What's the difference between "building team around Yao" and just "building team"?

In the end for us to win a championship we need to have a great starting 5, that share the ball very well (basically no ball hog's) and a good bench with at least 2 go to guys and a 6th man of the year candidate.

 

The oklahoma city thunder built a legit team for the future...thats my playoff team i hope they upset the lakers

 

It's not a hard question really.

If you have a team with 1 or 2 elite scorers on it, you wouldn't exactly go around looking for players that demand the ball a lot. Etc.

 

this move was done years ago with both mcgrady and yao in mind. if anything it was made more for mcgrady and cover up his weakness on defense. this team had shooters before (04/05) that helped space the floor but they werent really great defenders or lacked the size to be. Also consider that at the time with Yao and McGrady you would rather have the proven vet instead of a young rookie whose strength is scoring the ball and would need time to develop. and not to add on about a battier/gay debate but the rockets never had intended to draft gay if they kept the pick, they wanted roy tried to make a move to get him and couldnt. Battier was the backup memphis was the team who told houston to draft gay for them.


but in the last two seasons when it was clearly Yao's team and not tmac/yao in mind I have to agree with Carl that its hard to pinpoint a specific move Morey has made just to satisfy the team around Yao. Most of the deals he made were to make the team better and more athletic. the artest deal, the rookies (chase, taylor) the move for martin and hill most of those all just make the team better.

I dont think Morey is that short sighted to try to build a team centered around just one player, especially when that one player has a history of injuries.

I think his only real failing this past offseason was not acquiring a 7 footer before the start of the season, but at the same time according to Feigan pretty much every team had been contacting DM about their not so good 7 footers trying to rip DM off. I am glad that DM just stuck with it and didnt mortgage the team's future just for short term success and was able to get a near 7 footer in Hill at the trade deadline and who knows who he may pick in the draft this year. I am going to bank on it being a big man.

This is just me talking aloud here but I would be very disappointed if Morey did try to build around Yao. As great as Yao is, his body just cant be depended on. I dont think Yao would ever be traded and he certainly will be resigned if he decides to opt out but you cant look at Yao anymore and say "this is the guy who will carry us"

 

Yea I don't understand the person that cannot differentiate the two. Although Carl has been on a tear lately with all these threads that only make half sense (as is his commendable posting style) So, I thought this maybe sarcasm, but it does not seem to be so.

Anyway....

Lebron, Bosh etc, you take them regardless of who you have.

BUT...... If you have a franchise center, you don't go out trying to get another franchise center, IE building around that person.


Because of Yaos injury problems we are forced to build around him. Tell me Carl H, do you feel we should have a solid rotation C (or 4/5) other than Yao because of his injury history. I would suppose you do, and so there you understand what the difference is.

If we are just building team, our priority would be a top tier post player. While we would like that guy (Bosh for example) We would take a solid rotation C (4/5) Because we have Yao.

 

around Yao means he cannot be traded even if injury proned
if the team is not built around him then we can trade him for another one

 

If you build around a player it means you have a plan and you feel there is way to become a contender. If you are talking abut building a team you see yourself as a team that is not even competive and yo are sellers so you have no players that you feel that can amke you a contender.

Difference
building around Yao means you are a contender
building a team means you are in the lottery every year.

 

Como?

 

Is this a serious question?

You build a team around each other, and you cover up for weaknesses, and you take advantage of strengths.

Yao is slow, so he needs space and time on the low block = you need 3pt shooters to give him the time and space he needs.

Yao is also very efficient at the foul line = you need guys who draw a lot of fouls to help get you into the penalty and get extra points.

Yao is an intimidating guy in the paint = you get guys who can play the passing lanes and go for steals knowing the big guy will intimidate the shot if they go to the hole.

Yao is also injury prone = you try to get guys whose contract expires at the same time as him, in case he has to retire.

So, you build your team around you key players.

I really have a hard time understanding how this is an honest question.

DD

 

I think for years they tried to build around yao an tracy vs having the best players possible. They wanted or tried to make 3pt standstill shooters because yao could draw double teams and mcgrady could find open guys. They were exposed because the worse possible matchup came true with the 2 Utah series. What they found out was they needed guys who could get their own shot because Utah didn't double yao and tilted towards Tracy. Now they have guys who can get their own shots which is something they didn't have in abundance in the past. In all honesty and I've said this since day 1, they should've been getting good,versitile players vs spot up guys. They thought they had shaq and tracy and it was wrong.

 

The Rockets talk about building around Yao, but I think they are also looking past him, because of his injuries. The fact that they have Yao, Scola, Hill, Hayes, and Jeffries, yet getting a super-duper big is still the priority, supports this.

I don't think they talk about it so much due to his ego as to the Chinese fans that buy a lot of the Yao Rockets shirts.

 

also if you build around Yao, you bring players that adjust good to the system where Yao is better.

Like in Phoenix, they were building around Nash, and bring players like Amare and other players that they could run a lot, but when they brought Shaq, he didnt fit, because he could run like the offense that is built for Nash, so when it didnt work.

 

When the Rockets don't have a play maker point Guard it is very difficult for me to believe they are building around Yao Ming.
I think they are building a team, period.

 

Who was that playmaking PG on the Lakers last year, or on the Spurs or on the Rockets in their championship years.

In fact, most teams have scoring PGs, at least the ones that win the championship.

DD

 

This is because there aren't that many very good playmakers out there.

 

Just trying to count the number of rings that Nash and Kidd have between them.....or maybe Stockton, or Mark Jackson, the two guys with the most assists in NBA history.

Sure there have been some PGs that are playmakers but they can also score the ball....Magic, Isaiah, very few pure PG types have led their teams to NBA championships.

DD

 

We can make the same argument for traditional centers. I think that 1) winning a championship isn't so easy, and it usually isn't one player that made it happen. Barkley, for instance, never won, but I don't think it was really his fault. You mention Stockton, but at the same time, Karl Malone didn't win, either. 2) there aren't that many playmaking PGs, just as there aren't many traditional centers, at least not at the very top level of ability.

 

Shaq(4 rings)? Robinson/Duncan(4 rings)? Hakeem(1 ring)? Kareem(6 rings)? Bill Russell(11 rings)? George Mikan(5 rings)?

 

Rondo?

There is no set formula for winning a championship