The man has a huge market , so he definitely deserves to get the MAX!!! Les won't even think about it.
Again lets try not to be a ONE-dimensiol. You cant really look at the BOx scores and judge Yao merely from the numbers you see. Yao scored 19 in 1st half and 2 in the 2nd, totaling 21 points. Yao has potential to put up better numbers. It seems that once Yao scores a certian amount, his teamates(team) stop going to him. This is what I'd observed this past season. Its like, ok Yao has his numbers already now...now its time for me to get numbersz!
The man's priceless even if he doesn't ever live up to people's expectations. He attracts a whole different crowd and a world market that the Rockets would be fools to let him slip from their grasp. Signing him to a max contract and sealing him on the team for his whole career would bring in so much profit for the team. I wonder how much the Rockets money has increased since his arrival on the team, and I wonder if him being on the team will open for cap space for the team in the near future. I dunno how the salary cap works for team to team, but I'd figure a ballclub that brings in more money has more leeway to sign players to bigger numbers, unless it's a fixed number at say 60 million dollars for every NBA team to fill their roster with.
Heh, it's like no one read my post. I said ignore the fact that he brings in one billion fans. Just based on his production. IMO, you have to wonder whether or not 16/9 at the C spot is worth a MAX player at other spots. His position is definitely the most essential on a team. Right now, the only C's posting more than 15ppg I believe are Shaq Yao Illgauskas (not sure, but probably) Brad Miller Those, along with Ben Wallace, are probably the 5 best C's in the league. You could say Yao is probably second best. So he's the second best player at his position, does he deserve the MAX? I think so.
Not only will Yao Ming have better numbers by the end of his rookie contract. But he will have better numbers then 16 and 9 by the end of this year. So then by what your asking Sane based on potential YES Yao is worth the Max contract. And the billion people rooting for him is just a bonus.
when will everyone get out of the fantasy world they live in and stop saying "Yao has one billion fans in china"? Not everyone watches basketball you know. Ask your wives or your sisters or whoever. it's so ridiculous it's straight up ignorant.
I think Yao will stay no matter what. Why would he want to go anywhere else and lose everything he has worked for here? When his contract is over he will have gotten used to living in Houston and hanging with his teamates. I would not put it past Yao not to ask for the max. He has more money then he would ever have if he had stayed in china. Hey you never know?
Yao Ming is not worth the max, at least not now. That is in terms of his true worthiness, not his market value. If you put Yao on the market right now and allow teams to go over the cap to sign him, he would get max offers from around half of the NBA teams. Centers in this league do get overpaid and we know that very well with Kelvin Cato. Yao needs to improve his game to gain the status of a true franchise player, and it's not a given that this will happen. In that sense a lot of this team's fate in the next decade depends sorely on Yao's development. If Yao "gets it" and reaches the next level, we sign him to a max extention and build around him. However, if he doesn't improve significantly from what he is at now, the Rockets will face a diffcult decision. We as an organization have already made a HUGE mistake by signing Steve Francis to that max contract extention. Steve has shown little improvement over the last three years. If this trend continues Steve will be like a Rod Strickland in his Washington days in four years (when his athleticism starts to decline). (In fact, I'm against signing a small guard to a maximum contract period). If we sign Yao Ming to another max extention and he doesn't pan out to be a true franchise player like Duncan or KG, we essentially have eliminated our chances of winning a championship for the next decade because we would be locked up by two maximum contracts. I've always believed the philosophy that you either win big or you don't win at all. I have been saying this all along that if an opportunity comes along that we can acquire a KG/Duncan type of player by trading Steve and Yao (before Yao's extention), we pull the trigger.
Ask your wife, sister and daughter if shes willing to change the OIL/change the flat tire. Ask them to climb up the 20 tree to cut a piece of branch thats about to fall into the driveway. ASk them if they perfer watching "Benny Hill" or "Charmed". Alot of people watch basketball, especially young males in China & around the world. They watch more basketball more so than soccer. Thanks to David Stern basketball is booming around the world. NBA games a broadcasted worldwide buddy.
