Wait so hold up, who's your take on who's better Yao or Gasol? And who would you rather have playing? I saw your argument with durvasa but I still got lost.
Kobe (and a healthy T-Mac) would kill if they have a big who demands double or triple team. I also don't think Kobe would give Yao the same type of condescending treatment he often gave to his Lakers teammates. Above all things, Kobe is a smart businessman. Why would he want to diss the one sports icon in China?
say what you will but yao ming is the best center in this league right now by far. the closest guy that can come close to him is possibly shaq and dude is damn near 40 yrs old and past his prime. you don't find dominant big mens nowadays in today's style of nba play so NO, i would never trade yao for a drunken pau gasol.
Well, I think I've already given explanation. If the Rockets don't resolve fronting problem effectively and if Yao/Adelman/rest of Rockets have no plan B, Gasol is a better fit. But then again, not every team employs fronting in every game they play the Rockets, so it may not matter much anyway.
Thanks. The place can easily turn into ESPN board if everybody can just spout off stuff that is baseless.
i am more against keeping tmac than the trade itself. I think if i trade Yao it has to be for a more defensive minded player than gasol. I would trade him for example for Howard, or Duncan, even at his age.
give me a call after you've conducted the same analysis on their playoff stats. like i said in my post, the best teams are much more likely to take yao completely out of the game in the playoffs. if you're playing for a championship, that's the only competition that matters. (of course this is all given the huge assumption that yao is even healthy enough to play during a playoff run.)
Kobe has said numerous times that he had to restrict his game because of shaq and it was hard. Now, shaq is shaq and if anyone had trouble adjusting to shaq, imagine kobe and yao.
I'm freaking tired of idiots pulling out the "Yao-only Fan" card every time somebody says something remotely positive about Yao Ming. Can we not praise our Houston MVP without being stigmatized? By the same token, you guys who regularly bash Yao have as much of an agenda as those YOFs--from now on we can label you the YOHs (Yao-only Haters). As to the Pau vs. Yao debate, you'd be stupid to think those two are player-wise equivalent. Yes, Yao is more frequently taken out of his game--via fronting, double/triple teams, aggressive fouling-- than Gasol is, but AT WHAT COST TO THE OTHER TEAM? My point is when Yao gets taken out of his game, the other team is expending enormous amounts of effort and risk in doing that--and even then Yao can still score out of a double/triple team at times. Does Pau ever draw fronting defenses? Does he get double teamed even half as much as Yao? Nope, not even a fourth as much, sadly. I would know--I live in LA and follow the Lakers games almost as much as I follow the Rockets. When Yao is drawing so much defensive attention it is an absolute MUST for the FOUR other players on the Rockets to exploit the remaining TWO/THREE opponent defenders. If the Rockets role players could not do that (ie, Scola hitting his open jumpers, Brooks getting open lane layups, Artest getting an open 3), how can you still blame the one guy that's causing all the open opportunities--Yao? If Yao had Pau's teammates, including KOBE--someone who can actually make the opponent pay almost every time for doubling Yao, just imagine how unbeatable the Lakers would be. This is not a knock on Yao's current teammates--they have fantastic chemistry without Yao and play with great effort, but the truth is they haven't learned to play with Yao at the highest level.
SergioValencia Scola plays off of Yao great ... really the whole team does a good job for the most part. We wouldn't have gotten out of the first round if they couldn't. It's natural for the team to be inconsistent making teams pay when you have a 2nd year point guard shoved into the starting lineup and Artest going 1 on 5 in the perimeter. But despite the inconsistency, this years team has been the best playing off Yao since he has been drafted in my opinion.
it's not about "bashing" or "praising." as far as i can see, no one is "bashing" yao. they are pointing out his flaws. and no one is labeling anyone a Y-O-F for "praising" yao - the label is thrown around for those who illogically refuse to acknowledge any of his shortcomings. this is a weak argument. no one ever fronted hakeem. no one fronts tim duncan. i guess that means yao is better than them? teams front yao because it is a sure fire way to take him out of the game. sorry, but this is incorrect. there aren't two or three remaining defenders, there are 4. teams don't sandwich yao. all that is necessary is fronting with one guy and he is completely out of the game. this is why when portland sandwiched yao, jvg expressed bewilderment saying it was completely unnecessary. that the fronting creates this world of opportunities for the other players has been very over-exaggerated by this board. i'm not saying that it doesn't present opportunities for the other players, but the claims are being greatly overstated. this is fresh. the standard yao defense - our guards suck. do you think that after playing for 7 years, 3 coaches, and a dozen or so guards, when the same problems persist, the problem just might lie with yao himself rather than the guards? especially when these same players have demonstrated themselves more than capable without him. another thing which hasn't been brought up yet, but invariably will at some point in this thread, is the notion that when we had tracy, we always beat the fronting defense because he could get the ball into yao. umm..what? that's news to me. we have never in his entire career had a consistent solution for the fronting defense - even with mcgrady. when you have a guy as talented a passer and scorer as t-mac was, and the problem still isn't solved, i think you need to be pointing the finger at someone else.
fronting yao started in 06-07 with the warriors. we still didn't know what to do WITH tracy. so having an elite guard wouldn't help much unless you completely ignore yao and run another play.
nah, you're wrong. it wasn't a problem at all when we had tracy because he could actually pass the ball unlike our current inept guards. how do i know this you ask? i don't recall any particular instances of this happening but i've read the claim repeated so many times on this board that it must be true. hey, what do you know, we have a game 7 tomorrow. our guards must not be so inept after all.
Apparently Kobe has matured and is trying to make game easier for his teammates, according to Kobe. Besides, when was the last time we see any trace of egotism in Yao?
@ the sarcasm. i think the thing our guards struggle with the fronting defense is b/c when yao is fronted, we still want to look for him and thus it takes too much time off the clock. therefore, when the clock is winding down and they have to go to option B, it's too late and thus the offense is stagnant. with yao out, you don't see that. you see us go to MULTIPLE reads. we obviously still prefer to go to scola or artest in the post. but if they are not there, we IMMEDIATELY go to other options. as a result, the offense isn't as stagnant. our guards this year are NOT inept. with yao, we can blame our guards for their inconsistent outside shooting b/c he does draw double teams (e.g. with rafer for instance). but please, fronting is basically yao's kryptonite. he'll never solve it unless he moves to the high post a little bit more and mix his game up. there's a reason AB plays better with yao out (i posted the stats of AB when yao has been out this year and he has been superb). and the last 3 games prove the same. AB is a guy who doesn't like to react to things, but attacks. i think yao's goal this year has to learn how to play more in the high post and develop a consistent midrange J. if not, fronting defenses will always slow him down.
Duncan has been fronted and I've seen it because I get league pass. It may not happen as prevalent as it does to Yao Ming because he is more mobile but I think Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili also have some say in it. In fact I know so because I've seen them penetrate relentlessly to start a game because they recognize the defense and make the necessary adjustments in the offense. You know what else is also over-exaggerated, that there is only one defender on Yao when he is fronted. There is always weak-side help guarding a space. Scola was wide open because of this zone in the Portland series. He is the player that is always open. For example, the San Antonio game in SA last season, Golden State games since Adelman, etc. How many Rocket games have you missed watching the past two years under Adelman? Cause if you saw all of them I don't know how you could have missed the improvements under Adelman against teams who have given us problems in the past. Golden State, Phoenix and this year against New York to name a few. Some of them without McGrady in the lineup. But the majority with him in it like the Miami game last year in the fourth quarter. The finger needs to be pointed at the team because it takes a team effort to beat the front. It's on both Yao and the guards.
