How many season would you wait for a Healthy season?

Same here.

 

if a healthy season= a championship year.

i will wait forever.....

 

I don't think we'll ever trade Tmac. I just don't see anybody offering anything that would make sense for us. So, to me Yao's situation is more important but i don't see us wanting to trade him whether he stays healthy or not. I say we should and probably will ride both of them out for better or worse. If anything it might be our chance to get better. If they both continue to get injured every year then we can sign them for smaller contracts when the time comes and we'll be able to sign a young star to play along with them.

 

I hate to say it, but gambling on their health is the best option for this team to win. So either way, we are stuck with our investments at this point. Just pray for their health.

 

How long I'd wait is a moot point since I'll always be a Rockets fan, win or lose.

 

The Rockets needs to add some more tools and techniques and better medical personnel. The Phoenix Suns were in the same boat with frequent injuries until their official collabration with NASM.

Here is a story from the preseason about some of the changes and improvements that helped them.

The CAT chamber could have helped for high altitude simulation for the players to adjust to the altitude of Salt Lake city.

The gravity machine would lessen the stress on Yao's feet during training. He gets enough pounding during practice and the games. The screw in his foot worries me.

We could also use a 62% reduction in injury treatments.

The Rockets need to do whatever it takes to get the reputation of being the team that rejuvenates players and as the best team in the league for rehab and prevention.

It will also allow us to pick up ex-stars to rejuvenate them, add to our assets.

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New methods keep Suns healthy
Paul Coro
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 29, 2007 07:06 PM

Grant Hill took anatomy at Duke University. The past seven seasons of his NBA career have been so injury-riddled that he called himself a "foot and ankle specialist."

After five ankle surgeries since 2000 and endless get-well offerings and suggestions, Hill nearly had exhausted every option to be in optimum shape for another season as he approached his 35th birthday. Then the Suns came calling this summer, mainly reinvigorating Hill's hopes of winning a championship (or even his first playoff series). But they also lured him with a new pitch to keep him healthy.

It is an approach that has put the Suns at the forefront of the NBA's athletic-training movement toward preventive methods of manual therapy and corrective exercise.

It is why Hill, his wife and two daughters moved to Paradise Valley last month, allowing Hill to get a jump-start on his work with the Suns staff before his teammates trickled in for this month's voluntary workouts.

"I'd heard great things from current players and even guys who'd been here and left," Hill said of his free-agency research on the athletic trainers. "Having been here just a few days, I've seen some pretty amazing things - things I've never seen before. I know when I get up off the table after he (head athletic trainer Aaron Nelson) works with me, I feel great. He kicks my butt, and every time I walk out I feel good."


Pioneers in treatment
The Phoenix staff works to avoid player injuries by correcting body imbalances with flexibility exercises and corrective therapy. That process - like the Suns' partnership with the Mesa-based National Academy of Sports Medicine - is nothing new. The Suns started it seven years ago. Three years later, they had cut injury treatments 62 percent.

What is new is that the Suns' medical staff is no longer on an NBA island. After a season in which the Suns had the fewest player games missed because of injuries, their principles are going league-wide. This month, the academy became the official provider of health education for the NBA Trainers Association and held workshops, led by academy President Mike Clark, in Phoenix and Orlando.

"What it took was for guys like Steve (Nash) and Amaré (Stoudemire) and for people to see them get healthy," Clark said, referring to Nash's chronic back issues and Stoudemire's comeback from microfracture knee surgery.

He credits former Suns guard Stephon Marbury for starting the movement by accepting the academy's ideas after his ankle surgery and before getting a four-year contract extension worth more than $72 million.

"The pro athlete is a high-performance engine that needs a tuneup, just like a NASCAR car needs work once Jeff Gordon drives it around and beats it up," Clark said.

The departure from the usual taping, bracing, stretching and stimulating via heat or ice has not spread much beyond the NBA, although some NFL teams embrace it.

When Los Angeles Clippers head athletic trainer Jason Powell worked for the San Francisco 49ers, he never used these methods, which focus on the kinetic chain. Weak muscles cause injuries elsewhere, and abnormal movements can signal such problems in time to correct them before an injury. Ideally, it can reduce prescriptions and surgeries by dealing with symptoms proactively.


Moving ahead
The Clippers, Phoenix, Minnesota and Charlotte were the lone early believers.

"We were resistant, too, until we realized the percentages show it's the way to go," Powell said. "It's a new method to help chronic and overuse injuries. It's definitely changed my methods with how I go about sports medicine. Everybody is jumping on board because they know it works. Phoenix is the center of this movement."

Alan Russell, the academy's director of training and development, said the Suns were at the "top of the pyramid" and that other teams are "seven years behind" them.

While many can settle in with methods learned in college, this approach is ever developing, with the academy finding better techniques with a research institute at the University of North Carolina. The Suns are the primary beneficiaries, and Clark often is in their training room on game nights and practice days.

The Suns invest in their players' health, too, having bought a Colorado Athletic Training chamber and an anti-gravity machine this summer. The CAT pulls out air to simulate a workout on a treadmill or exercise bike at 9,000 feet. The gravity machine puts a player in a compression suit and can pull 80 percent of his body weight off the treadmill to reduce the pounding, especially toward the end of the season when Nash runs sprints for a workout after the Suns' scaled-back practices.

Hill's performance is benefiting already. He has shown so much promise for the season that the Suns made sure he would be on this season's All-Star ballot because they feel he has a shot at the honor. Hill usually is rehabilitating without court work at this time of year, but he is well enough that he can work out in the training room and on the court and still leave joking that he feels well enough to walk home.

"A lot of these ideas and equipment are new to me, but a lot of what they've thrown at me makes a lot of sense," said Hill, whose injuries have sidelined him for 364 of the past seven seasons' 574 games. "I look forward to a healthy, productive season."

Nash, a fitness fanatic to who tries to ward off chronic back issues, has been the training staff's biggest devotee and figured Hill could benefit in much the same way. Recently, Hill soared to dunk off a Nash alley-oop pass in a pickup game, prompting Suns assistant coach Alvin Gentry, who coached Hill in his Detroit heyday, to yell out, "1995!"

"He looks great," Nash said. "I keep telling him he's got to relax because he's so excited to be here and so excited to be in good shape that he probably wants to overdo it. I want him to relax and enjoy it and not do too much. It's hard, because he's got this passion for this game that has been thwarted through some of his injuries, so it's hard to slow him down."

 

I'm concerned about Yao's minutes. He should not play big minutes on 2nd game of b2b. He should have reduced minutes in general, and he should cut the umbilical cord tied to China.

What is the status of Yao's obligation to china natl team/olympic team? Is he able to rest in the offseason now (minus this years olympics).

 

Considering Yao has been the guy who hasn't played more than 57 games in any year since 2004-2005, I'd say he is the one you have to worry about more. With T-Mac's back problems apparently gone (well, controlled), I am a lot more optimistic about him staying healthy than Yao, whose size is something you simply can't avoid.

 

0 , Zip, Nada, Zilch !!!!

 

Forget about LeBron. The chance of him becoming a Rocket is slim and none.

He will be a Cav, Net or Knick. And, if he isn't one of those, he still won't be a Rocket.

Many teams will be offering him max dollars so there is more to it than just having cap space.

 

agreed LIMITING minutes should be the mantra... next year... if I see Yao playing 38+ minutes a game... and Tmac playing over 40+ minutes a game... in the regular season again...

I will be putting all my money on a bet against the Rox again...next year

bottom line is this... if we cant count on our other players in the regular season then were definately not going to be able to count on these guys in the playoffs...

for those in the camp who want to see Tmac and Yao... go max minutes... for the full season...

fine.... lets save it for the last 15-20 games and the playoffs...

even in track and field athletes who run around for a living... have off days... and are trained to peak at a certain time of the season... other wise... if your 100% all year around you get burnt out...