Last year, I really wondered if Rudy was the right coach for this team. He has never proved he can win with a guard oriented team. In my opinion, the ISO playbook was complete crap. But then we draft Yao Ming, and I think to myself, if this guy can develope a post up game, then we are right back in business. Well obviously he can. He has moves in his arsenal that remind me a lot like Dream's. Turnarounds, fadeaways, spin moves, even an occasional hook shot. In the process he as even created his own, the no look "bowling" pass. So I ask Rudy and co. why not use the system that has proven to win you games and championships over the years. Where in the hell is your old playbook and why in the hell are you not using it? It makes absolutely no sense to me. Rudy knows how to use a big man more than anyone in this league. Therefore, why is he not using him? If its because he is a rookie, thats crap. Ming has proved he can play and should be given the chance. Rookie or not. And another thing, when we were losing to Seattle every year, we complained that we didn't have a quality point guard to counter attack Gary Payton. Now we have one. This is what we need to do. Start this lineup: Francis Mobley Rice/Nachbar Thomas Ming Bring back the old school plays drawn up for Dream. Every play down the court consists of first running a post up play for Ming. At that point he either has the chance to score with single coverage or pass out (which he does well) to an open shooter when they double team him. Kenny's job is to box out, rebound, and occasionaly get the easy basket (ala Otis Thorpe). Rice/Nachbar need to park their ass on the three point line (ala Bob Horry) and stop posting up. Mobley needs to play like Vernon Maxwell. First learn to play defense, then play off what happens after Yao touches the ball. And Francis, well I don't know what to say for him for we never had such a great pg on those championship teams, but I think he needs to make sure that Ming gets the ball, then create opportunities for all the other players (including himself) when the play breaks down. We also use Francis as our major weapon when we play a team that matches up with Ming well. Kind of have an alternative playbook for teams who match well against the Ming oriented one (ala Seattle back in the day). In the mean time, I think each Rocket needs to be assigned homework of watching every game played from 92-94. Learn what they did to win and try to pattern their game to closely resemble a proven winner. I don't know about yall, but during those years, there was never a time in which I didn't think we could win every single team we played against. Ever. Even when we were down by 15 going into the fourth, I still believed we had a chance. I can't say the same for this team right now. Sorry for such long post, but I really had to get this off my chest.
The problem is we don't have an unselfish power forward. And Thomas is the closest to a true power forward that we have on this team.
