Cool pictures.. But then that means first 8 teams to draft should do over or whatever. I'm happy with Yao
Come on, we've been over this a million times. Yes Amare has turned out to be a great pro. But who would have known how he would turn out? With his background and his track record, he could have easily turned out to be a Kwame Brown. Yao was the safe choice. He's still easily the second best player in that draft, and he still has a chance to be a better player than Amare. And I didn't hear T-mac clamor to play with Amare last summer. Is Amare worth not being able to get T-mac? If Yao can develop some consistancy, then Yao/T-mac over Amare/Steve/Cat would be a slam dunk decision. Heck, I feel worse for Denver. They passed on Amare TWICE. And one of those draft picks was for Skita.
dont have espn insider, but this is the 1st line in the John Hollinger's yao vs amare blurb: "But while Yao's done a fine job as a traditional center, what we didn't see coming was a player who might, far more than Yao, reinvent post play."
T-Mac has nothing to do with who would be drafted first out of Yao and Amare. I thought John Hollinger couldn't write a bad article, wrong, he made some mistakes with these redrafts, for instance. 2004 - Shaun Livingston going 10th. 2003 - Michael Sweetney and Marquise Daniels going in front of Kirk Hinrich. 1999 - Francis in front of Baron Davis. Lamar Odom behind Andre Miller and Jason Terry. 1998 - Cuttino after Raef. 1996 - Stephon Marbury before Steve Nash. Shareef before Big Ben. Those stood out, then there were some little men before big men mistakes.
no, but there would be no tmac without a yao. and if we had gotten amare we probably would have only played him as a pf and his real potenitial would not have been realized as it is playing at center.
Could someone post who the Rockets would have picked in those ten years according to the draft do-overs?
It only had picks 1-13, so Yao and Francis were the only two picks, instead of Yao, Amare, instead of Francis, either Kirilenko, Marion or Ginobili. EDIT: 2000 - Instead of Pryzbilla, Jamal Crawford. In 2001 Eddie Griffin didn't make the list.
I thought I read somewhere that Kobe and T-Mac were trying to get there, Kobe through free agency instead of Nash and T-Mac through a trade, so it would of been T-Mac at SF, Kobe at SG, and Amare at C/PF. Pretty much game over for the rest of the NBA for the next 7 years.
maybe its the messed up world I live in but to reinvent post play, don't you need some sort of post game to begin with? ridiculous really I can understand GS picking KG instead of Joe Smith. But Philly got Iverson which has been a pretty solid pick, once again i think Kobe is a great player who has been hyped up tremendously by playing with Shaq. And yeah there is that other thing we got because of Yao a certain guy named McGrady. seriously now when will this nonsense end?
To be fair, Rudy did work out Amare before the draft (perhaps for the 15th pick) and was very high on him. In the end, I think we made the right decision with Yao.
I think did it right chosing AI over Kobe, Iverson has more heart, more leadership, better player, etc.
The mistake everyone makes with Yao vs. Amare is twofold... 1. The hype surrounding Yao and the monumental expectations meant that anything short of Shaq and he was going to get hammered. The guy is close to being a 20/10 player in the league - one of only a handful - on limited experience with the US game and a cultural learning curve very few could handle without the pressure of being an NBA star. 2. We are in the era of the Sportscenter highlight. It's why the only highlights you see of baseball games are home runs and strikeouts. Nobody gives a crap that those represent 4 or 5 seconds of a 2 and a half hour game. Amare dunks a lot so he gets on the highlight reel. It means his game looks better to the outside world. Bottom line...they are both very good players who still have their best days ahead of them.
