Given all the "Trade Yao" threads, and better without Yao threads, I thought this will be a fair one. OK, now, who thinks this team is better with Yao? C'mon, need your deep objective analysis. - Stats will be great! - Sound logical reasoning will be great! - Hell, passionate heart-felt statements will be great too. So, let me start: With Yao in the lineup, we won 12 in a row. Without Yao in the lineup, we won 7 in a row. So, thus far, the record says we are better with Yao. C'mon now, refute this logic!
If we win more than 12 in a row WITHOUT Yao ... then Yao Ming, Bobby Jackson will be traded this off season for a legit PG. aka Chris Paul. Yao turns the city of New Orleans around and Chris Paul can share his pg duty with his best friend Rafer. jk
I believe (actually most people believes) that the rockets would be 07-08 champions if Yao was not injured.
Wait until we lose. Then you'll see all the Chinese medicine threads pop up. I am not a basketball expert, but how are you better if you do not have the best center in the world?
I can't believe I have to explain this, but the point of a thread that claims the Rockets are better without Yao is that you get to either agree with the original poster OR argue/discuss with them if you disagree. There's no point in starting another thread with the opposite premise. This is a duplicate.
You're trying to find a logical contradiction where dealing with fuzzy concepts. Unfortunately, there's no strict, black and white definition for "best center" or being a "better team". We talk in those terms for the sake of discussion, but strictly speaking it's more complicated than that. Maybe against some types of teams we are better, but against other types of teams we aren't. Maybe Yao is the best center in the context of a system built around him, but the rest of the team plays better in a different system. I don't really know, but these are theoretical possibilities.
Man... do we need two threads on the same topic? ARe we gonna have a "Who thinks the Rockets are about the same with or without Yao?" thread? How about a "Who thinks Yao is better without the Rockets?"
A better question is, "Do you think this year's team without Yao is better than last year's playoff team with Yao?" I think yes.
That would have been an interesting thread. But since it is your idea, I'll let you start one. Honestly, I am starting this one because I am sick and tired of all the craziness. But that said, no one had yet challenged my simple logic above. Are we all just ranting?
Rockets are better WITH Yao. More depth. Can dominate in the low post and defend bigs like Amare, Duncan, Chandler, Bynum, Dampier, Shaq and do well on his own against them. Against guys like West and Boozer he struggles but still puts up big numbers. His biggest problems is that he slows the offense down when he puts the ball down and dribbles in ISO situations and that he causes the Rockets to have a higher turn over rate. You just can't replace 22 and 11 though or take for granted how many shots he alters.
Sure you can. The Rockets are doing it right now with a team effort. Deke is getting the blocks and altering shots.
Simple question: If you are Alex, will you trade Yao? This means billions of dollar and fan loss. Most Chinese professional athletes work for a team with highest loyalty in his career, will you trade them once he fell into injury? I bet when everyone think Yao is not coming up to their expectations, Yao will reduce his salary. I just can't understand why you guys want to trade such a good person.
I don't think its even a good question of whether the rox are better w/yao. I don't think deke will have trouble defending those guy u mentioned. In fact deke probably will do a better job. The offset is those guys will not guard deke and sag in the paint. They just have to win different. During the 92 season dream went and people thought he was faking a injury for a new contract. The rox turned into a pick and roll team which suited smith,maxwell and thorpe. The team won quiye a few games until dream came back.They missed the playoffs, but it showed dream that the team could win without him. Yao couldn't hold dream boxers, but this team can win without yao. I keep saying that the team isn't better because they can't replace his talent this late in the season. Until you can do that, u can't claim to be a better team.
