What did you use to find this? I'm not questioning your post. Just asking so I can check up on these things in the future. Btw, Yao currently is not comparable to Shaq in his prime, who wasn't just a superstar, but the BEST player in the league. Not a good comparison for now.
You can't have it both ways guys, you guys are making the argument that we are more of a two star team but most of those teams were still pretty good when one of those stars went down. Either our depth really isn’t that good or Yao isn’t a superstar, but its one or the other. And someone brought up the Lakers in this thread.
But I don't want it both ways. We know that Yao is NOT Shaq. But it's not "ONE or the other" like you so conveniently stated. It's mix. Shaq is one of the dominant players of the last 15 years. And Yao is not *as* dominant. But it doesn't mean that he's a scrub. Just pointing out that YOUR comparison is *all or nothing.* But it's not like that. And, sure, improving ones depth helps any team. Even a Shaq lead team. By the way, my postion is that McGrady should be the scoring leader on this team. Not Yao.
You are biased beyond belief. You say teams with 2 stars do pretty good when one of them goes down, and you conveniently use the Shaq example. So um, what was their record when Shaq was out and only Kobe played? OOPS. Shaq was the better player of the two, which is why they had a good record even when Kobe was out. Tmac is the better of our two superstars, thus its a bigger impact when he goes out. Ass.
Ty, I don’t know if you are on the rag or not this week but I don’t see why you have to be an ******* and call me an ass. Just because someone disagrees with your thread doesn’t mean they are trying to be an ass. Go take your midol dude. As far as me comparing Yao to Shaq there is logic to that. To go further with the Laker comparison, yes T-Mac is the better of our two superstars, but is T-Mac any better Kobe. That’s debatable. So assuming that they are about the same player than we can assume that he will have the same impact on a team by himself that Kobe has. So that means that our second superstar has to be as good as the superstar Kobe played with, or we are going to have to get better role players. So we may be very good or we may not, be we are not the Lakers if all of you guys freely admit that Yao is no Shaq. The Lakers, a team with two top 5 players were not invincible. Our two superstars collectively are not as good as the Lakers stars were, therefore we need better role players.
In regards to the Lakers comparison, however, there's also the difference in coaches to consider. In some ways, I kinda wish the Lakers team remained intact. In would've been awesome to see Kobe & Shaq vs Tmac & Yao.
Pg, I am an *******. You will just have to accept that part, and love me for who i am. Again, i am not an ass to everyone, i am very selective. I am sorry to say, but you are a very biased poster. Your motives are not always clear, but they are usually duplicitous in nature. Whether it be about Francis, Yao or Tmac, there is always some underlying mischievousness. As for your point, it is moot. Tmac and Yao, so far, are not Shaq and Kobe. I would even venture to say they aren't even near Shaq and Kobe. Otherwise, we would be looking at a 3 peat. We are not there yet. That is clear to me, and i don't need you to explain it. Oh, and if they weren't invincible, then nobody ever was. They had the best post season record in the history of the NBA. More dominant that the 72 win Bulls. I guess 2 top 5 players are worth a damn after all.
This team is stll bruising four who can give you a little offense and a reliable point guard away from being very good. Ironically I felt the same things were missing from last year’s team in order to be a contender. Yao’s offense is getting better, but this team still gets no offensive rebounds and burned by opposing 1s. No matter how good Yao becomes, he will never be the rebounder we need him to be if we are going to run the powerfowards out there that we currently have. Our team is actually built very well for the regular season, if Jim Jackson pulls his head out, we could be very good offensively. But right now we are not ready for the grind it out nature of the second half of the season and the playoffs. God forbid this team have a bad shooting night, or a bad turnover night. They don’t have the defense or the offensive rebounding to make up for those flaws. That’s what separates the good teams from the contenders. Just look at Dallas or better yet look at Sacramento. Everyone sees the Kings as a finesse offensive minded team, but Webber and Divac actually gave them some inside presence that allowed them to compete and almost beat the Lakers one year. And Dallas, we saw what the league’s number 1 offense got them year after year. When this team plays well offensively it will be very hard to stop, but when it has those rough nights, which are inevitable in the NBA they are going to be in big trouble. Especially if they are playing teams that dominate the boards and play good defense. And quite frankly that’s the definition of a role player, they fill in the holes. Right now our holes with our superstars are rebounding and defense. Our role players are all good offensive players, Howard, Ward (shooting), Taylor, Jim Jackson, and Boki. We have Bowen and Mutumbo but they hardly get any minutes. Now maybe the addition of Sura is going to help our perimeter defense but we cannot rely on Mutumbo beyond this season.
I agree with the rebounding, but defense? Our defense, mostly in the first half, is horrible right now. But I'm not the LEAST bit concerned. I am absolutely certain that by season's end, we will be top 5 in the league in opponents fg%, just like every JVG team. JVG's defense stresses help and rotation, not necissarily great individual defenders. Right now we are just not familiar with eachother, and apparently these guys haven't played much defense in their careers. JVG will whip them in shape. Or else i will expect a trade before the deadline.
Bingo. One guy knew how to adjust his system to the skills of his players. That made it easier to win when someone was injured.
I think everyone needs to be asking this.... How many games do you think our ROLE players can win in a season? Using this lineup....pretend that we didn't have McGrady/Yao. PG: Ward/Lue SG: JJ/Bowen SF: Nachbar/JJ PF: Howard/MoT C: Deke/Weatherspoon 20? 25? 28? 30? 35? What? If that team can squeak out some wins here and there, we're doing pretty good. Add Sura this year, and maybe next year a better PG. And we're that much better. This is even before we add McGrady/Yao to the mix. The reason I bring this up, is that we need our role players to be able to hold their own while Yao/McGrady are on the bench. They need to at least "keep the ship afloat" while our stars get some rest. Our role players aren't that bad. We've never really been blown out. We always keep the game close (our losses).
I can't believe you started at 20, that team wins 15-18 games at the most, probably worst than the Bobcats.
JumpMan, my win list was assuming that the roster would learn to play as a TEAM. It's not just 5 role players running around like chickens-without-heads.
A "team" that can't shoot, can't rebound, and is too slow to regularly play defense. Remember what a significant percentage of this squad did without McGrady last year. They are worse this season. Were the worst to happen, twenty wins would be optimistic. Thank goodness for Yao and T-Mac.
Worst than last SEASON? Let the season finish and we'll see about that. Also, please don't comare a lineup of Francis, Mobley, Cato, MoT and JJ to Ward, JJ, Howard, Nachbar and Deke. I was only taking about the role players. If you want, compare the role players from last year, that's fine. That does not include Francis, Yao and Mobley.
Wasn't doing that. I was comparing last year's Magic (without McGrady), and this year's Rockets (without Yao/McGrady).
