FIFY Anyway, your point that memphis was awful on defense with Gasol is pretty roundly refuted. In fact, it's "on record"
Too bad Sammy, you didn't refute anything. Leeb implied in his original post that Gasol's teams were always top rated defensively, regardless of years, coaches, systems, and teammates. One year of countering stats is good enough to rebuke his claim, let alone 3. Not to downplay Battier's defensive impact on Rockets, but I find your cute alteration on the data presentation is hardly convincing. In 2003-04 Rockets' defense was about as good with no Battier's presence. Moreover, in the season just passed the Rockets saw their defense dropped from 4th to 17th, with Battier still playing 67 games. If we look at individual defensive ratings, career-wise Battier is 104 while Yao's is 99. Even in his best year, Battier's defensive rating was no lower than 102. [Note to those uninformed: the lower the defensive rating, the better the player is regarded on defense] By highlighting Battier's defensive impact on Grizzlies, you actually made leeb's argument even weaker, not that it had any merit to begin with.
So coaching and teammates make a difference (in defense)? Good to know that! Will get back to you later if I have time. At the end of the day though, it's not difficult to conclude that Gasol is just as dependent on coach/system/teammates as Yao is, if not more.
Win shares have everything to do with winning games. It's the closest and best estimate of the number of wins contributed by individual player, taking into consideration both offensive and defensive contributions. You should keep in mind that basketball reference site's creator is by no means a YOF. McGrady was the undisputed top dog in 2004-05. But since he was plagued by on-and-off injuries in 2006, he had not been the dominant player he used to be day in and day out. His low psyche didn't help either. In many early season games during 2006-08 when both McGrady and Yao played, Yao was the stud while McGrady was inconsistent at best. Recall Yao was in the MVP talk in November/December of 2006 due to his stellar performance. Credit to McGrady who took over after Yao went down with the leg injury and was in recovery for 2+ months. In Yao's absence, McGrady-led Rockets went 20-12, which was impressive. But if you look closely, the Rockets were merely playing .500 ball in the last 14 games as the schedule got tougher. With Yao back, they were able to win 16 of the next 22 games to end the season. The situation was quite different in the 2007-08 season in several aspects. New coach, new players. The team had a hot start but then struggled mightily to even maintain .500 record for more than a month and a half. I wouldn't hesitate to single out Yao's failure in that stretch as his offense took a big hit in much of December 2007, but he got himself out of the shooting slump and was the leading force to turn the team around in mid-January 2008, in absence of McGrady. Yao detractors would invariably point out in that 22-game winning streak, Yao took no part in the last 10 wins, but they ignore the fact that Yao's own winning streak started 4 games earlier without McGrady. In the two regular seasons from 2006 to 2008, the win-loss records with "McGrady-only Rockets" vs "Yao-only Rockets" alone do not show the whole picture in terms of who was the better player overall. I think Yao was at clear disadvantage because McGrady's health condition was always uncertain. It was more difficult for head coach to devise steady new game plans and for players to adjust when they had little idea if and how long their pack leader was going to be in or out of the lineup. I can agree to give the edge to McGrady in 2006-07, but I maintain Yao was the alpha dog in 2007-08. His ability to win without McGrady and put the team back on the winning track was unquestionably demonstrated. The win shares attributed to Yao in that season support my view. Now if we allow ourselves to be back on the topic of Gasol vs Yao, what more convincing evidence does one need know about the very factors to Gasol's success when looking at his 2007-08 stats: Code: team PER TS% ORtg DRtg WS/48 MEM 20.1 0.566 114 111 0.129 LAL 24.0 0.639 128 105 0.239
wnes, ur into the stat thing and thats cool, but if u watch the games and have watched the rockets as a whole, those win shares mean 0. The mvp level yao was playing at, the rockets couldnt win a game. The inconsistent mentality of mcgrady led them to 20-12 without yao and 26-7 in another season without yao. Now ur win shares can skew the truth anyway u want, but the fact were the rockets had shown they could win at a high clip minus yao, but were a struggling team minus tracy. You can go game by game, but some guys impact the game greater than others. Just like win shares dont measure clutch situations or play creation because its a formula of data. Just like per or +/-.
Two glaring examplse where Yao's performance does not have a great effect on the Rockets as some on here wants to believe is: 1. The last 10 wins during the 22 game winning streak 2. The series against the Lakers after he went down The common theme in those two situations? The defense ramped up a couple of levels. Mutombo gave what the Rockets need most out of Yao (interior defense) during his absence in the 22 game winning streak and everyone played at a higher level against the Lakers on the defensive end of the floor. In a perfect world, Yao wouldn't go down with injuries and there wouldn't even be a need for a Gasol v. Yao discussion. But it's not a perfect world and we pretty much have to go by what is concrete and that revolves around the fact that Gasol has been more durable (compared to Yao), thereby giving him an advantage over an injury-prone Yao. Lets also not take credit away from Pau either because he's in the best role for him and his career--being the 2nd Option on a very good team, something I wished Yao would have been if McGrady never got his Rockets career torpedoed by injuries and stupidity.
Those last 10 wins were against garbage teams. When I watched that series, I felt like the Lakers were just toying with us. They knew they were capable of beating us, and they wanted to maximize the number of games to increase revenue.
So a winning streak of 10 games against garbage teams is worth less in the win-loss department than a 10 game winning streak against good competition? First 12 wins were against: Warriors Pacers Bucks Wolves Cavs Hawks Blazers Kings Cavs Heat Hornets Bulls Not exactly a murderers' row if you take the Blazers and Cavs out of the equation. Hey, if you want to think that way that's perfectly fine. It still doesn't take away the fact that the Yao and McGrady-less Rockets won against the Lakers by double-digit margins each time.
So going 20-12 one yr and 27-7 another season minus yao, i guess the rocket won 47 games against crap? If u switch tracy with yao and factor in how they played without tracy, its safe to say the rox wouldve missed the playoffs both year, right? Even going .500 against those same crap teams would put the rockets out the playoffs. Is that fair?
This is where a lot of people on this board misunderstand Yao's value to the team on the court. It doesn't lie in his point production but rather on his ability to draw a double team and his defense. What THIS YEAR's Rockets team prove was that they can score but without interior defense, it meant nothing. Yao clogged up that middle and was the anchor in their defense. THAT's where Yao's value lies. I would safely bet that if Yao didn't come back next year and SOMEHOW (in some weird way) we manage to get a good defensive center like Kendrick Perkins, the Rockets would be at least a 6th seed next year. The team right now has enough firepower to score; it's the defense that's missing.
I'm specifically referring to the last 10 games of the streak. Either garbage teams or good teams missing key players. And the team at the time was built around McGrady. Of course his absence would have a greater impact than Yao's.
No. To me, there is nothing special about beating teams that we're supposed to beat. I'm more concerned about our performance against the elite teams since that's who we'd be facing in the playoffs.
So what is your defense when the first 12 wins during that streak featured only, I would say, 5 elite teams? You can't say "I don't care about beating sorry teams; it's the elites I want to beat" because 1. You have to take care of everyone no matter how good or sorry they are and 2. You must not have been around during the time when the Rockets took care of good teams and somehow manage to choke against the sorry ones only to find themselves in the mediocre pile of the NBA. Deriding a 22 game winning streak because it was against garbage teams makes zero sense.
Amazing now YOF's are degrading the 10 games we won without him during that 22 game streak. They have no shame and are not real fans
Oh yeah the Hornets whom at the time were leaing the WCF. Tracy scored 40 in that epic game where paul scored 38 as well
Cleveland Cavs, x2 (perennial playoff team, since): 45-37, lost to eventual champions, Boston Celtics (4-3) Atlanta Hawks, x2 (perennial playoff team, since): lost to eventual champions, Boston Celtics (4-3) New Orleans Hornets: 56-26, lost in Western Conference Semi-Finals Dallas Mavericks Los Angeles Lakers: Western Conference winner and 1st seed in the West were missing Bynum and Gasol....but to be fair, the Rockets missed Yao Ming and Carl Landry.
