In Marc Stein's weekly Power Rankings, he pegged Miami as the 16th-best team in the league this week. In other words, maybe there aren't 15 better teams than Miami, but 15 teams are playing better right now. Which is fine. But if we're running Power Polls from that perspective, shouldn't we also be running an occasional power poll devoted to which teams have the best ongoing chance to win the title? After all, only eight teams have a realistic chance of winning the NBA title ... and Miami is one of them. Shouldn't they be rewarded for that somehow? Along those lines, I'm introducing the "Big Picture." Every six weeks during the season, I will separate everyone into groups and count down the teams with the best chance of winning the NBA title (from No. 30 to No. 1). With comments, of course. Here's the Big Picture through November ... ....... Death by Injury Bug ....... 20. Houston Yao Ming, Complementary Player. It's official. (Random thought: Imagine being Houston GM Carroll Dawson right now? Not only did he get fleeced in the Rafer Alston-Mike James trade, he got fleeced by Rob Babcock. Shouldn't you automatically resign when that happens? How can you show up at work every day? That's like being a professional poker player and losing a celebrity tournament to Gary Busey.) Positives and negatives here. Rockets #20, and they admit it's "Death by Injury" Simmons is right, though, that Yao is a complimentary player. Either that, or the team isn't built around him. Instead of McGrady, we may have two dead-eye shooters if the built was built around him. The hit against CD though is a pretty tough. I agree in some respects, but I don't think James fit in as well as Rafer might one day. Link: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/051130
Simmons is a great writer, but take his analysis with a grain of salt. dude is not objective, he has obvious favorites and he holds grudges. like for instance, I knew immediately that even though he is playing well he would say something bad about Francis before even opening the article.
That's true about him and Francis. I see that too. It does appear that way with Yao now. But I mean, that's what they do. TMAC and Yao complement each other. TMAC is more necesarry though for Yao's sake in order to keep off the double teaming of Yao (fronting etc)
Just saw Around The Horn-- 3 of the 4 sportswriters on there sold the Rockets even making the playoffs this year.... Same old hating as usual-this Woody Paige really has it in for Yao -compared him to a player I've never even heard of... Simmons is being a hypocrite--Amare was on a winless streak as well when Steve Nash was out- I don't think anyone thought he was a "complementary player"
Ehhh that's crap. It will make it much better when we make the Media eat crow for all the crap they will say about us all season long. AKA...2005 Astros Season.
Well, he has to cover all 30 NBA teams, it's not like he can watch all the teams play and do a thorough analysis of all of them. I think what he says is pretty fair. It'll be interesting to see how the forecast changes when TMac has us roaring back into relevancy and Rafer comes into sync...
Two things to be fair: He used to be really high on Francis and Cuttino and I think he's disappointed like a lot of Rocket fans that they didn't achieve more. Secondly, basketball is by far his best sport, and the one he has the most knowledge on and I look foward to all his bball articles.
so true, and amare has matrix, joe johnson, Q with him. Who does Yao have. Derek Anderson, David Wesley.
You know what? If Yao was injured instead of Tmac, the guy would say it's official Tmac is complimentary player. Truth is, Rockets need both to succeed. Tmac is more valuable, but not by a large margin.
I love how we go through this on every Simmons article. I think he is funny and I read his stuff every day, bought the book (and I'm a White Sox fan (though maybe I shouldn't mention that). Some stuff he does get right....I love all his stuff about Brian Scallabrene....that kills me, and his mock e-mail from Danny Ainge to Kiki Vandewhege. Besides that, I think he is right about what it would take to get KG....and by all estemations, what other team could offer something like the Pacers. Not saying thats the deal that will happen (I don't see KG getting traded EVER!), but thats what makes sense to me.
