RoxMac, No I pity your soul, sir. You obviously extrapolating from my posts what you wanted and discarded the rest. I DID make mention of ALL in my original post if you bothered to actually read it where I made mention of unique talents. Excuse me for apparently pissing on the sacred shrine.
hatemavs4life, my Billy Madison comment wasn't meant to be offensive by any means, it was just a joke that would give everyone a good laugh, and I do agree with your original point that Yao won't be moved/traded EVER. I also empathize with you in your current situation because I was in similar situations several times (you know, when you're trying to make a point and you bring an unnecessary example, which ends up misunderstood, then the whole thread and your original post end up being totally derailed because everyone is focusing on this little brain fart and forgetting the big picture) I fully understand what you're talking about.. HOWEVER, I still think you shouldn't get away with making up an imaginary weakness for Hakeem just for the sake of your argument without getting flamed a bit..
Ok, thanks for the clarification. IMO total package wise Olajuwon until further notice IS the best ever but, stats wise he wasn't but he did things that defied logic, defied all reason. He was unbelievably gifted! Very fortunate to see someone great like him. If only we could have had that dream matchup in the finals in 97! Win or lose. I would've been satisfied not happy but I could deal with it. That's why all time I hate Utah's guts to infinity squared. I only hate the mavs to infinity. BTW, my mistake for flaring my nostrils at you. Nothing personal! It's my irish temper coming out I guess. I'm stubborn to a fault. I admit it! The imaginary weakness though as you called it is just the stats. No biases or preconceived notions. I don't think Olajuwon had any weaknesses much either but, the stats tell a different story. Just saying ... Yes, Yao at this point is not HOF material (other than perhaps by default) but, he has more years to prove if the last two are more rule than the exception.
LOL dude.. I know exactly how you feel right now: 22 posts and not a single one addressing the original point/idea of the thread.. Man, do I hate it when this happens, and it has happened to me several times.. I definitely think we need a trade to shake things up, maybe send Alston and Head out of town since their stocks are very high at this point. But I truly believe that any trade involving Yao (or McGrady) is unrealistic right now and it would pretty much mean that we are back in the "building" process that we've been going through for a very long time now.. maan, is it annoying when the Rockets lose.. I had so much hope for this team, I couldn't see how we could lose a single game! I was almost confident of a 65+ win season. I imagined how McGrady and Yao would have an off night, but Francis, James, Bonzi, and Scola would pick up the slack and get us a win.. I dreamed about having starters in for only the 1st to get a huge lead then working on the confidence of the rookies in "garbage time" which would be the whole second half..
"Considered weak and prone to injury"? By whom? YOU?!? Kareem played 20 seasons in the league and only TWICE did he play less than 74 games -- and he NEVER played less than 60. He averaged 78 games per year over his entire career. And that's "prone to injury"? Looking at it another way, for his career, Kareem played more games per season than ALL of these great centers: Chamberlain Russell Olajuwon O'Neal Ewing Malone Duncan Robinson Parish I'm sure I've left out a center or two, but the point is that Kareem was not considered weak by anyone with any knowledge of the game, and not only was he NOT injury-prone, he was among the most *durable* players the game has ever seen. Your claim is absolutely ludicrous. Dude, I know you're just trying to make a point here, but you totally invented most of your evidence. And as the Bush administration can tell you, if you just pull "facts" out of your a$$ to justify your position, somebody's gonna call you on it.
Ok, I retract the injury-prone. I just remember Jabbar getting banged around a lot and he seemed to get hurt a lot even if it did not necessarily mean getting injured. As a shooter, Jabbar was better but ... overall IMO no contest, Olajuwon's total package would've been better than Kareem even in his prime. I mean Olajuwon was a finesse player and yes he had some bad injuries but, thought the two go toe to toe that Olajuwon was the tougher one but, yeah I reckon I could be talking out my ASS on this one! I was a teenager when the Olajuwon era started so ... fine, guilty as charged. Again though, if we REALLY want to get down to brass tax on this, every era, every person who grew up from that particular era could argue either pro or con in any and every conceivable manner and be right! Example: the 50s and 60s teens would say Russell best ever! Hey, he won 8 straight NBA titles and 10 overall with Auerbach but, how many teams were there back then? That's why the 80s Lakers and 90s Bulls are special teams. Many more hills to climb now. 30 to be exact. So, could we put a halt to the comparison **** and discuss the original intent of the thread? Ok, thanks.
you can insult the Pope all you want, as long as you don't insult Maxwell or Kenny Smith, i'm cool with it!
Haha! V-Max insulted himself and his teammates with his erratic play. He could've been a great one if he harnessed his desire and energy and focused. Kenny, man what a gem! Just when you'd think he didn't have it, he'd surprise you. Man, he had guts. That performance in game 1 vs Orlando nothing short of legendary simply a legendary performance. That 3 ball to tie it quite possibly best ever considering circumstances, sense of urgency, tactics and lastly, flawless execution under extreme duress.
LOL, I don't think your calculation makes sense. You'd better calculate all 6 seasons till now as a whole to see if his FG% > 50% or not. If yes, that's for sure consistent.
Many people fail to indicate that with the new nba rules YAO is at a disadvantage. When Hakeem, Kareem and the rest of the HOF centers played there was "illegal defense" which allowed centers to more easily get the ball and dominate a player one on one. The new rules allow double teams before the player gets the ball and allows zone defenses which can be used to surround a player and negates any spacing so a player can concentrate just on help, not needing to guard another player.
I doubt it....they all still would be HOFers. They could always beat the team or manuever through it. Yao makes it look much more difficult because he has poor hands and very poor mobility along with being soft.
hmm, i give you points for your kenny analysis, but you seem to forgot who hit all those clutch 3s back in the day. see game 7 vs the knicks 4th quarter NBA FINALS!
"Main problem with this team IMO is too many supporting cast players with incomplete games." So true, can't agree more.
If hakeem had a tracy mcgrady by his 3rd year in the league, he would have won multiple rings in the 80's. Hakeem was a 20ppg 14reb and 4 blks during a span in the 80's. Defensive player of the yr. If you want to tell me yao is good, not great, i can back u on that, but dont even put him in the same sentence as even david robinson. The rox cant even win games without mcgrady. I dont care about chineese endorsments and people laughed at me earlier, but i'm talking about right now. If the clippers offered you Kaman and maggette for Yao right now, why wouldn't you take it? I mean Kaman is 18ppg 13rebs 2.7 blks 48% 77ft. Maggette is 20ppg 6 rebs 44% plus he gets to the line. Kaman is 25 and maggettte is 28. whats up with that. I know politics has something to do with it, so i think getting a guy like childress and zaza for shane would be doable. I know childress can give us more than shane and he's younger, more atheletic, can handle the ball and if he was getting the 36 mins he would be like 14-15ppg 6 rebs couple assist. I think Zaza could start along yao and get double-doubles. This team might as well focus being a half court team, which is what they are.
The only way Yao gets traded is that some other Chinese star is back in return, actually i can only think of Yi, but maybe in the future there are more and a trade becomes viable.