win baby or he'll puke. But win what? Unless Yao and Eddie dramatically improve this year we've got maybe a 50/50 chance of winning a first round playoff series even if we're the 5th seed. Seeing Yao average 18 pts./10 rbs. 1.5 blks. a game playing like a young Patrick Ewing just makes him a 7'5" inferior young Patrick Ewing. That really sounds like a good plan? There wasn't any of open drooling about Yao before last year's draft from GMs, but every owner in the NBA is now whether they admit it or not - too many millions Yao adds to a franchise's worth that have nothing to do with basketball. We could have "unlucky" seasons this year and next and still make the playoffs and maybe win a playoff series. Then we get to exercise Yao's 4th year option, and unless Francis/current VanGundy metamorphisize considerably I don't see why Yao would stay here. And I love Houston. I wonder how Yao will translate "I can be a real mo**** f***er" in his attempt to be the biggest bad**s center in the league. How he's utilized is critical to the Rocket's future. It blows my mind that Rocket's fans look at Yao and want to see a dominating force ala Shaq when we won two championships exploiting Dream's strengths and negating his weaknesses (even the greatest have them). Yao and Dream have only one thing in common: they both had a heretofore unseen potential and both raw in totally opposite ways in the NBA. Unlike in Dream's case, we don't have the same CBA or the advantage of Yao loving Houston. Hakeem was a "real mo******" in every aspect I can think of and if Yao's game ever reaches his potential it's going to be a polar opposite from Dream's domination even more dramatically than Dream's game was for Moses'. The idea of running the offense through Yao is no more "pressure" than getting constantly kidney punched (well forearmed) in the low post. I'm not Chinese and I'm far from 23 years old, but Yao seems unusually in-tune with his strenghts/weaknesses to me. And as a dedicated young man he seems to definitely want to improve his weaknesses. As a Rockets diehard fan, I hope as a 25 year old he isn't obsessed with maximizing his strengths, because right now there's not a lot of evidence that our personnel or coaching staff fit Yao's game. Assuming Yao remains healthy (I see no reason to think this guy's not motivated) Van Gundy's future is predicated on Yao signing for the max two years from now, well unless you envision Eddie being a HOFer. So far we've got a coach that flies off the handle with a guy in a restaurant that purportedly says "How's it going?". Most guys here want Van Gundy to bench Steve and/or Cat routinely "until they learn". All I see right now is that unless Steve, Cat and Yao become telepathic this year (far beyond the expected improvement in chemistry) I see Francis being potentially gone, and Yao having to absorb a totally different cultural shock than I as an American Houstonian (millionaire or not) would care to deal with. I have a lot of hope, but it's a very worried kind of hope, I'm glad so many people love our current situation. I wish 10% of them rooted for the Rockets.
I don't think it will take too long for Van Gundy and Calvin Murphy to run into eachother on a bad day. And I can already see Clutch the Bear being a distraction to Van Gundy and Van Gundy limiting some of the things he does with the players during games. There will probably be a limit to how close the Bear can get to the huddle and players during the game.
My hope is that we do exactly that... Exploit his strengths: passing and shooting touch. But here's the scary part, or rather a bonus... Developing the physical and strength part of a player I've always looked at as the easy part. Yao has already taken care of the hard part; learning the game's intricacies and development of fundamentals. Of course he will always be learning. But he's already very good on the mental/fundamental part of the game. I'd say that he gotten a head start on most players at this stage in his career. The "easy part," the will be strenthening his body. That will come. Gradually. And if we have competent strength trainers, which we do, that will come. Now, what happens when you combine the two? Fundamental skill with physical strength? Scary! I have NO DOUBT that Yao will become stronger and stronger each year. But not to become a "Shaq." But rather something we've never seen before. Something just as dominate, but in different ways. Sit back and watch the show. He's going to impress the "dunk fans" as well as the "purist (like myself)."
