Yao and T-mac are both unselfish players, actually, too unselfish. When one is doing great, the other will think:'okay, he's dominating. I'll step back and let him show a perfect game." As T-mac was hot in the past week, Yao may think it's his turn to step back a little.
You know, it's good to express opinions as this is what makes free speech so great, but... Two coaches ( not counting Rudy ) has given T-Mac more confidence than they did with Yao. Two veteran coaches who have forgotten more basketball than everyone on this board combined. And yet some of us are acting like Adelman is an idiot who can't comprehend just throwing the ball to Yao, doesn't make you wonder, hmmm, maybe there is a reason why this isn't happening. Maybe if we all knew and met Yao and T-Mac in person we'd understand better why, for six years, Yao hasn't been trusted to be the man. What this may be, I don't know. Maybe he's passive. Maybe refs don't give him any calls. Maybe T-Mac will throw a fit if Yao takes more shots than he does. I don't know, and neither do you. Again, it's okay to have opinions, but let's not start thinking we've discovered something so obvious Adelman hasn't considered it. If that was the case, you guys should be coaching the Rockets. Just my two cents. Knowing this board, someone's going to disagree and somehow give evidence they'd be the best coach for the Rockets. Such is life on Clutchfans. Go Rockets.
You have a point, but JVG gave Yao the clear #1 scoring role from about March of '06 until the December knee injury. When he came back he lost the role to McGrady. He's supposed to be recovered from the injury now, yet he still can't claim that role back. Personally I completely disagree with Adelman's usage of Yao, and would like to see JVG back. But I never pretend to be more knowledgeable in bball than he.
Where did you get the idea that both coaches gave more confidence in Tmac than in Yao? Can you point us to the article, or discussion, or anything to verify this statement?
Yao got enough touches...but where? lets do a break down. he scored 21 points, 3 come from the FT.2 tip-ins, 2 long range jumper. Thats 11 points he scored outside of low post---he scored 10 points only from his comfort zone. No, he did not get enough touches down low. Im watching the playback now and its on 3rd Qtr 5:46 in. So far there were a total of 7 possessions Yao didnt even get to touch the ball, all he did was ran up and the guards took a jumper. Also there were countless times when Yao stayed in the High Post and no cutters open. Matter of fact, even when Yao was in the high post our guards did a fairly poor job attacking the basket. Yao is a team player. If the coach ask him to do something, the first thing pops up in his mind is how to adapt to the plan other than questioning the plan whether suits his play style or not. That you can tell by watching him went up hard, very hard to challange J.Howard/Terry's open 3 pointers. It is indeed up to Yao to listen to the Coach or not, but if you say Yao has made those passing decisions which cause the guards stopped feeding him the ball down low, you are very wrong.
Yeah, I am so far disappointed with Adelman. He is trying to make Yao a Vlade Divac. He is trying to use his Sacto game on Houston. Different players, different strengths, shouldn't he adjust the systems to leverage the strengths of the new players? Yao is a dominating low post player, taking him out of the paint so much is beyond me. I can understand mixing it up a bit, but it is almost like Adelman wanted Yao to be on the high post all the time. Furthermore, Yao is really an overrated passer. He often doesn't read the defense well to pass well, and his passes often got intercepted. Remember that dunk by Yao? He was taken out right after. And the photo clearly showed Adelman being unhappy. I can imagine what happened. RA gave Yao an earful about playing the high post and Yao never dominated again. What the f**k? If you gonna waste such talent, just freakin trade him, say for Mehmet Okur.
Meant to say Mehmet Okur is a better fit for Adelman than Yao is. Morey, see the light, trade Yao for Mehmet + first round pick.
I'll give Adelman a few more games before I really bash him. But I agree 100% with what you're saying. I think he is wasting Yao's talent to force him to play the high post, a round peg in a square hole (hey isn't this what we accused JVG of all the time?)
r****ds come-out party after one loss. Yeah, we were going to 82-0, and Yao screwed it up. Dallas is actually a contender, right?
Unfortunately Spurs is no Mavs. They have the edge in almost every position. Its not like Yao can own Duncan anytime he wants, in fact, its another way around.
I dont understand why some of you LOVE to complain. 4 games in, you cant bash a coach' stratergy, or decision making. Little kids need not post. Drink your milk, get off Mommy's computer, and go to bed. Read ESPN.COM in the morning. Everything will be OK.
I see no problem with how Yao played today. When he got doubled, he dished out and his teammates couldn't take the advantage of it. (Remember last season?) This could just be a bad shooting night for our shooters but if they made those easy shots, we wouldn't be having these discussions and be happy with out win. The main problem I saw was how when Yao was open, they weren't feeding him the ball. Rafer gets easy assists by just passing to Yao and Yao shooting over his single coverage. Rafer+James+Luther combined for 1 assist tonight. Need I say more? Overall, I thought Yao played a very efficient game and had low turnovers. His teammates need to feed him the ball when opponents are not doubling him and he positions himself in the post. Poor aspects of the game ====> once again, the PG position. We all knew this was our weakness and it clearly showed.
