I tried to stay with from such threads, but couldn't help feeling sad that, after one loss, where we got bunch of new players, Yao was just recovered from toe injury, and TMac came back from a back injury, it's already turned into "my daddy can beat your daddy" kindergarten. Maybe the title is kind of misleading. I don't think TMac should take a backseat and becomes 2nd fiddle per sae, but he definitely needs to be more careful with his shot selections. His 9 assists and 5 rebounds are exactly the reason that he needs to be more selective with those contested jumpers. He's so multi-talented and he can direct a game outcome by doing so many different things. Unlike Novak, with that sweet shoot stroke, nobody will select him, TMac shouldn't be a valumne shooter to get those 20 some points. With the new ways refs are officiating, all players are learning and adjusting. Dirk was in foul trouble as well in the game against Spurs. Honestly, the first game, I would be worried too much about Yao's TOs, he's getting familiar with his teammates as well. Bringing the ball down is one of his bad habit, but really, Duncan got striped away couple of times last night even he kept the ball up. Even if you count those 4 TOs as missed shots, Yao would still come to 50%. Being close to the basket, the shooting percentage naturally gets higher. Nobody says it's going to be easier to pass the ball to the paint than pulling up a jumper by a guard, but that's exactly why they should make a deliberately effort to do that. Look around the league, guys like Kaman gets paid for nearly 10 million, why? Big guys close to the baskets are efficient. Yao was never a great rebounder, he probably will never be one. But his sheer size and presence will guarantee 9-10 boards every night. The rebounding effort from the whole team was simply not there in the Jazz game. Basketball is a team game, therefore efficiency is the most important thing in the game. Looking at Steve Nash, you will automatically notice that he never forces anything, take the shots when they came to him. His bad shooting night will be low shots night as well. Looking at Spurs and Mavs game last night, I have to say the same thing, none of the Spurs guys scored more than 20 points, but they ended up close to 100. I hate to admit, despite the hype in offseason on the board, we are far far away from top teams, at current form. I don't know what's wrong with Rockets, they are always out-hustled by opponents or surprised by others' readiness out of the door. You don't need super talent to put energy in, and it's not like Rockets team is abundant in talents. I always always support JVG, but I have to wonder whether he's a good motivator, maybe too much critiques?
I wonder if Shaq...was given the same calls as Yao now gets if he would have been as good as he was in those early years... Yao's FIRST year I would have said give Steve Francais the ball Yao's SECOND year I would have said give TMAC the ball Yao's THIRD year I would have said give TMAC the ball Yao's FOURTH year I would have said give the ball to who evers hot Yao's FIFTH year I say GIVE THE BALL TO YAO Yao needs to dominate every game he plays... he needs to play aggressive to the point if he fouls out in the first half then so be it... the Rocket players need to feed the ball to Yao and make him dominate...like a seeing eye dog leading a blind person... if not... Tmac can score his 25 + points a game... Yao can go back to his under 20 points a game but have a great FG % and FT% and I can wait yet another year...since 1978!!!!!!!!!!! for another one of my teams to win a NBA championship...
I have to agree on a few points only. T-Mac needs to go to the basket more. He might be worried about his injuries in the past but if he is going to be just a jump shooter it will not be good for the Rockets. He can score at will when he attacks the basket.
Short and too the point!! Thats exactly what i'm saying without going into too much detail. I'm sick of TMAC taking off balance shots for 16-18 ft with a guy in his face. This is Yao's team now and TMAC needs to keep getting him the ball. He needs to let everyone else kknow too. If TMAC is hot, fine..go for it. However, I still do not want him settling for those outside shots. It seems like when he takes that first step towards that basket, he has most defenders beat and thn he uses his athlesticism to finish the play. It almost seems too easy. i can understand where sometimes he can't, because he has a lock down defender on him but it seems this is all TMAC does, is shoot outside shots. Is he scared of hurting his back. JVG needs to let his star player that this is total BS and he needs to change his game to better fit this team. i have been saying this since early last season and i'm glad everyone is noticing too. Now if only the Rockets can do something about it!!!
u must be kidding me.. are talking about Hakeem OLAJUWAN ?? I mean, it makes a lot of sense if u are talking about, lets say, Hakeem Warrick.. because anybody who says something like that never watched Hakeem play!! Hakeem was constantly KILLED by the refs.. they called fouls on the guy if he came closer than 2 inches to the offensive player.. in the beginning of his career, Hakeem used to foul out almost every other game (and for the Smart guys who try to take everything literally, I dont mean every alternating game, I mean FREQUENTLY.. while Hakeem had to take all that $h!^, Ewing and others were not called for anything.. they used to elbow him, kick him, push him, and nobody would say anything.. now please, dont even come close to Hakeem when u are arguing with me.. Leave Hakeem alone because mentioning him actually hurt ur argument..
did u watch last year's playoffs.. did u watch any game for the Miami Heat??.. please try to do that and then tell me about the kind of calls Shaq gets..
again.. I advise u to do what I told Astockmarketgod to do.. please watch last years playoffs and watch the fouls that Shaq gets called for.. now I dont quite get why we are discussing Shaq right now.. all I did is point out Yao's hook .. and I wasn't intending to say "oh, Yao sucks, he commits offensive fouls".. I only did that because I Love his game and I always want him to improve and reach his potential.. now if u are a "blind Fan" who doesn't care about the rockets and only cares about Yao and who gets mad when anybody criticize him.. I dont know what to say to you.. please now.. first of all, dont say "your boy T-Mac" .. because I am a rockets fan (and by saying a "rockets fan", I mean that I love the whole team and organization, not only ONE player.. like u and several other members are.. so if I were u, I wouldn't use that as a supportive aspect to your argument because it only serves my purposes of proving that y'all only care about one player.. which is a very selfish thing.. and I would really appreciate u keeping it clean and not using "magic words" because I am trying to maintain a very classy and productive discussion.. now that doesn't mean I dont use these words, I actually do use them a lot when another guy starts the trash talk.. so please, lets keep it clean.. one more thing, I did NOT say that Yao is responsible for the loss.. I dont quite get how u reasonably inferred that !! actually, if u read my remarks in the other thread, I said that poor team shooting and preperation resulted in the unexpected loss. .. Yao didn't do anything wrong .. Yao played great basketball shooting a high percentage and being effective in his first regular season game after surgery.. I think that's quite an accomplishment for him..
hold now I think u are a little bit off here. .. I think u should go back, read my post slowly, spend some time trying to process it until u get the right idea.. now I really hate to quote my self, but it's necessary in this case.. I came back and said "almost everytime" instead of "always".. and again, I am only addressing his specific spin move towards the base lane..
well, it doesn't quite go like that.. try to read it as it is and try not using your reasoning skills to figure out any "hidden" messages in the post.. I mean, dont read between the lines..
What about Shaq's patented "drop step" which invariably involves him elbowing/shoulder bumping his defender out of the way and then throwing it down for a monster dunk? By the rules this is an offensive foul too. Does it get called? Very seldom. While we're on the subject of moves that are technically fouls, what about Lebron/Wade/Kobe/whoever's 3 step traveling drive to the basket? I've seen your boy T-Mac break that out on occasion too. Does it get called? No. Yao's "hook", if you can even call it a hook, is less blatant than the aforementioned examples. So your point is way off base. RocketsMac, you're lying through your teeth. For the loss you blame Yao, who deserves the LEAST blame. Oh, but your boy T-Mac can do no wrong. He put up 24 shots and shot 33%, but oh they were all good shots, they just weren't going in. If you want to be a Rockets fan, then assign the blame where it belongs. Sure Yao hurt the team by being in foul trouble in the first half, there's no denying that. But your boy T-Mac hurt the team worse in the fourth quarter by jacking up horrible bricks that were glancing straight off the front of the rim. And now you're coming up with this garbage about how Yao commits offensive fouls regularly and needs the refs' help to stay in the game, trying to deflect the blame from your boy's poor shot selection/shooting.
The league calls some things consistently. The hook on the baseline is almost always called when it's as blatant as what Yao did. Dipping elbow/shoulder into the defender when spinning into the lane rarely called. Yao does this a lot for his turnaround, in fact. He has to know what he can get away with, and what he can't get away with. To his credit, he rarely hooks on the baseline, but that time he did.
In my opinion, officials gave Shaq more leway in the past, but starting with the Detroit finals serious it became very apparant that they've gone the other way with him. I really think Shaq gets screwed nowadays by officiating...not as much as Yao (well, their were much better with Yao last year), but still screwed. As for the hooking. I believe it's a gradiated scale. Yao usually hooks on his spin pretty the way Charles Barkley did. Yao bends his elbow a little more, while Barkley left his arm totally extended. It does give an advantage, and that's why it's sometimes called a foul. Hakeem was so quick that he didn't need to hook much in his prime. He usually kept his off arm low and the point of his elbow sometimes made contact with the defender for slight leverage. Avid Rockets fans know what I'm writing about. Basically, the spin move is the same with variations...and Dream hooked way less than most players because of his quickness and so he rarely got called for an offensive foul...it's all a judgement by the refs anyways. this isn't the move i looked for, but i still love the picture: But back to my thread, since it's been hijacked: The Blue is Deep Paint, Yellow is Inside Shooting, Red is Midrange, and Wood is 3pt shooting. I love T-Mac. He is great and he helps the team. I just believe his midrange game is inefficient compared to Yao's inside game. 2 Years ago, when T-Mac was great, he was a 44.1% shooter from Midrange (red). That year, Yao was a 63.3% shooter from the deep paint (blue) and 44.4% shooter from Inside (yellow). Last year T-Mac shot 41.2% from Midrange while Yao shot 59.4% from the Deep Paint and 41.9% from the Inside. To me this means that if you give the ball to Yao inside, you will have a better chance of scoring (with his turnarounds, hooks, and power moves) than if you run that damn stupid play for T-Mac where he gets the ball Reggie Miller style coming off of an elbow screen for a midrange jumper. I've already stated I hate that play, especially because there are no offensive rebounders when that play is run. I like T-Mac on Pick N Rolls, because he can read the defense and make decisions. T-Mac is a great decision maker. Off the Pick N Roll, T-Mac can continue to drive, pass to the roller, or pass it around to the open perimeter 3pt shooter. This is where he gets most of his dimes. Anyhow, that's just my beef. The Rockets said they were going to an offense that promotes Deep Paint shots and 3pt shots, and during the last game percentage wise, they took fewer deep paint shots than last year, fewer inside shots than last year, and more midrange shots than last year. Of course I was dissapointed with the loss, but it was the offensive philosophy that irrated me the most. I just want them to stick to the gameplan that They Said They Would Do.
I think I am done with arguing.. I got my point across apparently to everybody except for u.. I dont know why it's going like that.. .. but I am really glad that everybody else understands me and agrees with me .. ClutchCityReturns, Nahmorlah, durvasa, and all the great guys, thanks for ur productive contributions..
Have some faith, just cause he had a bad game does not mean it will continue through out the season. He actually seemed more agressive then last season so thats one good thing. He went to the free throw line a good amount of times, now he just needs to knock down the free throws.
Gee Tmac didnt hit all this shots today, im very dissappointed, i know what, lets see who we can trade him for! Player Pos Min FG-A FT-A 3P-A Tracy McGrady F 42 8-24 8-13 1-4 vs C.J. Miles G 23 4-5 2-2 2-3 WOW his much more efficient then tracy! and in less time too! i reckon we should trade for him!!! what u guys reckon! After all, after 1 game the results are definitive for the rest of the season as everyone knows! then maybe we can somehow get Rudy Gay back too, we can package Yao with him because his too injury prone with his bad foot and all, plus rudy gays potential will end up being greater then yao anyway!
you think VC will defer Yao better than TMac? TMac is probably the most unselfish superstar in the league. you put Kobe, AI or Melon in that situation, do you think they would've stopped shooting and passed the rock to Yao?? Yao just doesn't get as much respect in the league as you think he should.
