Obviously, we disagree. The odds of this becoming a chronic condition though slight, yet are possible. It never ceases to amaze me how some people here (not you) still draw any Shaq comparison possible. And I do completely agree with you that it was our staff that sent him home early. My contention is that it wasn't early enough. As you said, Yao's a huge investment but every Rox season is also. I didn't see Yao limping around during the road trip and no mention has been made of his foot getting stomped on. It smells "fishy" to me, period. And I too have my own terrible infected big toe story which I really just want to forget.
T-Mac's going to love playing 45 minutes a night! Trades are necessary right now, smart trades like last season, trades that none of us think of but end up working out like last season. Yeah.
It's really sad,sad,sad. What's wrong with our team? What makes so many players down? This team can still win, at least this month with those crappy teams. But do our players have enough time to work together for the playoff? I thought we could win something this season. Now who knows?
Yao is clearly a very intelligent young man. What the hell is he doing treating himself, if that was the case during the summer, and why weren't doctors on top of all this? It's enough to boggle the mind. I know a lot of injuries are things a player just can't help, and that doctors do what they can, with things turning out well, or not. Frequently, the results are somewhere between lousy and ideal. The players learn to live with the results, or they have to hang it up. This sounds like something a teenager would do, and one who isn't worth millions, both to himself and to his team. How he could escape proper treatment for this is bizarre, and yet here he is, out for weeks, at best, and the alternative doesn't bear thinking about. Get well, big fella.
Well I suggested to rest Tmac in the away game at SA followed by a home game against DET and I was pretty much bombarded w/ hated comments so I've been keeping my opinions to myself for a while. Now I'm sure all rox fans here knows what happened back then. That said, I disagree with tanking the season. Rox trainers need to make sure that the max contract'd, soon-to-be #1 center in the league gets heal completely before letting his foot touch the ground. If we should make the playoffs afterwards, great, for this season a 7th seed is better for us than a our predicted 4th/5th seed anyway; if not, we have certainly found out what our weakness is, make some offseason moves and get a third offensive option (I would KILL for a Finley right now?) and moves on. That's my $0.2.
Before everyone gets all psycho and depressed, I'd like to say that we all should take a wait-and-see approach. The toughest part of our schedule is behind us. January is a relatively light month. If we can somehow hold on and be near .500 when Yao returns in early February then I'd say the season has been a resounding success. Now I have my doubts about how well we'll do, but we have no choice but to wait. Some players are going to have to step up, others will have to come back, and Tmac's going to have one hell of a load on his shoulders. No one should think this will be easy but as Rockets fans we should all have one thing in common: we believe!
LOL! I love it when I quote that movie line and all the young kids around here pipe up and tell me to take a history lesson!
The Rockets will make the playoffs and they will make some noise. I believe this will make the team better in the long run. I can't to see what Graham can do. "Get well my bruther" as Calvin Murphy would say.
Great post! I think there will some growing pains initially but I have faith that the players will step up to the challenge.
its a great thing that they diagnosed the osteo Yao had before it ate away at his bone. Or did they?? He's had problems with that toe for awhile. Anyway, its something that undoubtedly has affected his game, and its very treatable... a few weeks of IV antibiotics followed by oral antibiotics for a couple of months I believe. Bottom line... Yao should be coming back better than ever, the rest of the team just has to hold the fort. Having deke go down at the same time sucks tho.
Leslie Alexander said in the Chronical that he will be out for 7 to 10 days!! Ha....and all of you guys were worried.
The year we got Barkley, had the best record in the league about 20 odd games in, something really really good, I was thinking this might be the year we win 70 games too, we were one game up on the Bulls (I think that was the 68 wins season), Barkley, Drexler and Hakeem all went down at some point that year. We couldn't really develope chemistry until the playoffs and eventually lost the the Jazz in the playoffs.
