yes i saw those, but far and few in between. and yes, yao's double teams do generate open 3s. but so does tmac's. we can get open 3s EVERY TIME DOWN IF WE WANTED TO. that's not a problem. but we don't want to be reliant on 3s. what we want is penetration and oepn shots FROM THE INSIDE or close the basket. yao's double teams rarely generate open shots around the basket. the reason??? yao did also average 3.33 turnovers/game last yr, 2nd highest of his career after averaging 3.5 -> shows he can't consistently handle the quick and hard double teams. turnovers are key to the game so it's not a coincidence JVG nor adelman want to run the offense through yao as much like you want. JVG is a hard-core inside-outside type of coach. what you want is what he exactly wanted. everybody wants yao to take over, but he hasn't shown that ability. it's fine to talk about it; yao has to show it. and he hasn't. what i rather want is a penetrating PG to relieve the pressure of ballhandling from tracy and yao and just make them SCORERS.
Here's a quick question: how many TO's per game do you think the Dream averaged the year of the championship season? T-Mac is not going to generate open 3's dependably. He's is not going to be doubled out on the perimeter. He's probably not going to be doubled until after he penetrates. Yao on the other hand is going to be doubled every time the ball ends up in his hands. And yes, penetrating PG's are a good thing. But in a motion offense the role of the PG isn't as significant as it is in other offensive schemes. Everybody on the floor in the motion offense has got to be able to pass the ball. I think the trick with T-Mac is to turn him into more of a scorer, which is what Adelman said he wanted to do when he first got to Houston. With Yao on the other hand any time he touches the ball he's going to draw the double. Why would you not want to exploit that?
the dream actually does dribble the ball A WHOLE LOT more than yao and he can do things around the mid-range areas, so his high turnovers are understandable. yao's turnovers are solely IN THE POST. BIG difference. tmac is not doubled on the perimeter? um... are you smoking? how come tmac gets everybody open shots with ease if he's never double teamed? adelman's motion offense is triggered from the high post, not the low post. if you want motion offense, that's where it's gonna start. that's where webber and divac controlled the offense (that's why he wanted yao out there in the first place). if you put yao in the low post, he draws a lot of attention and it's hard to cut/penetrate to the basket b/c it woudl be crowded (whereas in the high post, he brings his man out and thus clears the basket). if you want yao to be in the low post, it'll be a JVG-type of offense (and that's not necessarily a bad thing for yao since he played better under JVG). but seeing how adelman emphasizes motion offense a lot and it takes 3 years for the offense to click, i don't see him steering away from his high post offense. i expect tmac and scola to do a lot of ballhandling there, with yao getting his low post touches also. it's a great balance. no need for ALWAYS feeding yao the ball like you are saying.
Fair enough, but that doesn't change the fact that McGrady was not neutralized. He still played a big role in all the games, creating and putting pressure on the Jazz defense. On the opposite end, he did a good job staying with his man (except for his occasional lapse, which is understandable considering he had to do so much already while injured). You said 'more expendable than Yao', which I simply don't agree with. You get a potential franchise cornerstone with Yao, plus the fact that he still has the potential to be a more complete player, but you win more with T-Mac. At this point, for whatever reason, T-Mac gets more wins when Yao is out than the other way around. That's the thing, for the Rockets to excel with the two star system, I think Yao has to get better with regards to passing out of the double team. He can't just be 'ok'. With so much of the offense relying on him and his decisions, he can't just be an average passer out of the double team. That is, if we're to compete with the big boys on a consistent basis. What happens when the good defenses start taking Yao's regular passes to cutter away? He has to adapt quickly to the change and make the right decision. I'm pretty sure that he's studied a lot of tape while he's been resting and rehabbing, so I hope that he'll have an improved mental game next season.
The point is that big centers who like to play in the paint get swarmed and consequently commit a lot of TO's. I for one don't think that the Dream dribbled the ball a whole lot more than Yao, and Hakeem actually averaged more TO's per game. I don't think that the TO problem is the critical issue that you make it out to be. I don't know what games you've been watching, but T-Mac only dishes after he starts his drive and the defense collapses on him. Nobody's going to double him out behind the three point line where he likes to hang out and nobody is going to send a double team at him when he fires from the parking lot. As for how Adelman plays Yao that's obviously a work in progress. Nobody's ever suggested that Adelman's going to play a pure Princeton in Houston rather than some type of hybrid. How Yao splits his time between the high and low posts is very much a question mark, still. What is clear is that in this last season Adelman was happy to park Yao in the low post for more than 50% of the time and the Rockets started winning when they were able to capitalize on the double on Yao in the low post. It's still a motion offense if Yao gets the ball, is doubled, and then passes out. In fact drawing the extra defender is a best case scenario for the motion offense--it makes it trivial to get somebody an open shot.
It depends on which game in specific you're talking about. He looked pretty good in game 7, for example. And the salient point here is who gets doubled more, Yao or T-Mac--let's not get distracted. If you buy my argument that a double team puts the defending team at a disadvantage then it makes more sense to get the ball in the hands of the player who demands a double. The point is that when Yao's doubled somebody on the Rockets is open. There is just no physical way around that. What's more this is a team game and the motion offense is a team offense. Yao doesn't need to get an assist every time he passes out of the double team. If he passes out to somebody who's covered, fine. The Rockets just need to swing the ball around to the open guy, break down the other side's defense and get themselves that easy, open look at the basket. And as I've said time and time before the team that gets easy, open looks at the basket is probably going to win. As I've said before that I think directly comparing Yao to T-Mac is comparing apples to oranges. Similarly I think that comparing the Rockets under JvG to the Rockets under Adelman is just as worthless. What matters is who's more important in the current system. And if you're playing a motion offense I think that a guy who demands a double team just because he has the ball is a dream come true. All the Rockets have to figure out is that they just need to get the ball to the open player, cut hard to the basket (Bonzi), be good at getting to that open spot 12 feet out for an easy jumper (Scola), etc. to start working over other teams.
i just read the last two posts, so i dont' have anything to say on your first paragraph. have you seen the dallas game during the winning streak? they doubled tracy crazy. and tracy, as soon as he get the ball, he would dribble one or twice or none at all, and just pass it becasue as soon as they see the ball in the air towards tracy, they would come at him. boston celtics did it too. that one game where they ended our streak. double team tracy at the pick and roll or when he gets it at the top of the key. tracy did horrible at that game, because of numerous reasons. 1. he just passed and not forcing the issue. 2. his teamates didn't step up. overal, tmac is a GREAT passer. he knows when to pass it, when he gets doubled, or when he is driving. he is very good at that. i thiink it was clyde drexler who said that the offense isn't 100% that rick hasn't implanted all of the gameplan. but, i think what he did, is set the slow set up plays for his two stars. before yao went injured, they had this great play set up. in a way, it was a triangle offense. pg pass it to sg, tries to pass to yao. if it is not avaiable, yao spins to other side of court, and while he does that, the ball gets whipped to the other side, which should be the SF. and by now, yao has established a deep position, and he would get the ball downlow. they had that off pick for tracy, and tracy would come up to the elbow, the pg would pass it to tracy, and tracy would shoot the midrange shot. rick knew that tracy was one of the best midrange shooters and used that play alot. now, i think rick is going to have plays for the other players and prehaps, the whole team in general. i'm going to expect the high post thing with our pfs, to be alot more better next season. all 3 of our pfs bring different to the table, and is usefull for the high post play. scola is an ok shooter, but he likes to take his man 1 on 1. his dribbling isn't really good, but he gets by his man quite a bit. landry is a pretty good shooter, and forces his man to be up on him, instead of sagging back and protecting the paint. chuck hayes, is an excellent passer so i'd be expecting easy points with hayes at top. but regarding yao at the high post. if you watch the lakers game (season opener) quite a bit you would see yao. and part of it was pretty good (1 led to an alley opp dunk for tracy) and part of it was just a shot clock time waster. it'd be interesting to see if rick tries to teach yao things that would help him adapt to his high post plays.
As far as it goes i think T-MAC gives teammates higher % shots. Where as Yao is already in the paint so its harder for him to create wide open layups like T-MAC does but he does create wide open 3s. If we can take advantage of that by getting better shooters then i would say Yao is more important. But the evidence speaks for itself, Yao by himself can only keep the team at a 500 level.
1) Individual games not withstanding Yao is going to be doubled more than Tracy. Obviously there's going to be exceptions where Yao is played in single coverage (NO this year, the Utah series last year) or T-Mac gets doubled (Dallas). Over the season as a whole though there's no question that Yao gets doubled more often. 2) Obviously the offense is still in its infancy. If you were a big Kings fan like I was you're probably disappointed that the Rockets still don't run the motion offense consistently and that they seemed to regress at the end of the season and into the playoffs. What roles Yao and T-Mac end up in is anybody's guess right now. 3) T-Mac is a great passer, but for Adelman's offense he's got to stop being a ball stopper. He's got to stop jacking up quick three's early in the shot clock. He's got to show off the passing ability by getting the ball to his teammates. He's got to start cutting hard without the ball. JvG is long gone and the Rockets need to step up and learn the damn system and start playing it. In Houston there's a chance that my beloved Kings can be reincarnated and its killing me watching the guards bring the ball up, dribble, dribble, dribble and then finally jack a shot up with two seconds left on the clock.
1. it doesn't really matter who gets doubled more. i'm sure the coach will adjust every game and not go through the same game plan for every game of the season and playoffs. that was one of the reason why we replaced jvg. he doesn't adjust. we were up 2-0 against dallas and utah. avery johnson, even as a rookie head coach, he led dallas to victory and same with jerry sloan. 2. can't argue with anything, because i agree that motion offense isn't near as it was with the kings. 3. tmac is a ball stopper. nothing we can do about it. you love him when he's on fire and he is our only offense, you hate him when he just ruins the tempo. i really hate his stupid heat checks and crap, but tracy, sometimes, can be our only offense. and the problem with our guards should be gone, because we are going to replace them. rafer sucks, he's just a bench player. bobby is old, and he is jacking up shots. those two pgs, dono't know when to stop shooting and when to keep shooting. brooks and francis could be our main pgs next season.... but unlikely. what i don't like what rick and jvg does is letting tmac do his thing. he has too many mental lapses on offense and defense, its just fustrating for me to watch. they should yell or shout or sit him down. that's why a player like ron artest wouldn't hurt, cause you know he will get tmac on the right way. and, when tmac is 100%, things might change alot. you actually might... see him make 3s. you might actually see him run the damn plays and actually run off-ball and go around picks. you might actually see him try on defense. anyways, our number one goal for all our players is... 1. stay healthy 2. practice your weak spot. the only reason we are upgrading is because we have this fear that when we are all healthy we are still not good enough. we truly don't know what our team is. are they pretenders or contenders? we don't know. and because of that and the limiting time we have on tracy, we are just trying to get more talent. that may hurt us at the end, or it could help us alot. we still don't know how good tmac and yao is together and that's the problem.
1) My point is that when the other team doubles Yao it's a net advantage for the Rockets. Any time a team is forced to double somebody on defense they're put at a disadvantage. 3) If Chris Weber could learn how to play team ball you'd think McGrady could as well. The whole team needs to remind him that the Rockets looked their best when they actually played the motion offense. Does anybody seriously doubt that? The other thing I don't like about McGrady is that Brooks seems like he's a lot more tentative when he and McGrady are on the floor at the same time. T-Mac should not be dribbling the ball up, he shouldn't be calling for the ball once it's past the half court line and he shouldn't be playing at point guard. If the Rockets could actually get an upgrade on Alston, get a true leader for the team, it might make a huge difference.
all i know is from what adelman said to end the playoffs and how the team oriented its offense, tmac and scola will do a lot of playmaking next yr from the high post. we just need some scorers off the bench and a backup for tmac and we're fine. no need to argue who the offense should revolve around. it doesn't matter if we don't have consistent scoring from other guys to help them out.
People are forgetting that this poll about tmac and yao at their prime, tmac in his orlando days simply couldnt be stopped, i mean averaging over 30 points per game aint easy. If we had that tmac in our team right now, we wouldve made it past first round plenty. Yao who is one of the best centers in the league still cant hold his own, he just is not dominating consistently. Tmac is definitely the better candidate in this poll.
Yes, that was the original poll. However, the thread has evolved since then. The question now is whether Tmac or Yao should be the focal point of the offense.
lol, shouldn't change the voting on the poll. that might be the discussion, but vote on the poll based on the question. it's amazing yao is leading by 20%.
I dont really care about the polls. I'm more interested in the discussion. Discussion usually includes analysis which is far more convincing than percentages on a poll.
