this is the first time i heard he wants to lead the team. it's good. whether the reporter made up or not doesn't matter. 2 or 3 years ago, i remember he said to the same reporter he had his own plan to get where he wanted to be. Now, with 6 games losing stretch, it's about right time to take over and lead this team not only to just win a few games but also to get deep into the playoff. if it's true, we should be happy. what hell ya'll complain about.
Talk is cheap. I want to see Yao lead the team on the court. If he really is a superstar, he has to ask for the ball and deliver (either score or find the open man) especially in the 4th quarter during crunch time. In the 80s, teams went to their go-to guys on almost every possessions down the stretch. I want to see the Rockets goes to Yao and he delivers.
your understanding of the leader is very shallow. the leader of a team is not neccessary the best player on the team (coincidently, yao is one of the two best players on our team). the leader is one whom other players trust and willing to listen to what he says and willing to do what he says. when the teammates need him during tough time, he will come out and lead the teammates over the bumps. the teammates have something they can rely on when they need most.
both versions are pretty good. it's interesting to compare actually. barrywzz's is more colloquial (like a native US speaker) but pryuen's is more detailed and you can kind of hear yao speaking through the translation because of the literal translations of chinese idioms and phrases
Yao must first fulfill this pre-requisite: Get rid of that f***ing Chinese nobility bs. Get that mean streak, and start f***ing s*** up!!!! I wanna see 5 flagrants and 3 people injured from a Yao elbow this year. Make point guards think twice about swiping at the ball or risk a concussion. Let other bigs know that if they jump over your back they will be missing a tooth or two. Anyone who tries to make a poster will only end up like a blueprint... laid out on the floor, with matching eyes. Seriously, as skilled as he is, I feel that he's way too nice. Don't help opponents up like Shane. I wanna see a clothesline Charles Oakley style. Opponents are gonna get scared. You'll see all his numbers go up. More rebounds cause nobody will box him out. More blocks because dudes will throw up shots that makes Rafer's floaters look like Jordan's layups. More points cause dudes will move out the way when he's in the paint rather than risk spending the nite in a coma. Unfortunately he might never be mean on the court, but at least make someone get fitted for a face mask.
um, duncan is quite nice. david robinson is quite nice. they both have rings in their collection. in fact multiples. patrick ewing and oakley were warriors, they never won anything. in fact, they were considered bullies back in the day and yet never won. it's simple: WIN and who the hell cares how nice/mean you are. just remember: THERE ARE MORE THAN ONE WAY OF ACHIEVING ONE GOAL.
Excuse me, but I am quite confused about many funs here said like " The 'it's on me' talk is useless, lead on the court ". Hey, it's absolutely true that Yao/Tmac needs to show their leadership on the court, play solid in the clutch time. But how does it hurt either one of them trying to lead vocally, off the court, expecially after such a bad 6-lose row? To me from this report I read a good sign. let's dont use the freaking word "leading", Yao steps up to communicate, with Tmac, with other teammates, with coach, and with referees too, if you noticed that he talked to referees after a bad call much more frequently than previous seasons. He is trying to do more than just working hard on the court to get this team more wins. He finally decided that it's no use to just imply to his teammates about how to play, he has to SPEAK IT OUT. I was specially interested in the parts of JVG's talk and the strategy to play Shaq. It shows how nice JVG is in person and how good the strategy he used to have on this ROX team is.
Robinson was soft and didn't win anything until Duncan came along..........Duncan has always been occassionally soft, but dude comes with his game face on and he's not letting Okur shut him down in a series......Bird,Magic,Dream,Jordan,Isiah,Wade,Shaq,Kobe,etc. all had certain demeanors about them when they won their titles......Tmac and Yao just don't have "it".....I'm so sick of the "I like the pieces we have here this year", "it's on me", "I'm going to step up and lead", etc. talk that I hear from these 2....NO ONE BELIEVES YOU!!!.......talk with your game.............and lets not let 6'2 Derrick Fisher keep us out of the lane....*cough* tmac *cough*
I think Jeff was giving him bad info, because Shaq went off the other night....it could've been a plot by JVG to make Yao look bad by showing him some bad defensive moves so Adleman would look like an idiot that knows nothing about defense................just a thought...........
Really can't agree with you. If you remember the games before Rox played lakers, Shaq did get doubled, hayes went to help. and on the other side they kept feeding Yao the ball and got Shaq in foul trouble. That's very good strategy. Shaq was on and off since last season, but you got to know that he's a kind of childish in some point, only a strong enough opponent like Yaoming would awake his willing of fighting. Given this, you should never look down to old shaq.
ok. duncan didn't have a great series v. the cavs in the finals last yr (he avg like 15ppg) and guess what => he won. why? HE HAS A DAMN GREAT TEAM. bird played w/ 2 HOFs. magic played w/ 2 HOFs. isiah played w/ one of the greatest teams of all time. dream had role players who actuallyed stepped up in crucial situations (yao and tmac had a freaking game where only 2 other role players scored for god sakes) jordan had great players at every position outside of center. shaq and kobe didn't win jack until phil came and control their egos (and not to mention they have better role plaeyrs than our 2 guys have x 10) at least bring better example of players who did more with less. OOPS, that NEVER HAPPENS.
I think he would. JVG probably knows that Yao isn't going to be very outspoken to the coach, and is just encouraging Yao to work WITH the coach, if Yao feels the need to do so in a strategic sense. If Yao is not comfortable with one of his responsibilities, Yao has to be the one to voice it.
yao will never be vocal. he'll never demand the ball. in order for him to lead he has to show it on the court. he needs to DUNK the ball, and punish people for coming in the lane. no more laying the ball up, DUNK THAT ****!. no more getting blocked by midgets like nate robinson or delonte west. id say 1/2 the people who watch the NBA still consider yao a soft stiff, and frankly i dont blame them.
Well honestly I think the title to this thread is a bit misleading.....but I guess posters in this board had too narrow a view on what leadership is about. Leadership does not mean being the highest scorer in the team or making clutch shots at the buzzer to win the game for the team. Yao Ming may not be a natural leader by birth, but he has shown he is getting there, first in the China national team in the 2004 Olympics when he blasted openly his team mates for their poor performance. And in this instance, he also showed his leadership by seeing/analysing the current problems of his team, and decided to voice it out and communicated first with Tracy McGrady and then to the rest of the Rockets. Let me elbaorate. The Houston Rockets enjoyed their best 6W 1L start of the decade, and everything seemed smooth and easy. Then came the tough back-to-back on-the-road schedule when they had to faced tough opponents like San Antonio Spurs, Dallas Mavericks and Phoenix Suns; coupled with TMAC's untimely injury, the Rockets tumbled from heaven to hell with a losing streak of 6, the heaviest they suffered for the past 2 years. Yet Rick Adelman seemed calm and not in any panic yet, and did not make any significant changes to the game plan or rotation. That's when Yao Ming thought the Rockets cannot continue like this; if this team continues like this, they'll be finished. Therefore he thought he needs to step up and talk it over with TMAC.....and they came to realize that the team is on wrong direction as far as on the offense is concerned, as in that skid of 6 consecutive defeats, the Rockets just forgot the essence of Rick Adelman's offense system, which is no ball movement and passing. Every offense was too focused either on TMAC or Big Yao, and that made the opponents easy to cut the supply/blood vessel down by either fronting or double-teaming either of them. Therefore realizing this, they improved in the Denver Nuggets game with more passing and no-ball movement and more communication and help defense on the court. Also another important message in this interview was while the Rockets gel and adapt to the new Rick Adelman's offense system, Yao Ming advocated that the Rockets should not give up and throw away what they are best at....which is defense by enhancing on their communication on the court, by helping each other out, and the result was immediately apparent in the Denver Nuggets game by outrebounding them by a huge margin, and suppressing their scoring to only 81 points. So don't just read literally into this interview and then start to tease Big Yao being soft, being not out-spoken for all these years, and why the hell all of a sudden come out to say it's time for him to lead this team. We should be glad that he is sober enough and have great concern about this team that he started to voice the problem areas out and communicate with Tracy McGrady and then to the rest of the team and Rick Adelman. To me, that's leadership in itself already.
