Clyde, when talking about Mo Williams: "He can shoot the lights out of the basketball." Basketballs have lights? Oh yeah, shoot the lights out of the building. Right.
No I'm not. I'm *gasp* a grizzlies fan. Like MemphisX. If you ever go to the grizzlies fan board, you know me for sure.
http://www.nba.com/rockets/video/2009/12/10/YaoandZ512Kmov-1150054/index.html Yao talked to Big Z the other night about the surgery and what not, im sure most of yall heard about it. Anyways, in the video, they interview Big Z, and he talks about how after the surgery, he was on a 2 year plan. He couldnt play back to backs, he couldnt really practice, he took all of his summers off, and they limited him to under 40 minutes per game for 2 years. Is this what Yao is going to have to do? I imagined his minutes would be limited but I didnt really think about whether he could play the 2nd night of back to backs. Plus would China be willing to let Yao sit in the summer?
Well, Z's surgery was 10 years ago, and at the time, it was pretty experimental. I'm sure they were extremely careful and monitored everything very closely. No doubt a lot was learned from how his surgery/rehab turned out, and that knowledge has been put to use on other players since and now Yao. I think the plan with Yao has always been 1 year. Will they limit his minutes? Possibly, but Yao was never a 40+ min. per game player. Will they keep him out of practice? That's tough to say. I imagine that they may limit him somewhat but not keep him out entirely. We can only speculate. Will he take his summers off? I think that's a definitive yes. I believe Yao has effectively retired from international competition. No doubt he will still travel to China during the summers; it's his home and he has many business interests there. But I'm guessing his play during the summers will henceforth be limited to charity games like the one he co-hosted with Nash a couple of years ago. Or maybe something totally different will happen.
