Actually Golden State has Baron Davis now. YOFs annoy me. Is it because you can't think logically so they become YOFs, or it is the other way around? Assuming that YOFs are most from China and they are YOFs because Yao is from China, shall I be ashamed of being from the same country of these can't-think-straight YOFs? I wonder...
The beauty is with TMac on this team we don't need Yao to be The Man. He is what he is: the second best player on our team and I'm fine with that.
As we all hope, Yao'll vary likely stay here for the better during this summer, which I believe he will. It's simply becuase the Yao Team are very intelligent and experienced, they can figure out what is the best interest of Yao, when to take the move and they would restrain from saying anything before the right time comes. The most important, they know how to maximize Yao's utility and negociate to multilateral. Let's leave the the question to the Yao Team. I bet they are going to make the deal only after this season. The bottom line, the common interest both YF(YOF) and Houston fan have is they want Rox win. Forgetting it, one can only throw coase words over without thinking. The differece here, YF is the most popular as proved in All Star Voting. If you are Houston fan, try to think about what is the best for Yao; if you are YOF, try to consider what is the best for the team. What I have said of him, starting this thread, makes sense.
wow, i've never seen a thread with 0 stars before. That's quite an impressive feat to the thread starter.
Kudos to Himalayas for attempting to post his opnions on this board even though he is obviously English language impaired. The response of some of you is so immature it is hardly worth critique. Try to contemplate posting on a Chinese BBS in Chinese and make it sound right. Yao is not living up to the expectations of 3 years ago. Those expectations were probably out-of-line with reality. I have to admit that before he was drafted I watched video of him and I could not believe someone 7'6" could do the things he did. But, most real sports followers are aware that different athletes, for one reason another, peak at different points in their carreers. Some peak in high school and never make it big in college, some peak in college and never make it big in the pros and some only show moderate talent in college and peak professionally. I am not smart enough to tell you whether Yao has peaked or not, but some limitations of his physicality are becoming evident. He is not the first scoring option on the Rox anymore, he may not be the first option on defense at center anymore. That is the reality of the situation, that situation may improve, Yao may improve, but I don't think that The Rox are Yao's team any longer. That is not necessarily a bad thing because I believe that the Rox are a far superior team this year than last. I predict they will have a better showing in the playoffs maybe even win it all (hope), but I don't think at this point Yao is the Franchise player we thought he would be.
Imagine the response I would get if I were to go to a Chinese BBS and start saying how the Chinese government is slowing down the development of Yao's game by making him stay over there in the offseason. Yao should live in a real country, like the US, for the entire year. I'm sure that would go over fairly well.
I'm not contemplating posting on a chinese BBS. If I did, I certainly wouldn't kickoff by starting a bunch of new threads that could generally be expected to incite the locals. Most people are talking about the pointlessness of the message, not the delivery. the expectations? Whose expectations? Yours? I'm happy with where Yao is. He's the leading shotblocker, leading rebounder, and 2nd leading scorer on a team that is playing rock solid basketball. I expected an impact basketball player. Consider it delivered. Shaq's the #2 scorer to a 2nd year guard. Yao's the #2 scorer to the back-to-back scoring champ. The shock and horror!! When exactly was he the #1 option? When he scored 1 pt more than Francis and 2 pts more than Mobley last year? When he was 3rd on the team in field goal attempts? He plays on a team with a 3 time defensive player of the year, 6 time all-defensive team, 3rd all-time leading shot blocker, and a top 25 all time rebounder. More shock and horror!! Any longer? You mean at some point they were? During the Francis and Mobley show? During the 17 game 6-11 stretch when TMac was playing passively? The Rockets aren't Yao's team any less than the Heat aren't Shaq's team. We? Define a franchise player. Is Kobe a franchise player? Is TMac a franchise player? We're fortunate to be able to pair two players like TMac and Yao. I like to define players by their ability to be part of a champion. I like this current team a lot, especially the TMac/Yao duo. I believe they can win a championship within the next 5 years, and even have a shot this year with a few breaks. If Yao is a major contributor to a championship team, I don't really care if he's averaging 18-8 or 25-15.
i think you make a good point that it would be hard for him to take control of a team and be the leader because he is not that type of person.
