Originally posted here by Luigi Bros, AKA cooliobob on Clutchfans. Whether you agree or not, it's a pretty interesting and informative read. 1) Penny and Shaq should re-unite…at a Miami Retirement Resort and re-live their Blue-Chip days. 2) I am a huge Rockets fan and I applaud them for going out and re-signing two key FA’s in Kyle Lowry and Luis Scola. However, with that being said, they were both paid above what they are actually worth. Before the hate comes in; let me explain: True, both Lowry and Scola were instrumental to the Rockets success (or lack thereof) depending on how you look at the situation. The team was a .500 team that just missed the playoffs last season. A big part of that reason was the absence of Yao Ming. While I don’t disagree that Yao Ming could certainly help to shore up the interior on both the offensive and defensive side, I don’t believe that his presence will catapult the Rockets from a Lottery team to a top-4 team in the West as some have suggested above. Let us be realistic here people (yes, I’m talking to all the Rockets fans here). Yao Ming is 30 years old and stands 7′6″. Big men of his skill-set are few and far between. However, if you were to take a look at the Giants that have preceded him in the past, you can note that many of them encountered steep declines after the age of 30. You can attribute that to the injuries (see Arvydas Sabonis, Bill Walton, etc.) as big men of Yao Ming’s stature simply weren’t meant to take the constant pounding that comes with the daily grind of the NBA (and for Yao Ming, the Chinese National team). While I don’t feel that Yao Ming is all the sudden going to disappear off the face of the planet as far as his play is concerned; his potential has been maxed out and if anything, his injuries are and have started to take its toll on his game overall. In other words, Yao Ming’s game isn’t getting any better, and he sure as hell isn’t getting any faster, which brings me to my next point… Take a look at the Rockets current roster. With players like Kyle Lowry, Aaron Brooks, Chase Budinger, Jermaine Taylor, etc, this team was made to do one thing: RUN. These guys were made to Run n’ Gun and it is EXACTLY the way Rick Adelman has orchestrated his offenses in the past. It’ll be interesting to see how Yao Ming fit into the system, but I’m almost inclined to say that well, he simply isn’t. Yao Ming was not made to play in the Run and Gun offense that the Rockets have taken up. The last time Yao Ming played, T-Mac was still running the show and the Rockets were playing a slow-the-pace, half-court offense that featured and in and out to and from Yao Ming to outside shooters. Simply put, I believe Yao Ming’s return will NOT have as large of an impact on the team as many people think. Do I think the Rockets will improve from last season’s record? Sure. But, I’m not expecting more than 5-7 more wins from the previous season. 3) Now onto the contract issues at hand. As of now, the Rockets don’t have any sort of cap-space to pursue top-flight Free Agents. Unless a trade is coming, it will be extremely difficult for the Rockets to pull in key Free Agents in the near and foreseeable future. By handing your backup PG (Kyle Lowry), $6M a year, the Rockets have essentially shot themselves in the foot when it comes to keeping Aaron Brooks at a good and reasonable price. Don’t get me wrong, Aaron Brooks is a talented player, but let’s be honest here. He is a tweener shooting guard trapped in a midget’s body. He looks to shoot first before he looks to pass. It can be argued that Kyle is actually the more competent floor general when it comes to getting teammates involved. I’m going to be brutally honest here. Aaron Brooks isn’t a $10M+ per year caliber player, which is what the Rockets will be forced to pay him after handing Lowry $6M+ and Scola a $9M+ plus contract. Some people will say, look at his numbers. Well, I’m looking at them and here is how I see it: Good (inflated-no Yao Ming) numbers on a Lottery Team, but when Rajon Rondo is making $55M over 5 years on a championship-caliber team with 3 future HOF’s and it simply CAN’T be justified. Aaron Brooks is NOT the caliber player that Rajon Rondo is. It’s not even close. If you actually believe this, then you are delusional. 4) People tend to forget that the Rockets came flying out of the gates last season, which was a big part of the reason they finished in the 9th spot last season. If anything, the Rockets out-performed themselves in the early part of the season and came back down to earth as the season came to pass. I’m currently staring at the Rockets current roster and the only significant addition to the roster this season is their draft pick, Patrick Patterson. While I don’t doubt that he will be a solid contributor, if Rocket’s fans are expecting a 42-win season to jump to a 60-win season all the sudden with the addition of Pat, Yao, and the oft-injured Kevin Martin; well, you my friend are going to be in for a bit of a surprise. While I do foresee the Rockets performing better this season, I’m going to stick with a more realistic 5 to 7 game win total increase. The Rockets are going to win approx. 50 games…and that’s if, IF, the likes of Yao Ming and Kevin Martin make it to the end of the season. As I see it now, the Lakers are the clear favorite to win the West. However, teams such as the Thunder (draft picks), Mavericks (Chandler, emergence of Beaubois), and even the Spurs (Splitter) have greatly improved their rosters. The Nuggets will likewise be in contention for a top-4 seed as they have added talented, albeit shot-happy Al Harrington to their roster. The Trailblazers look to improve with Brandon Roy coming back healthy alongside Greg Oden and the players they picked up through the Martell Webster trade. You have 6 teams that have improved their rosters considerably. As for the Suns and Jazz, I feel that these two teams pretty much stayed the same in regards to talent. Jazz pick up Jefferson, lose Boozer and Korver and the Suns pick up Warrick, Hedo, Childress at the expense of losing Stoudamire). As you can see, it is by no means going to be an easy stroll in the park for the Rockets going into the season. Couple that with the fact that even teams like the Kings (Demarcus & Tyreke) and the Clippers (Blake Driffin) have likewise improved, the Rockets as I see it are a 7th or 8th seed – AT BEST. While, I’m hoping for the best, I remain a realist. And I’m asking Rockets fans to likewise be hopeful, but cautiously optimistic. Let’s hope that the Rockets can stay healthy this season and surprise a few people.
That was neither interesting, nor informative. The Thunder have greatly improved their roster this summer with "draft picks"? Heh.
[Interesting Response] Funny how the term "realistic" is used nowadays. People think being pessimistic means they are more "realistic" than others. Did all of the "realistic" predictions of doom when Yao got injured turn out to be "real"? If you are a pessimistic fan, call yourself that, don't act like you have more of a claim to "reality" than other people. [/Interesting Response]
here i point out a couple things i disagree with you. 1) run & gun is not aldeman's stamp. it belongs to MA and nash's suns. aldman's offense is more cutting, moving, and passing in a half court offense. everyone on his team should keeps doing these to disrupt defense. 2) i agree kyle is overpaid but not scola. actually we got a pretty fair or even a little bit cheaper deal on scola. 3) if rox can beef up their defense as individual and as team (i am not talking about yao's return to clog the middle only), rox should be in the middle of pack from #2 to #6 seed.
so you decided to post a new thread about another poster's opinions? besides, having Yao back will at least net us an extra 10-15 games in the win column.
Terrible analysis...what about the fact that Kevin Martin and Jordan Hill will have a training camp and understand rotations better? And yes, Yao may get injured, or he might be back to his old self..... Injured we are certainly a borderline playoff team at best.....healthy, we are contenders. You don't just GIVE UP, before the darned season even starts. Massive Rocket's fans do not GIVE UP ! DD
What Kyle brings to the Rockets reflect how much he got paid.... he deserved that money. If your going to say someone that got overpaid, look at Darko Milicic contract
He lost me right there... we were not a .500 team we were 42-40... ABOVE .500. Hence he is not a true Rockets fan and I stopped reading.
What's wrong with that? Don't people post published Rockets-related "news" articles all the time? What's the difference?
yeah but we post articles from actual news sites such as Chron, ESPN, or Yahoo. Not some random posters who post their opinions and not facts, especially posters who don't have the same resume like The_Yoyo or BimaThug have.
Didn't really read, but agree we're at the bottom of the playoff picture. I think +Yao -Stoudemire gets us in, but that's about it, not sure who else we leap frog.
This article makes the stupid assumption that your roster improves and declines solely on the basis of its additions and subtractions in terms of players. It has no regard whatsoever for the AGES of those players, where they are on their career arcs, and what kind of performance you can expect from them year to year. That is the #2 factor behind a team's performance, after health. This "We added Tyson Chandler, we'll be better" crap is utter garbage and makes me dumber for having read it. Tim Duncan is old. Manu Ginobili is old. Dirk Nowitzki is old. Jason Kidd is old. Steve Nash is old. You're not telling me those teams aren't declining every year that those guys remain their teams' respective cornerstones. In Denver, they have Melo but Billups is also a key figure; he is old. The Rockets on the other hand are young. Our oldest key pieces are Yao (30), Scola (30), and Battier (31?32?), and seriously 30 in a big man is not nearly as old as it sounds, and certainly not up there in the ages of the stars of the Magic or Spurs. Every other player on the Rockets team stands to improve next year by added experience and maintained athleticism; you cannot say the same about any other contender in the West except OKC and Portland, which is why those two teams will be our main competition for #2 in the West.
You know what though, this guy did not ask for his blog to be posted here, and he did put himself out there. To the OP, it is not cool to post blogs from other folks, you don't see other people that are on here posting their blogs on Clutchfans. I appreciate that the author put his thoughts down, I disagree a lot with them, but I admire that he did it. DD
