Sell low, sell high. The point here is that regardless of his value, I could have lay a pretty good bet that Les would not ever entertain the idea of trading Yao.
I agree Yao is simply not dependable. Remember when T-Mac wanted to play with Yao? That was because Yao did not have injury concerns at the time. Now look at the NBA, no superstars want to play in Houston because they are all scared that Yao will get hurt. Either trade Yao now or not re-sign him at the end of the season, unless he takes a paycut, max I'd offer him is like 3 years 30 million. If he wants more or some other team offers more, let him go.
What's the deal? We get good players, trash 'em and kick 'em to the curb? Let's see what he's got left in him before we decide it's over.
so letting him go will attract superstars to houston? if he proves he can stay healthy like big Z did, he will attract other good players. in this case, signing him with max is not debatable. the reason yao can play in nba is due to his size and skills. those things will stay there longer than your athletism can last. it's reason morey and les are willing to gamble on him. the return could be huge if he stays healthy. the worst case is a failure of one year rental.
when you gamble, you compare the return and loss. if you trade him right now, how much we can get back? think about it, other teams will not be stupid to ignore why rox is trading him right now. they won't give you much. maybe, one good role player and some expiring contracts or a few good role players plus one or two 2nd round picks. if you hold him, the worst thing is you don't get those things but still have an expired contract. however, if your gamble is right on the target, the return is rox will have the best center for a few more years. his good health will attract other good players to houston. do you see the difference? getting an all star center plus potential to attract good players vs getting a few role players.
No one is going to believe he will have a good health. Good players actually do not like Houston's idea. Even when healthy, this all star center had nothing on his resume. I think Rockets should go for TE and picks for Yao while taking back a bad contract, the TMAC way.
We couldn't be happy with the signing of Brad, Luis and Kyle, so now we've resorted to r****ded "It's time to trade Yao" threads. It is NOT the time to do anything close to that. It's time to continue building not around Yao, but with him. If he's not dependable for the entire season, you surround him with pieces who are. You don't just trade your franchise player. Who would be of equal value to receive in return? Lemme guess....Chris Paul? No--you can find an all star calibur point guard in the draft, or wait, let's look at our guy named Aaron Brooks. GTFO outta here with this crap.
I don't get you people who want to trade him. Most basketball fans know that the situation you want to avoid is the 8th place scenario, where you're stuck with an average team with 40-ish wins that isn't good enough to win, but isn't bad enough to do a proper rebuild. We were stuck there during the Francis years, and those were not pleasant. At all. This team, without Yao playing at all, is at that average zone. Combined with the signings of Miller and Scola, if we dump Yao, we'll be stuck in that area for probably a few years, and then will slowly regress back into nothing. We're a 42 win team. Our gamble is that Yao comes back and takes us to 50+ wins. But if we just dump Yao, we're back in the 42 win zone, and am stuck doing nothing for at least this year and possibly more. And that's why I think people who advocate trading Yao are frankly being disingenuous. When you cry out to dump Yao for crap, what you're really crying out for is that this team needs to start over completely and suck for a few years. But they don't say that, and so just ignore what our long term strategy when they rant and ignore a Chinese culture that does not pride itself on being boastful and pretentious. (I'm pretty sure Yao's humble statements are a catalyst for the recent influx of this idea.)
If Yao goes down again with a serious injury he would be more likely to retire rather than be traded to another team .
This team won 42 games DESPITE numerous injuries to key personnel and a major trade that took some time for the team to get acclimated with. Even without Yao but with the addition of Miller, the Rockets now have the depth to get to 50 wins, which is probably what they would have accomplished without their midseason turmoil last year. Is a 50 win season in the tough west an AVERAGE team? I beg to differ from you. Surely we need Yao to become contenders. I believe if he is ready this year, we will be contenders despite the majority of the folks here clamoring for that ever elusive "another superstar".
dear rox fan, you've already said that NO ONE is going to believe he will have a good health. so, what do you expect the return for trading yao? a bag of potatoes? if i were one of your NO ONE, i would give you nothing. either i misunderstood what you try to say or you've never watched rox games or maybe you've never watched nba games.
Who keeps thinking we are dumping Yao? This isnt a dump morons. This is a superstar for superstar trade. You trade to get someone else to carry you besides Yao and build around that guy. If you cant get that back in the trade of course you dont dump him for nothing.
This sounds eerily like how people felt about Hakeem right before he left the Rox and signed with Toronto. I don't like how this thread is going. We need to quit acting like he's "done, put a fork in him". Call me an optimist but I want to believe Yao will still be able to produce and get us over the 50 win mark. But I'm also a realist and believe he should not be exploited and should have his minutes kept to a reasonable 20-25 per game. Plus, keep him out of some games like the 2nd of B2Bs. It worked for the Celtics when Pierce was benched towards the end of the season. Sure Yao provides Houston with a good market, but the guy is on the court, we stand a better chance of winning games. I believe he's going to have a good year even if his minutes are limited.
Sounds nothing like Hakeem. Hakeem wasnt injury prone. He had MVPs, Championships, NBA records, playoff success after the Championships, scoring in the tops of the league every year, and was not suspect as Yao is.
I've been saying this for quite sometime. He's a great guy...great player...but you can't pay someone the max, have him breakdown every year, and try to be a championship contender. He eats up too much cap space for what he gives (or doesn't give) us. If he could stay healthy...which would be about 70+ games a year including ALL of the playoffs at 20+ppg, 9 rpg, 55% FG I say keep him. But as of now I don't see him pulling that off. He's TOO DAMN BIG...and the Rockets D-bag trainers keep trying to make him too heavy for his size. He needs to lose as much weight as possible...period. But apparently that's too much to rationalize for the great minds that Les is spending so much money on. Bah, it's frustrating...
