Injuries happen, I think Yao contributed to this one, he trains so hard, maybe he should do less work on the track and more work in the pool to help his feet stay strong. DD
I blame RA for playing Yao for extended minutes. It was not uncommon to see Yao play over 40 minutes on the second of B2B game. There was absolutely no need considering Scola/Carl are playing well and under 25 minutes.
you can certainly point fingers at the CNT for Yao not fully recovering in the offseason. they might not have had him playing 40 minutes a game but yao still had to put up with the crap... flying commercial all over china, sleeping in dorms, eating their food, generally not getting rest traveling like that puts a toll on your body, it's definitely not the same thing as sitting on your couch getting to relax and recover like other players get to do now is it CNT's "fault" Yao got injured? no. but whether they play Yao or not, it's like Shylock they want a pound of yao's flesh every summer, to show who's boss. I'm not down with totally absolving CNT because if you say what they did has no effect on Yao, it's absolves them to keep coming back year after year and screwing around with Yao, and thereby screwing with Yao's recovery and development. It's not china's fault. it's not rocket's fault. the determinate factor was sheer bad luck. but in terms of setting up the conditions for injury both contributed. adelman could have played mutombo especially on those back to backs and china could have let yao rest instead of traveling with the team. hell, Yao himself could have been more vocal about his sore feet before microfractures turned into stress fracture
Yep, it is on Yao, he trains so hard and plays so hard, he is trying to be the "da man". 35-40 mins per game is too much for him, he want to play more minutes by himself, actually, he need to let Coach Adelman know he can't. Yao haters will come out and say he is so soft, he get paid 15-million to play for 40 mins, how ridiculous is it! What is the point of playing 40 mins every night, then playing 0 minute right now?
Or 50 minutes. 15 times through 55 games he played 40+ minutes. Last year through 57 games he went over 40 6 times.
I even think that it was on Yao in the last year incident, where he overplayed himself. He was always trying to be the "da man", I meant he need to trust his teammates, basketball is a team sport, it takes 5. He need to relax and play his own game, he overplayed his game, which exceeded his limit.
