If you look the Rockets' offense weapons, you can see why they struggle so much to score points. 1) Yao is soft and is not ready to bang. He can't beat double-team. The outside "shooters" routinely miss the open shoots. 2) Guards need open lane to be efficient, which is incompatible with Yao inside. But if you move Yao to the arc. He will be too slow for offensive rebounds and also too slow for transition defense if the other team get long rebounds. 3) Mo is a post up player, he need time and open lane too to be effective. He is also a blackhole. Offensively, JVG can't do too much with the cards in his hand. So his emphasis on defense is right.
I agree with you DaDa. A lot of people think that I hate Yao which I don't. I think he can do a lot of things to help this team. But the thing that separates the elite players from the rest of the league isn't really talent. It's the hunger, drive, determination. That's why I never thought Yao would be a consistently dominant player in the NBA. He plays hard, but you can tell he doesn't NEED to win. He would like to win. He wants to win. But he doesn't NEED to win. He doesn't NEED to dominate. That's what the great ones have. A NEED to go out, dominate and win. I also think that the Rockets will always be second fiddle to his national team. He cares much more if they win or not. The Rockets or any other NBA team will never have Yao's heart because his heart is still in China. So he will go out and give you good number and have the occaisional eyebrow raising performance, but he's not going to drive himself to the brink in order for the Rockets to win. If you look over Yao's career, he has his best scoring games when the guards penetrate and dish to him either for a jumper or to finish at the rim. That is the offense we should be running. That would get us going offensively.
Before attacking the whole argument, just highlighting on this one comment shows how flawed the logic is. He prevents our guards from attacking the basket?? That's ludicrous. If our guards were smart, they would drive to the hole everytime and whent hey get double teamed pass teh ball off. Having also watched all of the games, it is clear that they do this all too infrequently. About 75% of the time they wil take a tough shot guarded by at least 2 people. 15% of the time they will pass the ball out to the perimeter. Maybe 10% of the time will they drop a pass to a big man. Half of those times it is a crazy alley-oop play to Cato, which though effective when it works, only works in itself half the time. When the pass is to Yao, he does fumble it occasionally, but that is because without fail Mobley will try and drop of a little bounce pass that, SHOCK, our 7-5 center has trouble grabbing at his ankles. Here's an idea, throw the ball up. Why doesn't Yao take advantage of his height? Why doesn't he ever get a pass right at the basket - the actual rim - it doesn't have to be an alley-oop either. 75% of the offensive (and defensive) problems are guard oriented. - Is there a team in the NBA worse at even getting the freaking ball inbounds? - Once in bounds, is there a team in the NBA worse at breaking the press? - Is there a team in the NBA worse at consistently getting a play started with half the play clock already gone? - Is there a team in the NBA worse at running the fast break? - Is there a team in the NBA worse at swinging the ball consistently and efficiently out of double teams on the perimeter? - Is there a team in the NBA with a worse assist to turnover ratio? - Is there a team in the NBA worse at letting their players drive by them easily to the whole? Surely, the Rockets aren't the worse in the league in the above categories, but they are among the worse. They have a lot of things to improve upon - what's made them a decent team thus far, though, is their fantastic interior defense and, as always, the fact that at the very least they are pretty good one on one players. Yao is obviously no Shaq. He's no Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett or Hakeem Olajuwon. Certainly not yet, likely not ever. But, after 5 years of watching the same two Rockets make the same stupid mistakes over and over and over again, it is clear where the problem on this team lies.
And I think that is why you don't hear Yao get criticized more on this message board. His potential is boundless and worth waiting for even if we wait three years and find that he just doesn't have the aggressive nature necessary to take his game to the high level we see the potential for. We have to let him play to the detriment of the team now in order to decide whether he's worth investing a huge contract in at the end of next season. Foreign born players that find success in the NBA usually did not bloom into the player we recognize now until they'd been in the league for three seasons and most of these players are European born players who have been playing closer to the NBA style of play than Yao has seen his whole life in China. For this reason, I continue to label Francis as the team's biggest problem because he does not bring $100million worth of on court performance to this team. He is a talented scorer, but a pathetic passer with zero professional basketball instinct. The Rockets should have gone another direction when Francis' rookie contract was up last year.
If the Rockets had not re-signed SF, they wouldn't have won 30 games last year. And would be one of the worst teams in the legue this year too.
At least they wouldn't have money tied up in a player that doesn't seem to be taking this team anywhere. I agree that getting rid of Francis NOW is problematic because no one is going to give us anything worth a damn for the guy given what he gives a team vs what he is paid. But I think the team made a mistake signing him to franchise money and will continue to think that as long as he plays like he has his first five seasons in the NBA.........that would be wreckless with some exciting moments. Love his rebounding because it shows he does hussle, but unfortunately he lacks the brain to go with that hussle to make proper guard decisions on the court.
I guarantee you the Rockets could trade SF in a day if they wanted to. They could trade him for Nash or Tony Parker straight up if they were foolish. SF is one of the few player in this league that can give you 20/6/6. He has proven this. That alone makes him a maz contract player. Secondly, he's the most high profile player we have. I don't know about China, but around the US, you see a lot more SF jerseys than you do YM.
(1) That tells you something about the metality of basketball fans in the U.S. (2) I think Francis' pathetic assist/turnover ratio outweighs his 20 points a game given the position he plays. (3) I would take Nash in a second over Francis. Maybe not Parker just yet, but Nash any day of the week, month, or year.
And what exactly had Nash done before he got surrounded by all that talent? Nothing. You need Nash when you have two or three other All Star Caliber players to take the primary burdens off of him. The Rockets don't have that. If they traded for Nash, they would need him to score.
Also, did you know that Nash only averages .5 fewer turnovers a game than Steve? Now, let's turn this thread back to its original slant. Yao is the main problem.
This is too funny...i cannot believe how many people are responding to say that DaDakota is right, that he has valid points. I've been saying this stuff about Yao since game 5...He's not a leader, not physically, and not emotionally...therefore all the calls for the Rockets to play everything through him are just plain dumb... Anyway, I basically agree with everything that Dakota said, except that if you start to put Yao out at the top of the key, i'm afraid he'll be even less effective offensively...I think our best chance of success is for someone to light a fire up his ass and get him to start playing like a man, like a mad man ! Peace out
No, I didn't know that stat. I do know that Nash makes the players around him better, something you can not say about Francis.
could you not also say the players around Nash are better, and quicker ? he doesn't play offense with 3 other guys (like we do because of Cato), but 4 ...and none of them show up on the offensive side 3 seconds after he does...
I simply watch the way Nash plays and compare it to the way Francis plays and I can say with full confidence that: (1) Francis is the more athletic player, but (2) Nash has a better understanding of the game of basketball than Francis does. Are you saying that if Francis was on the Mavs he would all of a sudden display a knowledge of the game that he hasn't shown in Houston??
Nice thread, DD, at least for discussion's sake. A few points... 1) We have incredibly high standards for center dominance. I think that's true even though Hakeem's glory days are seven or so years behind us. We really want Yao to have that sort of intensity, when very few centers ever get close to Hakeem's (or that of Moses, for that matter) intensity. 2) Get a new big man coach. I'm very serious here. If we know anything about Yao, it's that he's earnest, smart, and dedicated to improving. So coaching should stick to him like andymoon sticks to a drug-related thread in the D&D. Get Ewing out of there, and bring in a solid big man coach. We don't need a big name or anyone fancy -- just a solid BB guy who can teach. 3) I'm not sure it's in Yao's personality to lead, especially vocally. There's still a small chance that, once he's more comfy with the language, he'll demand the ball more, but I'm not holding my breath. Basically, I think we can all leave aside our hopes of him leading. I don't mean it as a criticism, but I want to suggest we just hope for something realistic: a guy who can go 22-12-3block regularly if someone else leads him.
This post is stupid. The offense is stupid. IF they will just move to the triangle, everyone can use their strengths. This set makes everyone weaker. It's not very smart. IF Mo T and Mobely are on the Left, and Steve and Yao on the Right, with Yao high and Steve Low, and a shooting SF (NOT JIM JACKSON!) at the arc, they can't be stopped. Steve can go backdoor, Yao can shoot over, Boki or Pike or whoever can shoot from the top. Everyone does what they are good at. Cat can iso, Mo T can shake and go across, they can pick and roll. I do not understand jamming Yao low. It's stupid.
The more I think about it, the more asinine our offense seems. Every single player is asked to be something they are not. Steve is supposed to be a passing point guard. Cat is supposed to be a spot up shooter. JJ is supposed to be able to shoot. Cato is supposed to be able to shoot. Yao is supposed to bang and post up. Every single player is at their weakness. That's dumb.
Hence the reason why "I hate JVG" club continues to grow. Coaching on this team is not right. JVG needs to change his style of coaching if his ego will let him. This reminds me of coach Bill Fitch who won a Championship with Boston (beating the Rockets) then went to Houston, then to New Jersey, then to the Clippers. He was an old school coach who never changed his style and couldn't win after Boston. His team in Boston was a monster and he had great talent. However, after Boston he couldn't repeat the success he had previous because he was just simply outdated and old school. He couldn't adapt to the NBA environment and change. JVG could still change because hes not that old but its up to him. I'm going to be optimistic that he will eventually learn and maybe bring in a different assistant coach - but that is definetly wishful thinking on my part.
These are good points, but on the other hand: Yao MUST post up, because he's freaking 7'5" and 315lbs and the post up play gets you closer to the basket and gives you a higher percentage shot. Steve MUST pass the ball because that's what point guards do and that's how the game of basketball is played. JJ, Cat and Cato MUST shoot the ball well when they are open because that's how teams score points. It's clear the team has zero offensive chemistry. If only we could trade Yao for LeBron... Too bad the Cavs would never go for it...
