Believe me, I understand all the concern and hand-wringing here guys. At the same time though, we won 42 games last year and are adding the following to our team this year: 1) An aclimated Kevin Martin 2) A real backup 2 that can play defense (Lee) 3) Brad Miller (legitimately serviceable center and 7 footer) 4) More confidence and aclimation to Budinger and Hill's game 5) A leader/alpha dog mentality to Aaron Brooks' game 6) Pat Patterson (I think he's got a chance to be pretty special eventually) 7) 24 minutes of Yao Ming for 77% of our games 8) As-yet unsigned 3rd big man X 9) Extra draft picks, a trade exception, expiring contracts (Jeffries, Battier) and young talent deep on our depth chart (Hill & Patterson) that make us an extremely attractive trade partner. We still have the best backup point in the game. We still have 4 players that shoot 80% or better from the free throw line. We still have the master of the trade deadline running the front office. We still have an 800 win coach. There's a lot to like there... and I still haven't mentioned Luis Scola.
Wow post of the off season right here...please keeping speaking the truth. I am beyond excited for this season
Makes no sense...they're selling season tickets NOW. Turns out the really oft-injured tall guy with pins in his foot who we thought would have really limited minutes...will have really limited minutes.
Originally Posted by apollo33 sigh...so next next season we are going to contend... WHAT?????????? you have been telling me over and over again that you believe this is a championship contender THIS YEAR!!! you told me i was being pessimistic...that this is a legit championship contending squad THIS SEASON. you've been singing this song for months, DaDa..... now you're saying that you've only been saying that we won't contend until 2011/2012? I'm sorry, but I know better.
i dont see how any Carmelo talk or any other big trade is in the works now if they continue to clearly say that Yao will miss so much time this season
The way I see it....if we had Yao for 40 games last year, we would have made the playoffs (where there are no back to back i dont believe)....ill take it....and this is probably a precaution so that next season he can play back to backs. All that said, Im sure no one is more disappointed than Yao and his agent bc this is not what he wanted to have as leverage against him in contract negotiations
this is going to be tough on all the players. yao isn't some guy you plug into the game after the half. he changes the team's offense and defensive mindset drastically. i predict there'll be a lot of adjustments this season.
I actually have no problems with being cautious during the regular season. However, the question remains, if the best case scenario plays out and we're in the playoffs and Yao's prognosis seems to be postive are we going to let him loose at that point?
This really shouldn't come as a surprise. I called this over a year ago. No back to backs and limited minutes for the regular season. Back to backs are really tough on your body, and as fragil as Yao is, we should all be thankful they're doing this. When it comes down to it, we have a good enough team to make it to the playoffs with Yao only playing 60-something games and 24 minutes. We need Yao for the playoffs. I'd rather be seated 8th and have Yao up to strength for the playoffs than be seated number 3 and Yao breakdown in the playoffs again. Don't compare him to Tracy. Yao wants to play, wants to work hard. Tracy wanted attention.
Its probably not a good idea to drastically increase his minutes in the playoffs if he's not used to it. If he's playing while tired, that will only increase his chance of injury. There probably won't be a hard cap, but don't expect him to be playing 30+ minutes a game.
he's our best player...the supposed focal point of the team. how you manage that with this kind of schedule is going to be interesting.
I'm fine with it. They'll be running tons of tests to see how the foot is holding up this year. I hope they're smart about which game to play Yao. Sit him against the scrub team and bring him for the important head-to-head showdowns. Maybe let him rest against teams with physical centers. There are no back-to-backs in the playoffs and there's more downtime in general. I could see them upping his limit to 30-35 minutes (probably the lower number) once the Playoffs begin if all the tests are showing no damage in the foot.
then why would they keep saying it??? seriously, Morey literally used the words, "hard cap" on the radio this morning and equated it to a pitch count. he was given a hypothetical situation of: "what if it's a big game...and you're going into overtime...can he go 28 or 30 minutes?" he said, "no..this is a hard cap on minutes." So unless you buy the whole "contract negotiation scheme" which I don't...you have a franchise trying to sell season tickets now and releasing this information at the same time. It's nonsensical. They're just gearing up marketing campaign stuff now with the RR stuff. And in the midst of this...we get this announcement. The simplest explanation: the doctors are really telling that they need to limit his minutes to well below what he was playing otherwise. Bottom line is this really big dude has a bunch of pins holding his foot together. We knew there would be limited minutes....many of you here glossed over that over and over again when talking about his comeback this season. And even in the face of this information today, that's happening.
