To start building around Yao? Is he starting to get to old? How many years does he have within him to dominate the center? Will he decline fast or slow and steady? Would he be more effective playing shorter minutes like Shaq. Building around him is so easy, just need your 1 through 4 (PG, SG, SF and PF) to be DECENT 3 point shooters. Say 34 percent. 1/3 of your shots fall, not asking much. Enough to make the other teams realize if one of them is open its an even higher chance of making that 3 and now Yao should be able to pass the ball off in any direction. And if they have good chemistry and run play by play he should be able to pass without looking knowing where his guy will be at. (Barry, Wafer, Shane and Artest) A (1) penetrating, (2) pass first shoot second pg is a must. Right now Yao is not in tune with this. Rafer was never this type of PG. For the times when the defense starts to adjust to this 4 way 3 point shooting and fronting Yao you need to penetrate and dish off or layup/dunk. Yao should be ready for a pass from WITHIN firstly and rebound secondly. The only problem with this is that he grown accustomed to Rafers play. Dont think this a knock up on Rafer. Before the season I was on his bandwagon and while Tmac was in the game I was throwing up that I was ever defending him but for some reason whenever Tmac isnt playing he becomes a bit more entertaining and racks more assists and takes smarter shots although the 3 pointer with 19 secs on the shot clock kills me. Honestly its not that hard to build around our big man but being a stat man and not a what can you do for my team type guy is the wrong path. What ever do I mean? Just because on stats one guy is better then the other you say no to the trade? But apparently this other "lesser" guy fits into the system better..... A Pistons offseason trade and Bucks trades comes into mind here. But because we cant change the past here's a recommendation to play around with. Starting: 1) Rafer 2) Von 3) Shane 4) Ron 5) Ming 6th man subbing) Scola for Yao, Brooks for Rafer and Landry for Ron. Move Ron to the 3 or 2 depending on play level of Shane and Von. (Scola would definitely still get starter minutes from the 4 and 5) This line up takes care of the buildin around Yao concept for what we have. You have Rafer whom without Tmac has shown he can be a pass first shoot second guard and is quite a defender at times. Von is the penetrating guard and can shoot the 3 probably best of this starting line up but yes he lacks defense but hopefully the 4 can make up for that. Shane is the spot up shooter, if he can find his rhythm and get his spot up shooting back and defense MORE IMPORTANTLY it will be a better picture automatically. Ron is supposedly our 2, 3 or 4 man. Let him try out the 4 for us, gives us longer range without losing too much height compared to Scola. He is probably just as strong and after jumping has the same reach? With this line up you now have the range and teams should have second thoughts about doubling Yao. They will be forced to front him in which penetrating or good pass with good boxing out should easily solve this. Add this with the strong defense of Shane and Ron and even Rafer (assuming they can get back in their habits) and you have a sick defensive first unit with re-run offensive that can really only be stopped by cold shooting. Tmac would be asked to sit down until a week or two before PO's in which we would see how much he has healed and if he can get back into the game. Tmac is a superstar, he should be able to blend into the team and not force them to readjust to him I am a star status. If the healing isnt enough then sit him until post season and see what you can work with a expiring contract. If Rafers Play becomes a average double double I think it would be financially smart to trade him as now you are getting what you want from a PG then you can move Ron to the 2 (assuming he was kept) and try to get a 4 with 3 point range or at least longer then that of Landry and Scola. So my thoughts and thoughts only. I am no Gm just a fan with wishful thinking's. Flame on....
i think the question is not if we start to build around yao. the question is, if we don't, what are the alternatives and how realistic those chances are.
Well I'm kinda thinking thats what the question leads to. Is it too late or worth it to rebuild around Yao? a) Yes, what other options do we have then? b) No, how fast do we act? I think Yao has another contract worth of play in him at this level before he starts to deteriorate and decline. I think smaller play time will help in longing his career. And yes ofcourse I do think with that being said that you can rebuild around him. No I do not think we have done any kind of building around him up this point though. DM has said they have been building around him but whom? He passed up 2 good trades. I think DM has screwed up big time in building around Yao if thats the case.
That lineup sucks. It is a worse way to ruin Yao and Rockets. To build a team around Yao is very very difficult because Yao does not have defense, rebounding, shot blocking, shooting range, leadership, clutchness, athleticism and jumping ability, but you need them all to build a good team. Also you factor in that Yao being hated by the Refs, this league's being guards' league, Yao's injury history, 7 years failure of the team..... It will take major guts and hits to build around Yao again.
I didn't know Rafer was knocked up??? jk I think this team still has the chance to build around Yao. First thing we need to do is trade Shane for anyone that can put up more than 3 points a game, and he is not contibuting on defense like he used to. Then we need to fill our roster with role players and maybe even just a semi star kinda like a Joe Johnson in '10. He would be another perfect match in our motion offense plus he can create his own shot and shoot the 3. If we get Bibby this off season then they have that familiarity with playing in ATL. I just think Yao needs someone that can feed off him instead of him feeding off Tracy. We dont need a major overhaul just some tweaks hear and there and a couple of dont let the door hit ya on the way outs...
wow, a landslide of weaknesses of yao. what are some of his strength then, may i ask? and this team has never been truly built around yao.
Yao's strength: his height. undeniable scoring ability when he has stamina. pure dominance if he is angry and motivated. future science might be able to find Yao's angry spot. good teammate. plays hard most of the time. brings money to his boss and brings contracts to his teammates.
My god, don't be so harsh. This is not a champ team. There is like missing from the starting line up. If you spread that to upgrade 1, 2, 3 the line up should look a lot better.
with yao, what we need the most is dead-eye shooters, a commodity that is a lot more scarce compared to even just 10 years ago. think about it's not mcgrady (a volume shooter) who is occupying the 20+ mils cap space, instead we had players like ray allen or rip hamilton. imagine steve novak could play some decent defense and actually stayed with the team. a great pg sure will help a lot, but it actually is not a must.
Those are what a Yao centric team need to add. there is no single player can get all of those. Also you build around Shaq with Kobe or Wade. You build around Duncan with Parker and Manu. You don't build around Yao with Rafer, Wafer, Battier, come on.
we don't need to make changes to be an elite team, what we do need though is for Yao to realize that he is truly the first option and he needs to demand the ball every possession, right now (and through out his career) i believe Yao is being too caring for his teammates and T-Mac's feelings, like "i know i can score this possession but Tracy might want to take the shot too" this is a team right now has no focus and gameplan on what to do, right now we are just letting rafer do whatever the f he wants...
The problem with building completely around Yao is that he is not quite dominant enough in today's game for that to be all you need. There are too many games, too many possessions where he has trouble getting position and we have trouble getting the ball to him. If all you have is a bunch of average players that can shoot around him, we'll be in trouble when he's not gaining position down low. It was okay with Hakeem because he was that dominant, and he was quick enough to reposition with plenty of time to get it back to him, unlike Yao.
You can't build around him unless you're team is completely loaded and can beat you in other ways. He's way too flawed to be expected to carry a team to a championship.
Yao has great trade value. Maybe we should trade him before 2010? Yao for Wade? Yao for Bosh? Yao/Tmac for Stat/Shaq? Is it better to build around wade, bosh, or stat?
first of all, Im not building around Yao with those players, im putting what we have NOW into a position where it can be most helpful you cannot say build around yao when we dont have the means to atm. tracy is holding 21mil right now and is basically non tradable. next year if he has the same problems he is more tradable then this year. what you have to do is fit the players into position of where they can help the team the most. We have already seen scola play the five so when yao sits put scola in then when yao comes back slide scola to the four. that was just a starting line up to start the offense. to think you would think build around yao with that line up? I dont think any one of those guys are meant for yao style of play. I do know they are our better three point shoots though. if you seriously want to make it yaos style of game you want 3 point shooters like I said but you also want a slower and defensive stlye. they dont need to be penetrators as long as they can get the ball to yao in the paint or make the three and get back on defensive. thats all I would ask for.
nba stats have him at 34 percent. and for the 2nd time he is on the roster what can i do about that? work with what you have until a trade comes up. you want me to be one of these people coming up with fantasy trades. no how about work with what we got now. when trade dead lines come up or post season lets see what we can get but other then that you cant say put in what we dont have. now i did have in there if his double double play continues on a regular then he could be worth keeping and working more on the 2 and 4.
Too late or not, you just do not know. I guess that the rockets just need figure it out year by year. Luck enough, Yao did not get an injure this year, otherwise, we do even not have this discussion.
