I have always said (since the arrival of Yao Ming) that we need to switch back to the Hakeem Offense... why not build around Yao?
Juugie without prejudice, Hakeem (my countryman) never as high as .538% EVER again in his career after his rookie season. Never! Quite interesting huh. He went downhill from there as far as FG% is concerned. I can assure you now that Yao will shoot better that .50% and very likely go as high as 55% for his career - because his has the makeup and tools to do just that. I just want to point that out because the stat you posted did not tell the whole truth (subjective).
What makes you think Yao's percentage will go up? He will take more shots (hopefully) and start seeing more double teams. Plus he takes a lot of fadeaways and hooks, that's doesn't translate to high percentages.
Not necessarily... Steve is able and will eventually change his game, build around Steve and Yao... just because Steve gets a little stuck in one-on-one mode sometimes and Yao is a little too passive doesn't mean they are going to be this way in two years. Give them time, I say get rid of Mobley as to emphasize the focal points that SHOULD be Yao and Steve. Stuart
Uh... it has this year. and as he gets more experience, his FG will go up the next 4-6 years and then eventually climb back down. Stuart
Sea, you are right, it was pretty funny watching Amare dominate Kg, but not as funny as someone saying Ming is better than Hakeem. I was wrong about the W, thinking about a differrent game, but he still dominated Kg, a MVP candidate in a close game. Name one good to great player Yao has got the best of. Is it not true that Amare goes up the best players in the league almost nightly, and Yao plays against stiffs for the most part? You are obviously one of Ming's biggest worshippers and I was not trying to offend you. I appoligize for mistaking the W. Obviously you are going to follow me around here on the board like you follow Ming, so I am gonna try to make peace.
It will go up. By the grace of God I will be here long enough to say "I told you so". Just take my words for it.
The Yao argument aside, no one else has commented on spiral's suggested trade. I thought it was pretty solid - although it assumes Detroit ends up with a 2 or 3 (Carmelo or Darko) pick via Memphis.
You are absolutely right on every point u made. I've been a Rocket fan since '74, watching Rudy, Calvin and Newlin played at Hoffein Pavilion so I've seen a lot. I've seen Akeem in college too. Yao Ming has a long way to go before he can be compared to Hakeem. Yet, I think he will be there based on what I've seen. I'd like Panda's post (at 04-13-2003 08:54 PM) a lot. He is right on.
I don't think this would work because of Francis's BYC status, but I'm no capologist. I'm still flippin' out over Clutch's hint in thacabbage's thread. What ever happened to Hottoddie?? Probably shaking his head over this stupid Hakeem/Yao comparison piss-fest. It's gotten to where it's hard to talk about some things without myriad Yao fans thinking their boy is somehow denigrated. He's OUR boy, and he'll be good, if he's ever allowed some rest and time to train in Houston during the offseason. If I were some of you folks, I'd be more worried of Yao being worn out before he even has a chance to reach his potential... potential in danger of being derailed, imo, by his nutty schedule.
Not to toot my own horn and i do agree about maybe moving some players, but i think giving up Taylor,Griffin and Mobley for SAR,Glover and a future pick makes alot of sense. I think with that trade, the Rockets can build a fluid moving offense while still using Ming to its advantage. Also getting SAR will bring consistent play out of that 4 spot and alleve some of the inside prssure on Ming. Posey playing the 2 and letting Morris,Nachbar,and Rice battle for the 3 spot helps in that it doesn't take away a large number of shots form the core. I still think a triangle type offense with Francis,Posey,Ming,SAR,and whoever at the 3 would be great for this team. Changes need to be made because the road has gotten harder with NO moving into our division as early as next yr.
Maybe I missed it, but I don't remember seeing Posey play much 2 at all. And I was excited after the trade about him being able to slide over to the 2 spot to reduce Cat's ridiculous # of minutes and to provide a different look. Have we seen enough of Posey to think he would be an effective 2 guard? What do you like about Glover? I'm having a mental block about him right now. Sell him to us.
The stats don't lie, but it's from a different era in which scoring wasn't nearly as difficult. 13 ppg in 2003 is significantly better than 11 ppg in 1988 or whenever it was.
You're right. It seems that some people are content to focus on the peas & carrots, rather than the steak. Hopefully the Yao versus Smits comparisons are over. Since I believe the title of this thread is a good topic to discuss, I've decided to bump this thread discussion back up. First off, I'd like to tip my hat to Panda for his 2 outstanding posts. You definitely understand what I was trying to accomplish. Second, Juugie, I never said that Yao is better than Dream. I said that he is further along than Dream with some of his skills, like passing, understanding of the game, court vision, & shooting range. I stand by that statement. As for the footwork, you're right. Yao is not as fast as Dream was, but for a big man that weighs right at 300 lbs., he is very graceful & fluid. Dream redefined the center position, & as another poster pointed out, Shaq is the only other center since, that has caused the game to change in the last 19 years. I would never disrespect Dream, but I do feel that Yao will also redefine the center position once again. Can you say point center? You also stated that Yao doesn't play with the same fire that Dream did. Well, for now, you're right. But, as others have pointed out, Yao played in a much more passive system than the NBA. However, Yao did show the ability to adapt his game to the more physical game of the NBA as the year went on. I'm sure you saw some of the dunks that Yao threw down. When a 7'5" 300lb. man throws down a dunk with determination, people take notice. Also, Yao has been working in the gym & has voiced an excitement about the results he's getting. He reportedly requested that the Rocket's trainers give the Chinese NT instructions on weight training. Imagine Yao adding about 20-30 lbs. of upper body muscle. Okay, back to the original topic. I've read all the posts in this thread & have changed my opinion slightly about rebuilding around just Yao. Francis is a wanna-be PG. He's got incredible skills & could very well become a great PG in the future. However, at this time, I believe that he would help the team more by moving to the SG position. If we could get Miller for Mobley/future #1 pick/filler, I believe that would upgrade our backcourt tremendously. With Miller in the fold, the next step would be to upgrade our PF position. We could make an offer to Karl Malone for our mid-level exception or attempt a S&T with Utah for him. While I'd like to keep Cato as our backup center, he does have trade value & might have to be moved, in order to upgrade the PF position with a quality starter. How about Cato/Griffin for a resigned Malone? Taylor would be a nice complimentary player to Malone off the bench. Another FA option would be Juwan Howard. However, his style of play is very similar to Taylor's, except that he can rebound. Howard would be an upgrade to Taylor & would make him expendable. Signing Howard wouldn't address our need for a bruising PF, but he would help to upgrade the position. As for a PF with good rebounding skills & a solid low post game, I'd take a look at Fortson with Golden State. If we signed Howard, then we could trade Taylor away to get Fortson. While GS would have no need for Taylor, Seattle might be very interested. Here's a 3 team trade that I threw together. Houston sends Taylor to Seattle. Houston sends the Chicago Drew obligation to GS. Seattle sends Barry/Jerome James to Golden State. Seattle sends Forte to Houston. Golden State sends Fortson to Houston. Golden State sends Foyle to Seattle. Houston gets Fortson & Forte (trade filler). Seattle gets some help up front to go with Lewis & Allen. GS gets quality depth at SG, a replacement center for Foyle & what amounts to 2 second round draft picks from Chicago, while moving Fortson's 4 years remaining contract for James's 2 years remaining contract. I don't know if all this could happen or any of it for that matter. But, it would give us an improved lineup next year of: C: Yao/Cato PF: Howard/Fortson/Griffin SF: Posey/Nachbar/T-Mo/Rice (Will Rice be traded by the trade deadline?) SG: Francis/Hawkins or FA PG: Miller/Would Cuban trade AJ for Moochie? I like this lineup better than this last year's lineup. Would you build around Yao Ming? What changes would you make?
AGREED! Yao Ming was new to our culture and was naturaly shy about asserting himself since he, a rookie, was joining in with established and well known NBA Players. He was looking forward to a quiet rookie season in which he would slowly find his level. Which is fitting to his culture and background. He found that things were not to be as expected! He was exposed by a bombardment of Media and outside forces calling for his attention. This exposure pulled him away from the quiet way and into the lime light with Star like exposure. On the Basketball side , he started slowly and was coming off the bench,then it happened,he found a comfort level and had a break out game.Again he was thrust into the spotlight as a starting Center for his new Team. He showed very early on that he had many moves and could be quite versatile, but he settled down to play limited positions and moves. It was as though he was told by the coach to only play these moves, as we didn't see the fancy ones again! Yao Ming is and has been a finesse player, although he has the weight and with more strength could demand and keep his position as a power Center. Most fans have expected this of him , especially when they reflect of how great Hakeem was in his Rookie Season.The difference is that Hakeem had been to the University of Houston and had been learning how to play Basketball the American way and was getting 'Big Mans Game' tutoring from Moses Malone. Yao Ming is like Hakeem in his first year at college, for 'Chineese Basketball' can only be compared to our High School level, played by Gentlemen' at best. In his third season of the NBA Yao Ming should be at Hakeems rookie level and then the fireworks will erupt.We must also remember that Yao Ming has had to play his Rookie Season with two players who considered the Team to be their exclusive domain.
[/B][/QUOTE] Yao never complains about not getting touch, it's the coach and the media thinks that he needs more touch for Rox to be successful. You need to get your facts straight. You're a Yao Hate and pretty stupid too. I bet you can never go 30/30 on anybody, you'll miss one or two. Your little brother ain't exactly professional bball player that has experience and CBA title final contender. These guys are not scrubs either, true they don't do all those little tricks like throwing the elbow or just rape Ming in the paint. They plays pretty decent defense. Shaq is not half a passer as Ming. He jus have good teammates that know how to move. Sabonis is too old when he play in NBA, he's not as agile as Yao Ming. Vlade is really good passer too, I don't see him whip a errant pass to a streaking teammate on a great instinctive move that gets a great assist. I certainly did not see Vlade or Shaq or Sabonis drops a no look over head pass to a teammate with such precise timing. Juggie, you don't realize how special his passing skill is simply because you play so little basketball or just plain stupid on Bball. Actaully Yao has 1.7 assist per game, and he's improve consistently over the second half of the season, he usually gets 3 assist per game at the final 15 or so games of the season, mainly because teammates learn to play together and move to a good spot where Yao can get them the ball. Gary Payton is a really good passer but he can never do what Yao does. Yao can see over double team and whip a pass over many players' reach simply because of his height. His assist will go up a lot when his teammates get used to play with him. Yao is going to be much better rebounder, shotblocker or finisher than Zo can ever dream to be. Yao is much taller, you can see his improvement in all 3 areas as the season goes on. Did you see that dunk over Big Ben? finish, 3 blocks against Shaq with perfect timing? The one handed snatch out of the air? Yao is better than Duncan in shooting, 3 point shooting. He can finish both hands, really good post moves, spin around the baseline, dream shake, etc,etc If Yao did not hit his clutch free throw, we will not win that game; if Yao did not take over in 4th quarter in Toronto, we'll see that game slip away. I distinctively remember several key block shots and key rebounds that seal some wins. We would be in the playoffs if this team can really function as a team instead of a collection of individual talents. Yao is calm as hell. He does not get fluster on court, you can see some of the quotes by Franchise, Mo T, Griffin, even Cat for that. You're stupidly think being menacing is a show of fire like Ron Artest, or the laughable yell and gesturing of Kenyon Martin after such easy dunk that Jason Kidd get him. Fire does not mean brag about yourself in every way possible, it means Yao is willing to compete and never back down from whoever that want to dunk over him. It's so simple to see that Yao have fire. You're so BLIND, Juugie. Actually in my opinion, Barkley is really stupid like you, or he would not be kissing a donkey's ass or stupid enough to bet on sure lose situation. Yao already show that, you're just too stupid to notice. He's way better than any other Rox in seeing the court, it's really evident. As always you're wrong or just plain ignorant. No one single great player can win a championship by individual talent. If individual talent can win championship without a cohesive team with great teamwork, how come Shaq did not win **** until the Lakers play as a team? How come the dream did not win championship until he get Horry, Drexler and the other guys? How come Jordan did not win a championship until they get a pretty good team? how come Allen Iverson did not win a championship? how come Wilt Chamberlin did not win until he plays in the lakers with Jerry West? the list goes on and on, I hope you can at least learn something from all these stupid comments you make. If Yao did not do other things when his offense does not go well, how come he get 16 rebounds, 5 block shots, couple assists when he's shooting only 3 for 11 for 13 points in the last game against Denver. That game is not the only game, he get at least 10 or so games where he just could not hit his shots and he nontheless come up big on defensive end and help the team win. Juugie, I like to reponde to you because you're so stupid, the arguments you make are so easy to defeat because you did not even use your brain when you post.
Rvpals, Get out of this thread if you're going to resort to name calling. There's no place on this board for that kind of behaviour. I don't agree with Juugie's perspective either, but we're not going to win him over by calling him out. Please try making your point without the name calling.
