Dude, you seriously have no idea what you're talking about. First of all your claim that only perimeter players take 20 shots per game is garbage. There have been plenty of centers, like Shaq or Dream or Kareem, who have averaged above that for a season. If you had even bothered to check nba.com you could easily have found that out before posting. What really surprised me is that somebody would make that assertion in the first place. And if they're converting at better than 50% why not? Players who rely on their jump shot are going to run hot and cold. Players who make their living in the paint are going to convert at a much higher rate. I don't think Yao is at the level of a Shaq or Hakeem but every indication is that when his shot attempts go up his points per game goes up and his efficiency does not decrease. Is it any coincidence that last year when Yao had his best average ppg (25) he also had his highest shots per game (around 17) converting at 0.516? Given that why exactly wouldn't you want him to take more shots? Let me spell it out for you: More shot attempts for Yao means more points with no reduction in efficiency. Yao converts at better than .500, which is much, much higher than what the perimeter players do. There is no way that you want somebody who only converts at .400 to take more shots than the guy who converts at .500.
No way, just off the top of my head I can think of Wilt Chamberlain, Shaq, Hakeem, Bill Russell and Kareem. That shoves Malone out of the top five right there.
Oh my....by that logic he should just take all of the shots right, or maybe we should just let Landry dunk them all down. As i said, either perimeter players are all time greats do it. The guys you mentioned are all time greats, Yao is not. I doubt even they did that for more than a few seasons. IF you knew anything about basketball you would know that good big men get double teamed and they kick it out to open PERIMETER PLAYERS who then take the majority of the shots because that is their role in the offense. I know, if you don't know anything about basketball you could easily come to some idiotic linear conclusion that the team will be better if one of its highest percentage shooters took more shots. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Adleman can just walk out one day and tell Yao to take more shots. Why stop at 20? Why not 30 or 40? Then our offense would be as efficient as the Suns if he just took all the shots. Why have all of these low fg% guards taking shots at all?
Another thing i forgot to mention is how it affects the offense. You would have to be brain dead to think that our offense was better last year than this year. We're moving the ball alot better now and that means less shots for Yao sometimes. Last year we force fed the ball to Yao and our offense grinded to screaching halt. So yes, part of the reason we are a better team is because Yao shot the ball LESS and we got our role players more involved in the offense.
Because obviously there's a limit. That's so obvious that I'm amazed you would even bring it up. What you seem to be incapable of understanding is that while there is such a thing as taking too many shots there is also correspondingly a problem with a player being too unselfish and taking too few. I'm not advocating that Yao get up to 30 shots per game, which is simply a ridiculous argument. But by any standard 15 shots per game is too few, and that's been noticed and commented on by numerous observers like Doug Collins and Matt Devlin. What's more, you didn't say perimeter players and star centers are the only players to take 20 shots per game. You said: "The only guys who take 20 shots a game are perimeter players". Here's the thing: it doesn't matter if Yao is an "all time great" or whatever. He's clearly the centerpiece of the offense and the best offensive option the Rockets have got right now. What's more you argue that big men when like Yao when doubled kick it out to the open guy. Yes, that's true, but that's only a small part of a bigger picture. The Rockets and any other team that plays an inside out strategy is going to look to establish a paint presence first to allow their perimeter scorers to get open looks. It doesn't work the way other way around.
The Rockets actually scored slightly more points last season than this one, as IBM has pointed out. Their record for the previous season was 52 wins compared to 55 for this one. I wouldn't say that their offense looked a lot better, especially since the Rockets are still in the process of learning the new system. And again, the real problem is not that the offense force fed Yao over and over again. It's that the rest of the team just stood around, watched him take the double, and waited for him to do something. The key to the Rockets winning in the future is for the team to exploit the double team on Yao. For that to happen he's obviously going to have the ball in his hands for large periods of time.
It's the off-season for the BBS, since the Rocks were knocked out of it. You get goofy polls, heated arguments about trivia, and some very fine threads and posts speculating about who we might draft, who we might make a deal for, who might get moved, and so on. I kind of like this time of year, to tell you the truth. Old timers who don't bother much with the GARM during the season, seeing as it's become a zoo more than half the time since Yao was drafted, come out of the woodwork during the summer. The topic here? It's a public poll, so my vote is there. Easily Moses, IMO. You had to have seen him play. I love Yao, but he's done nothing to move up past Moses in the Rockets center pantheon. Heck, he hasn't surpassed Ralph Sampson, who was rookie of the year, MVP of the All Star game, a key member of a great team, with Dream, and went to the Finals. Let Yao get to the Finals (or even out of the first round), and we can talk.
On average I mean. There were certainly individual games where the Rockets ran the motion offense beautifully and they stomped all over the opponent. Balancing that out is that the Rockets regressed to the old JvG system at the end of the season and especially in the playoffs.
more stats huh... Listen our offense obviously went through a transition period but i'm pretty sure we started clicking like we never did before under JVG. We won 22 games in a row, i would say thats improvement. I understand that you need that the game is run through the big man, we do that. There's a difference between touches and shots. Yao gets plenty of shots. He also get plenty of touches what the team does with those touches is what makes the team better. I never said anything was wrong with Yao having the ball in his hands. There IS a problem with your linear argument that him taking more shots = better results. Watch Tim Duncan, one of the best big men of all time. He doesn't throw up a lot of shots but the offense still runs through him. That's what Yao needs to do, read and react like Adleman's bigs have always done. Simply taking more shots is not the answer. If anything our team will play better, as it did this year, when Yao learns (and his teammates learn) how to react to the double and take less shots. The team will be much more effective with someone getting an open layup/dunk (as Scola/Landry did often) than him taking turnaround fadeways while being doubled. ...and yes i didn't mention the all-time greats in the original post but i did in one of the others. The reason i used that in my argument is because those guys could single handedly win big games, Yao can not. The rockets need a team approach to win and that can't be acheived if he's constantly taking shots over double teams (which is what he would have to do to take that many shots a game).
That is not entirely true. You realize that Dream was at his best when he was in his early 30s right?
I am all for team basketball, BUT: 1) I don't think there's any question that Yao takes too few shots. Numerous outside observers have seen this and commented on it like the two I cited in my previous post, Collins and Devlin. As it stands now Yao is underutilized--15 shot attempts per game on average is way too low. 2) In terms of RELATIVE output the guards probably need to be taking less shots and guys like Yao and Scola should be taking more. How many times in the last season did the Rockets jump out to a lead via dominating inside play and then piss it away because the guards decided to start firing bombs from three point land? The Rockets had a terrible problem with overconfidence in the first part of the year and this was a big factor: once they had a lead they'd forget how they got the lead and start firing from outside without establishing the paint first. Not to mention that both Yao and Scola converted at better than .500 this season while the guards hovered at around .400. As for Yao dominating games I can think of plenty of examples: the loss to Denver in Denver in OT, the win over GS at home. Whatever your problem with numbers (math is hard?) 0.516 doesn't lie. Over half the time Yao shoots the ball he gets a bucket. Regardless of whether not he's an "all time great" he is still the best offensive option this team has. Actually, Scola should be taking more shots too.
yao's usage rating was around 29 this season, which is EXTREMELY HIGH for a post player. yao gets his touches. it's not his fault he doesn't shoot it. listen, yao is already 26/27 years old. his still has the same tendencies as before. the way yao plays the game, he's not going to take his shots at will. double teams can neutralize that. some defenders can take him out of the paint and he's not comfortable out there. next season when he plays around 30-31 mpg, averaging 18-19 ppg and saving himself for the playoffs is better. we need a big body in the playoffs. what yao need to improve is his rebounding and defense. there have been several instances adelman took him out b/c he was a liability on those parts of the game. with landry's and scola's improvement, adelman will definitely play them more. yao will not play 37mpg like he did last yr. we can play without yao very well. yao should feel zero pressure to dominate next yr and that can hopefully translate into a better yao ming. he became a very good all-around player last yr. i hope he can avg 3-4 assists. if he can pass better out of double teams, we'll be better.
If you think Yao's only going to play 30 minutes a game next year you're not dealing with reality. Yes, in a perfect world it would be possible to do that and get away with it. However my strong suspicion is that Yao and T-Mac both are going to have to play a lot of minutes just to stay competitive in the West.
it's not that i'm thinking it, adelman publicly stated that near the end of the season and when the playoffs ended for us. he wants both tmac and yao to play less minutes if we want both to stay healthy. he can do that with yao b/c we do have capable big men. but he cant do that with tmac b/c he has luther head backing him up. if we were as deep at the sg/sf spot, tmac would play less minutes too. i'm not criticizing yao, but it's best for his career and the team if he plays less minutes. i'm just stating what the rockets are thinking. adelman usually does what he says. we were competitive with yao being out for 30+ games. you don't think we can stay competitive with him playing 30mpg? what the hell?
Ok i'll play with numbers: Yao--15.5 shots Duncan--15.1 shots Dwight Howard--11.9 shots Amare Stoudemire--15.1 shots Chris Bosh--15.3 shots Thats the number of shots they took per game this year. So, yes star bigs generally take less shots than star perimeter players. I have nothing against Scola and others taking more shots. What people seem to not understand is that guards take alot of bad shots because there is nothing good happening on offense. As our team learns the offense that will change. Also, Yao has taken over and won quite a few games but he can't do it consistently like the all time greats. Those guys could win BIG games on their own consistently. Again, my argument is not about guards vs bigs or Yao vs. all time greats. I'm just trying to let you know that him taking more shots is not the answer. For us to win, the offense must be more fluid. That means more shots for Scola, Landry, and the rest of the role players and less shots for Yao and Tracy. It would probably help if we had more talented players instead of the dleague all-stars but thats a topic for another discussion.
there is no reason why scola cannot take 10+ shots next yr. both tmac and yao will have to sacrifice their shots if we want role players to improve. scola and landry must elevate their game to another level next yr. alston will still take his shots.
First of all you claim that Yao doesn't compare in quality to some of the all time greats and claim that for that reason he should take less shots. Then you take a bunch of players who do not compare to Yao in terms of position, size, situation or quality and argue that he should fit into that category and take about the same number of shots they do. You can't have it both ways. Duncan is clearly in the twilight of his career and he's increasingly deferring to Manu and Parker. Howard is not the offensive package that Yao is--he's got no jump shot and his points are going to come on point blank shots under the basket. Bosh and Stoudemire aren't even true centers in the sense that Yao and Howard are. And right now none of those guys represent the complete offensive package in the post that Yao does. It's the Duncan comparison that bears the most examination. As Duncan's skills decline he's increasingly foregoing shots to the more effect pieces on his team, Manu and Parker. That situation does not exist for the Rockets. Offensively Yao is the most effective piece of the team right now--other players, especially the guards, should be passing up shots to get him (and his .500 conversion rate) a chance to score.
I covered all of this in a previous post, so I'm going to resort to caps because this is the second time (at least)I've posted this. THE ROCKETS WERE NOT COMPETITIVE IN THE PAINT WITHOUT YAO. Scola and Landry give up too much height to deal with teams that can field athletic big men. Are you forgetting that the Rockets compiled a record of 8-7 over the last 15 games of the season without Yao? Adelman may very well look to cut back Yao/T-Mac's minutes, but he's going to be constrained by the need to win games. And even if there is a cut back I don't see either of those guys playing less than 35 mpg, not the 30 mpg you seem to envision.
