Let yao sit the first 20 games. It looks like he will miss 20-30 games due to some injury might as well let it happen early so we have him for the playoffs.
practice isn't that draining my friend. outside of a 30 min scrimmage here and there (light scrimmage i might say), but mostly shooting drills, it's nothing compared to games. yao got the stress fracture from too many minutes playing real games where the pressure is always on.
If by limiting Yao you mean keep him at 35 mpg instead of playing 40 minutes in games in the first half of the season then I agree. If you want to sit Yao out of games or limit him to under 33 mpg then I 100% disagree. Yao just had a run of bad luck with injuries. It happened to Carlos Boozer. It happened to Shaq in his prime. And it happened to a lot of players in the NBA like Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum, etc. Even Hakeem was injured during that one season early in his career. This is Yao's prime and we should use him accordingly. Look at Dwight Howard. He got hurt in the playoffs and has been injured for weeks now. He was just lucky with the timing of his injury or else he would have missed as many games as Yao did last season.
Lighten Yao and T-mac's weight as for their brittle feet and back.Also this will be good for their moves on court.
Yao needs a trainer that has the sense not to have him run laps on track. If he really needs to run do it on grass. Also reading about 2 hour personal training sessions that's just crazy. Anything over 40 minutes is a waste of time anyway.
He diffenatly needs limited minutes early on in the season. We were able to play very well and win alot of games without him, so we need to be confident we can go at least .500 with him playing 25 minutes a game. Moreso against the weaker teams in the east.
Limiting his minutes is one thing, but limiting his games? Why? Because he chose to go play for a team that's not providing his paycheck? BS. The Rockets should play him in every game he's healthy. That's why they pay his salary. Not so he can sit out during the Rockets' season and in the off-season go play for China. F that. If he gets hurt again, then it's time to think about trading him.
It all adds up, so you limit the parts that are not the games....and we are not just talking about practice, but also Yao's workouts with Falsone....stop so much track work and get in a pool. DD
Yeah I say with the shorter faster teams, we rest yao. We can beat pretty much every other shorter faster team without a dominating 7'6 man out there. Let big Deek have a field day.
which hurts more? Yao playing 30 minutes a game for a whole season or Yao play 38 miuntes a game for half a season and out for injuries?
I'd give Yao heavy minutes and trade him after he gets good stats. We need someone's job worth those $15M.
Good point, but if we are winning i dont think it will hurt ticket sales. Fans only show up to games if they are winning regardless.
Another good point is strategy wise, it would be wise to take him our or keep him rested to limit turnovers causing the other team to get back in it thus increasing his minutes anyways. If we are so far ahead i see no reason for him to return. If it's a close game it's probably because he was on the court to long.
I'd be totally willing to limit Yao's minutes, especially against lesser opponents and in blowouts. It's a delicate balance, though. If you limit his practice time too much, his risk of injury goes up as a result of poor conditioning and unfamiliarity with the sets, etc.
Limit his minutes, not games. I don't think a coach can honestly sit out a star player when he is healthy. But playing him fewer minutes should reduce some wear and tear. And get good medical maintenance. Sit him whenever there is sign of injury. I could be wrong, but it seems that his past injuries were mostly diagnosed too late.
Before we can talk about resting yao, we have to make sure the team can win at least above 50%. During TMac/Yao's time, each year Rockets had a bad start, if that happens again, I do not see how we can afford to limit yao's PT < 35 minutes. You have to remember TMac for whatever reasons, always played poorly at the start of the season. (I am talking about the first 30 games, not just the first week)
