wow, go watch some more laker games. i live in cali all my life ever since i came to america and watch a lot of laker games during those yrs. players are PETRIFIED to get into the paint. not scared, petrified.
James is the point guard on that team - he's play point on the Rockets - that's for sure. Think about this - Cleveland doesn't have a starting point guard - doesn't snow come off the bench?
if u watc the cavs since the allstar game, coach brown has moved hughes exclusively to PG. that's his position w/ the cavs since then. but obviously bron will create b/c he's their best player. same w/ tmac. after the ball gets past haflcourt, tmac is the creator, not rafer.
If Houston needs a creator/playmaker - go after Jason Kidd. He can do it all - create, defend & rebound, except he is a streaky offensive player. But one thing that cannot be denied, his leadership and BB IQ is beyond anything the Rockets have. The question is if Kidd still wants to be a Rocket - and what would it take to get him here.
Maybe. If he wasn't under contract with the Nets. He does not come off their books until 2009 I believe.
well, he won't win w/ the nets. we're really one player away from going from a good team to a REALLY great team. just one player. jkidd would make tmac a finisher and thus reserve his energy to score. but tmac will share the playmaking duties w/ jkidd. but i think we would have to part ways w/ battier, a couple of picks. but i would sacrifice that.
With Kidd, the Rockets window of opportunity will be very clear and very small. Kidd is not going to play another 6 years at a championship level. 4 years at most. I would take that chance too - would Les & Morey? The Lakers ownership failed to pull the trigger when faced with the offer.
Hey I just checked this trade on RealGM and it worked out! Jkidd for Jho, Rafer, and Sura Due to Houston and New Jersey being over the cap, the 25% trade rule is invoked. Houston and New Jersey had to be no more than 125% plus $100,000 of the salary given out for the trade to be accepted, which did happen here. This trade satisfies the provisions of the Collective Bargaining Agreement Get to it Morey!!! Kidd with TMac and Yao would be almost unfair to the rest of the league....
Stated clearly, but it is true sort of old hat. Shane makes a good 3- 5th man, provided we have two other decent all around players. Shane alwyas tries hard and is good on defense, merely ok on offense. Hayes is simiilar,but poor on offense. Rafer is mediocre on offense and defense, but a fantastic dribbler and adequate ditributor which is also his job. The Rockets Championship teams had for 1 year one star Hakeem and the 2nd year Clyde, too. However, at least at the end of the games we could generally field 5 all around guys who could do decent defense and decent offense. We did not have to carry two dead wood guys on offense or defense at the cruncch time. All five had the fortitude, too. I don't put Rafer in that category, though he does his best. Agree Yao and Tracy will never quite be Kobe and Shaq at their primes.
Our duo isn't power enough, but which duo is in this league? Trading our star most likely won't let us be closer to the championship, it's quite unfeasible for us to rebuild like Spurs or Pistons now. 2-superstar model itself isn't wrong, put the 3-peat Lakers on side first, Miami is the latest proof, the difference between them is more like the quality of the role players and coach rather than that of our stars. It's not the good timing to give up now.
Yao's numbers WERE superstar numbers. Shaq's numbers were among most dominant numbers in NBA history. You are setting the superstar bar too high.
His points were largely inflated from free throws... and the Jazz could live with him scoring under 30 a game, given the fact that he had torched them for 38 when he was single covered in the regular season.
What the heck do you mean? Should we take all the points from the FT off the score board? How about saying Shaq's points were largely inflated from all those dunks!!?? He was not really a super star !!
This point has probably been made, but a lot of this came about because of the Lakers dynasty model. We were led to believe that Yao/T-Mac would eventually be better than Shaq/Kobe because Yao actually has skills that are better than ramming the ball down your throat and dunking, and he could make free-throws. T-Mac had been the league leader in scoring, more unselfish than Kobe, and has all-around better skills than Kobe........ Well, this may all be true, but they don't have the dominance that S/K showed though, that "I will not lose" mentality. They have a way of fading when the pressure is on, and then ask for the blame when it's all over. In that regard, the the OP is right, the two-superstar model will not work, at least not here.
There's a big difference in "level of impact" when the majority of your points are coming from the foul line. Especially late in games, when the refs swallow their whistles and Yao was no longer getting the benefit of the doubt... when he needed to get a FG, more often than not throughout the series, he struggled. If you want to declare Yao a superstar because the refs bailed him out a few more times than normal, so be it. He was NOWHERE near his regular season impact in the playoffs.
You are talking out both sides of your mouth. "Level of impact"? If you can get your points and get the opponents in foul trouble, would that have more impact? Yao is where he is because the refs bailed him out? Interesting ! Where have you been ? I thought it was the other way around. Part of the reason Yao struggled was the refs swallowing their whistles more often than not ... BTW, can you be considered a superstar if your coach has to keep you on the bench at the end of the game for fear of you going 0-7 at the FT line? You know, these are the kinds of arguments that blind, biased people get into. Shaq was a superstar, Yao is close to be a superstar. There is no need to marginalize Yao's accomplishment just because he got his points at the FT line. That is just plain asinine.
Sometimes I wonder why should TMac do all the PG job in our play-off, simply because we DO NOT have a good PG. Rafer should be the one who deliver the ball and run the offense, and Yao and Tmac should be those who executing it. From statistic point of view, Rafer did not shoot well, his deffense is terrible and why should he jack up all the shots..... ? just wonder...
