Let Nash or Dirk win the MVP. Phoenix and Dallas will remain title-less and we will have 3 NBA championships.
Do you really believe that Yao Ming...post knee injury...will revert to 2005 form....18 and 9..... 26 and 10...plus his ft shooting has improved and he has gotten more...make no mistake...Yao's biggest improvement was attitude...that has not gone away...Barry Wesley and James could not defend a perimeter player like Battier can... we are a better rebounding team... and at no point did Deke ever have multiple double doubles.... Deke this year is reborn... Yao is better... we are a better team now. When we play against the Spurs you will appreciate Bonzi over Wesley. -V
The poster I was responding to was implying that such a solution (i.e. making Yao the secondary option) was optimal for the Rockets. I 100% agree with your statement that attitude was his biggest change. Now why would we want to change that attitude back to one of passivity and deferring, the one that got Yao the label as the "big slow underachieving Chinese stiff"? Some people here want this, that's what I'm responding to. In retrospect we should have seen that this was the case, because early in his career Yao plays entirely differently for the CNT than he did for the Rockets, and he played a lot better for the CNT because he was the man and he knew it. In my analysis of supporting cast I left out T-Mac and Yao on purpose. I agree that Battier is better than Barry/James/Wesley, but overall I think that position's quality is comparable, based on how those guys played that year. If Deke were given a chance to start games in 2004-2005, he would have played very well. I remember clearly many games where JVG would stay with Deke for long stretches, I'm thinking, "why not put Yao back in," and then realizing that in fact Deke was more effective than Yao.
t-mac is better now man how can you compare a young t-mac and this t-mac?jordan wasn't better at24 25 than when he was 29.he was in his prime at 29 30 31 32.don't you know that ?don't you know that with age comes experience.he is now more mature he sees the court better than ever man .but hey man time will tell.i hope that t-mac prove you wrong so that you can shut your mouth and don't even dare celebrate when this year the rockets win a championship.and yes t-mac is the most important player on the rockets team get over it.Yao is te second most important piece but number 1 is tracy mcgrady.and yes t-mac need yao to win that championship and without yao t-mac will not win a championship but don't dish him when he has been carrying the rockets this year when your boy yao ming went down.and for making a mistake to make yao become the secondary option may be the right one.but it will depend on teams that we are playing.the ball should go to t-mac first then he will decide what to do with it.and a lot of times they will give the ball to yao in the post.but anyway why do you want to make one of them the first or second opion .let them go with the flow.but at the end of the 4th quarter and losing by one who would you like to get the ball to?i know that i would put the ball in t-mac's hand and i'm confident that he will make the right decision and bring us the w.and one more thing chill nobody is dishing yao .
Wow, that was hard to read. Try to capitalize the first word of every sentence and not starting them all with "and." McGrady is not better now than he was in his Orlando days. In those days he was better than Kobe. Look at the numbers, all of them were better in Orlando. Maybe he's playing better than he did in 2004-2005, the numbers are comparable, but his playoff performance that year was amazing. What if Yao averages 40 PPG in the Finals and wins Finals MVP, huh? What are you going to do then? Bemoan the fact that your boy McGrady didn't get his props? To make Yao the secondary option is NOT the right one, EVER. If Yao is asked to defer, he will defer, and he'll play passively, and he'll look like a stiff. This is what happened in 2004-2005. The Rockets LOST IN THE FIRST ROUND. Notice I didn't say make McGrady the secondary option, either. Kobe and Shaq put up with each other as co-primary options to win 3 championships. There is no reason Yao and McGrady cannot do the same. Nobody is hating on Yao.... well what the hell are you doing?
you're right, tmac was playing fabolous during that mavs series. but he wasn't great in 2 games. he was good. again, tmac has lost b/c he never had a 2nd consistent player in every game. yao was only great in 3 games. that's not consistent. some nights mike james was better but we needed yao in that dallas series. in orlando, there was no 2nd player. so if tmac plays like he did in dallas or even a lil worse than that, we'll advance past the first round b/c of yao. we need yao to do his part. he didn't do that in the playoffs 2 yrs ago.
The difference between 2 years ago and now is that we know have players that can perform in the playoffs, Luther Head, Bonzi Wells, Juwan will play this time, remember he was injured, Chuck Hayes, Shane Battier, Mutombo. There is no way we will lose in 1st round.
well i was just responding to your comments so if you know how to read ,you will see that i am not hating on yao.you could maybe even see that i wrote that t-mac will never win a championship without yao.stop acting as if isaid yao could not play ball,i simply stated that t-mac is the most valuable player for the rockets and yao is the second.putting yao as the most important piece of the rockets is not hating.again making yao the second option on some nights depending on match up is ALWAYS the best option and who say that if yao is the second option that he'll play like a stiff?you are the one saying that not me not anyone here.i think that yao is a great player no matter if on some nights he is the number one option or not .and if you can't see that on some nights maybe yao has to be the second option then you are blind ,stupid or know nothing about basketball. you can go to hell with your hating on yao thing .i love yao's game ,he is the best center in the game today but are you trying to say that yao is a better decision maker than t-mac?
one more thing,if ever the rockets win the championship and yao average 40 points and win mvp .i will not bemoan ,why would i ?yao can get 3,4 or 5 mvp's that would be fine with me as long as we win the championships.unlike you so stop talking s..t
Let me clear somethings up to everyone... first, T-mac is my boy, but so is Yao Ming. I don't prefer one over the other and we are lucky to have two superstars on one team. You guys who are suggesting that we'd be upset if Yao outshines Tracy, or if Yao wins MVP titles, etc, etc, are way out of line. Way, way, waaaay out of line. I don't care who shines brighter as long as we're winning, and the fact is that Yao is the future of this team for the next 7-10 years and if Tracy sticks around 3+ years he is eventually gonna have to take a backseat to Yao Ming. Now, when I said T-Mac should remain the "number one" option I meant it in... a way. Now I'm not saying we make Yao the "number two" option exactly, Yao has proven he can score and lead a team, but Tracy cannot be the player we need him to be as the number 2 option. Not while T-Mac is in his prime and Yao isn't quite in his yet. Tracy needs the pressure of being the go to guy, the guy expected to hit the big shot or take the team on his back; that is where Tracy McGrady excells. Early in the season you had Mac resigning himself to the number 2 spot, playing well but not looking like T-Mac. And we mostly figured at the time, yeah, maybe T-Mac's role on this team will be to score 20ppg with 7-8apg and that sort of thing from now on and be the complimentary player to Yao. We know better than that now. Tracy is JUST as good as he was in 2005 or with the Magic. Why do you think he is seriously being considered as a MVP contender? Sure, he's not as explosive, doesn't take it in for monster dunks, and all that Orlando T-Mac stuff... but like someone else said, his basketball IQ is higher, he's fine tuned his intangibles and defense, is a better passer (and more willing to pass), and has developed a WICKED long range jumper to make up for whatever he lost from his inside game. But back to Yao as the "2nd" option. That doesn't mean we restrict Yao from being Yao and make him look for Tracy first, or force Yao into some kind of awkward role where he can't achieve. Yao is now capable of being number 1 too, and on some nights he will have to be if T-Mac is getting trippled or just having a bad night. Don't see it as a "first" and "second" option, see it as a one/two punch guys. They will pretty much be co-equal options but even in calling them "co-equal options" you have to realize T-Mac would be the real number 1 option. That doesn't mean Yao is being asked to defer to Tracy, except perhaps in a rare occasion, what it does mean is a lot of points/rebounds/assists for our stars and it also means our team as a whole benefits. If they cover T-Mac like the number one option it goes inside to Yao and he racks it up and vice versa. No one seriously thinks we should resign Yao to that dreaded "2nd option" (whatever yall think that is) because Yao is better than that. My point is, and this is what our team should do and likely will do, we need Tracy as our team leader, the understood number one scoring option when it comes down to it, and the main guy this team depends on to get it done... whether that means taking that buzzer beater shot himself or feeding it to Yao inside for the win. We want the ball in Tracy's hands though in the last few minutes, whether he defers to Yao or not (he'd do what's best). Like we've said they would be equals more or less, serving as the main scorer depending on the situation. But the swingman who is a noted clutch player, a proven leader, and as capable a scorer as Lebron, D-Wade, or Kobe needs to be the "first option" and the guy who we go to first and foremost in close games or in the clutch, even if Yao Ming is anchoring the center. Yao is better served, for the time being, as a compliment of sorts to T-mac, rather than T-mac being a compliment to Yao. I agree 100% that without Yao we likely couldnt make it past the first round, Yao is necessary to our success and even as the "second option" he will regularly drop 25/10/3 blocks, but right now without T-Mac (yao or not) I don't know that we even get to the playoffs. Tracy isn't "my" guy, and Yao isn't "your" guy, T-Mac and Yao are our guys, and in that same vain they are going to be a pretty equal 1/2 punch who, together, will give us a legitimate shot at a title over the next several years. So cool it with all this fighting about whose better etc. I think we all know deep down that while Yao and Mac would serve as equal options, the ball needs to be in T-Mac's hands in the clutch. Oh also, I know this is a hell of a lengthy reply (but some things needed to be said) but how can you diss t-mac cause he never got past the first round in Orlando. Those Orlando teams Tracy played on were mediocre at best and well below average for a playoff team at worst, it's a testament to how great T-Mac is that he kept them somewhat competitive. People, myself included, note how average Lebron's Cavs are... well they are quite a bit more talented than those Magic teams I guarantee you. Tracy is a bit of a different player these days but still as good as he was back then, and no, the 04-05 Rockets team was NOT as good as this one. You can do all the greater than, less than, equal to charts you want... this rockets team is much better, and not just because of the players we've picked up since. Seriously though, how can you SERIOUSLY say Barry, Wesley, and James were SERIOUSLY better than Head, Battier, Bonzi, and Snyder? Seriously, my man... jesus christ. The nay saying, knee-jerking, and overreacting around here (and in fighting) really bugs me... so the result is a loooong post trying to clear up everything behind the reason this went from a celebration of T-Macs MVP caliber season thus far, to two sides being split over who is better. Hopefully it'll clear things up for the 2-3 people who read it!
blakeb, that was a very long read. i agree on one thing though, and it's that tmac should make all the necessary decisions with the ball. not yao. not for this season, at least. yao is great and all, but he is NOT the decision maker of the team. superyanthrax, why exactly would it be a huge mistake for tmac to be the one controlling the ball and deciding what happens with it, instead of yao? is it because yao's a better passer? no. is it because yao makes better decisions? no. is it because yao turns the ball over less? no. the guy is still going to score nearly as much as or maybe even more than mac. he just won't be the guy creating all the time. i dont see why its such a stretch to have tmac the dominate the ball on offense, what with all the success that strategy has had. with the addition of yao, the team is only going to get better. as for the playoffs, the reason we even had a 2-0 lead on the mavs (clearly a better team, even then) was because of mcgrady. yao was terrible is some of the games, and it wasn't because he was in a 'deferring' role. he was just not ready for those kind of games. hopefully, with the world championship experience under his belt, he'll rise to the occasion in all the games, not just two or three. don't worry about tmac stealing yao's thunder, man, he wont. everybody will know not to mess with the houston's two headed monster.
Thank you, Rumcoke, that's exactly what I'm getting at. Yao, whether you guys wanna admit it or not, is a bit of a turnover machine. It's to be expected for someone his size and for someone who handles the ball so much, and it'll likely improve as he becomes wiser, but I don't want the ball in Yao's hand in the clutch unless Tracy gives it to him. Tracy knows what to do with the rock and because he's so good at what he does he's earned the honor of being the "number 1" option. How are you gonna justify changing a successful formula of depending on Tracy to be the vessle which our offense travels through just cause Yao is back? Yao won't be taking a backseat to Tracy, you'll have T-Mac creating most of the time to open up the shot inside to Yao, Yao will just be filling his logical role as the talented big man. And when our team is in a shoot out and we got one shot to either stop an opponent surge or hit our shot for the win or OT... I don't care how great Yao is, I wan't Tracy to have first priority over that ball. I honestly don't know if I'd want ANYONE else in the NBA in that situation over T-Mac.
BlakeB, with your post I find that we actually mostly agree. I agree that Yao and McGrady must dominate to win in the playoffs, and that McGrady's decision making is now superb and he can be trusted to make the right decision. My intent of bringing up T-Mac's playoff failures is to use previous history to justify my point, not to bash T-Mac or say he sucks. Sure, there are extenuating circumstances, but the fact remains that McGrady has not won a playoff series. I didn't say that McGrady should have the ball taken away from him. There are posters here who said recently that they would prefer Yao to play like a glorified Mutombo, or that he should defer to McGrady and settle for ~20 points and 10 boards. This is what I am countering. That was the situation in 2004-2005, and it didn't work out well. Yao is very willing to defer, but if he is in that mindset he plays passively and poorly. About the supporting casts... IIRC everybody was a fan of Wesley/Barry/James back then (How many people wanted Mike James back this time around?) At the time, those guys were playing extremely well. Of course, Wesley/Barry sucked the next season, but that's not exactly relevant. At the time of the playoffs, those guys were playing comparable level ball to what the SG/SF cast is doing now.
Super, I really appreciate the articulate, well thought out reply. While I disagree with you to some degree (particularly about Tracy's capability in the playoffs, the SG/SF compariso) I know we both agree that we want what's best for our team. You bring up some good points and I do appreciate you clarifying your stance on everything and doing so in a polite manner. Anyhow, I agree 100% Yao's role isn't to be a glorified Deke. Yao is an offensive weapon, and I feel like the offense flowing more through T-mac would probably ultimately lead to Yao scoring even MORE points. I stick by making Yao/Mac equals but really having T-Mac as the number one when it comes to things like the clutch, but it has to be clear to yao his job is to still be the go to guy in a lot of his own respects. Both guys need to learn their real role this year before the playoffs. No T-mac trying to do it all, no Yao carrying too heavy a load with T-Mac thinking he's second banana... you know what I mean. Finally, yeah I remember how well barry, james, and wesley were playing back around then. Good and everything but that Rockets team only really made a great run towards the playoffs after the all-star break. Our current team has looked solid all year, through injuries and a lot of uncertainty and way more than that 04-05 team had to deal with. I really even kind of feel like Barry, James, Wesley are still less than maybe just Battier. Battier has brought so much to this team its really amazing. Then you add on a guy like Bonzi Wells who you just know is gonna turn it up, if not before the playoffs, then in the playoffs. Kirk Snyder who is a more than capable backup and Head who is great for what he is; a 15-20 min a night guy who can hit 3s with some of the best of them. Add all that together and even considering Bonzi's underwhelming play and health so far, and Snyder being buried cause of rotation... I really gotta go with our current group hands down. But that's me. *shrug* Anyhow, thanks for the nice response and take care, Super
