Who's more important to the team success, Tmac or Yao?

Read again. That post was a reply to someone else opinion that we play NO DEFENSE w/out Yao with is NOT true. As far as my vote...I did vote for equal.

By the way that line-up (which included TMac) was not mediocre. It is a team that has been able to win consistently while Yao is on the bench with foul trouble. So, lets not kid ourselves. As far as whether we need Yao. Of course we do. That's the whole point for our team; the goal for a championship.

 

I don't understand what's the point for having this poll.

 

So, if his recent offensive lull (if you can actually consider 2 games a "lull") is from an injury, what was the 30+ points per game over the last 18?

Maybe what also might be a possibility is that he was forced into a role that is uncomfortable for him against Seattle and San Antonio since our point guards were an over-the-hill 10 day contract that just got cut and an un-drafted rookie clearly in over his head.

The guy had two less-than-dominant games out of the past 20 and suddenly he's having an offensive lull and that it is CLEARLY because of an injury? That is an awfully big leap to take. I mean, he's played with injuries (just like most players) all year long.

 

Tmac hasn't played that well in the last 12 games, shooting
around 35% 8 times and having 4 below 20 pts game. If not
for Yao + Sura + Wesley + Barry + Howard stepping up, we
wouldn't have won so many games.

 

Jeff, if you look at Tracy's stats in the last 10 games, you can clearly see that he has been in a mini shooting slump (including the ASG) beginning from the game against Boston. He only had two great games during that stretch: against Minny and Wizard.

You can argue that he struggled from the field in the last two games because 1) lack of quality PG play; 2) great D by Lewis and Bowen. However, I have seen many times during the stretch that Tracy was not able to finish on the drives including some chippy, and that got me a little worried. It's a legitimate concern that he should play less minutes if he is indeed hiding some kind of injuries.

 

BTW, the team cannot win convincingly without either one of them. As such, I voted for equal.

You can make an argument that we are not the same team without Sura. Hopefully MJ will remind us that we only need a quality PG, not a star PG to run the show.

 

It's kind of equal, but I'd say this issue has two answers.

First, as said previous by Jeff and others, "Tracy needs Yao, just as much as Yao needs Tracy. " I definitely agree with that.

However, my stance right now is that Tracy is more important to the team. Yao isn't developed enough/good enough to carry a team right now. This team has jumped on Tracy's back at different parts of the season this year. I'm not trying to start an arguement - as I said, I love Yao - but, he simply can't carry this team right now. Our success this season will depend more on Yao opening it up for Tracy.

With that said, in the years to come, Yao will become a bit more important. My basis for this is the recent Lakers. Look how much better Shaq made Kobe and the level they rose to together, 4 straight finals (winning 3). Now look at the Lakers. It is very apparent it was much easier on Kobe when he had Shaq dominating down low. As Yao improves, he will be the harder one to stop which will in effect make it harder to stop T-Mac because of the pressure opposing teams will have to put on Yao.

So right now, T-Mac is more important to the amount of wins the Rockets get and how far they go in the playoffs.

In the long run, Yao is more important.

So overall, they are equally important.

 

Anybody else notice that Kobe is NOT on that list?