When people pull up a trade proposal involving Yao, they often say things like "basketball wise, this trade will improve Rockets, but les will never do it, because Yao brings millions to his pocket ..." etc. They seem to estimate Yao in two aspects: market wise and basketball skills wise. Well, in my opinion, a player's trade value includes both of these two aspects. Eversince les picked Yao in 2002, his personal wealth has increased 10 times, from 100 million to 1 billion (don't hold me on the numbers, I learned it somewhere on the internet), and he started to make some China-related investments, including buying shares of a China-based shoe company, stocks of some Chinese company in the Hong Kong stock market, and some real estate in Beijing. I'm sure that the increasement of his personal wealth has a lot to do with all these China-related investments, and of course the Chinese Ads in the Toyota Center. And the reason why les can approach these opportunities is purely because of Yao. This is part of Yao's value and les has been taking advantage of it. Now, people may think, well, that part of Yao's value only brings benefits to les, not the ball club. But guess what? The benefits les got out of Yao can easily be transferred to the ball club if he wants to. les pays Yao 16 millions a year, but earned much more than this number out of him and the Chinese market behind him. So basically speaking, bying owning Yao, Houston Rockets not only can have a top NBA center PLAYING FOR FREE, but also have more money which potentially can be used to buy other high quality players. Think about it, 1 billion dollars, how many D. Wade, or Kobe Bryant, or LeBran James can we buy? The reason why Houston's salary is not among the highest teams is simply because les exploited Yao's value and used it in his own way. That's just a legal and sophiscated way of stealing Houston Rockets' property. However, if you trade Yao to some other team, whose boss is a real basketball fan like Mark Cuban, What kind of monster roster will he buy with these extra 1 billion dollars? So, to anyone who thinks the team is better without Yao, or Yao = Marion + some potential 1st. round pick, you really need to think twice about Yao's value and what he can bring to the club. And we are only talking about his market value here, not including his basketball value as a rare top Center in the NBA. Remember, if you have Yao, he plays FOR FREE; but if you exchange him with someone else, even if the substitute plays better than Yao, but is it like 20 mil better ? If I were les, I would easily reject any trade involving Yao, even if the offer includes LeBran. That's my 2 cents about Yao's true value to this team.
Nobody in their right mind thinks Yao = Marion + crap. Thing is anyone with half a brain can start a thread. If anything, it would make more sense to trade TMac and get some shooters and good PG around Yao. We arent going to find a SF/SG like TMAC, so the most reasonable thing to do is get a good starting PG (no Alston, not you), and a backup C for Yao (Yoa? )
Think about it, the club isnt just a basketball club, its an enterprise, making money is its first thought.
Unfortunately, Alex is not Cuban, or we were another Boston already. If Alex can use what he earn from Yao, we could have Yao+T-Mac+Marion. So, Yao's value riched Alex, not Rocket, IMO.
No one gives a crap about over hyped James... LeBron James's First NBA Finals Game Nails Record-Low TV Rating http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601079&sid=a9CQPJOr1YEY&refer=home
I would say Yao makes more money for Les and the Rockets. Chuck Hayes has a shoe deal, need I say more. Oh but Lebron makes more for himself.
Perhaps if Les is really making a boatload of money/profit due to Yao's existenance, he would be willing to go over the salary cap to get another true 3rd star type talent much like the real contenders in the NBA (Boston, San Antonio, LA Lakers, Phoenix Suns, etc)? The Rockets have some really nice talent, a lot of very good role players aka "glue" guys (Chuck, Luther, Deke, Shane, Rafer, Scola, BJax, etc) but unfortunately that's just all they are--good role players. I say we have too many to the point that we don't have enough ballers, true scorers that when a game is bogged down (ala playoff type games), can impose their will and have better than 40% odds of putting the ball in the basket or get to the free throw line with a better than 75% odds of making free throws. I mean really, with Yao out, we only have one real "scorer" in TMAC and even he is much more hit/miss than other elite scorers in the league and his FT shooting is atrocious down the stretch. Not only that, having a PG like Rafer who thinks he is a scorer exacerbates the problem when he refuses to give the ball up to TMAC in crunch time and instead jacks ill-advised contested jump shots with only 5 seconds of the shot clock. Collectively, the team defense is pretty damn good, the scrappy hustling nature of the team can be attributed to the great role players, but the inability to have more scoring options against decent defensive teams will hurt the Rockets come playoff time.
To the op, the marion/yao deal doesn't make basketball sense, but u have, like other overvalued yao to the rox. Yao is more valuable to the league than to Les. Why? Revenue Sharing. I've said it a billion times, but people don't hear me. Parking, luxury boxes and concessions are the only money that isn't divided 30 ways. If u want to say Yao makes the rox more visible, i'll agree, but that doesn't do much. I'm not here to diminish yao, I'm just trying to let people know the truth. This isn't mlb where team market themselves and keep all the money. All the money generated from jerseys, overseas tv/radio right a go into a pot and is equally split. That's why the clipps owner makes so much money. He spends near the basement, but all suite are sold out, parking and hot dogs are a arm and leg, and he get his 1/30 from the ming,james, and kobe popularity. Sterling probably haven't spent the money from the johnson/bird era.
Yao's value is conditional.... He has to stay healthy to get maximum value, but with him breaking down the last 3 years and his CNT committments, it lessons his overall NBA value. That is not a knock on Yao, it is just the truth. I would not trade the big fella, I want him to retire a Houston Rocket.....but sometimes it is fun to peek over the fence to see what the other guys back yard looks like. DD
Thank you, I was beginning to think I was the only one who knew this. Its not a Yao or Tmac thing. If anything, our stars have overacheived with crappy role players and prevented us from getting good draft picks in the past. Most of the good teams have guys coming off the bench as good as our 3rd and 4th options.
I don't believe Yao made Les 10 times wealthier. I also don't believe just because Yao plays for the Rockets that the whole Asian market is jumping on the Rockets. It's not like Yao is part owner of any of the big businesses in Asia. Yao brings attention for the Rockets and generate business partnerships for the Rockets. But to think that just because he plays for Rockets that every business in Asia wants to be affiliated with Rockets does not make sense. An analogy is to look at the athletes and actors. They are extremely popular, but there are people who have fortunes in the billions that are like never heard of, except if you read Forbes magazines. So just because a person is popular, that does not mean he makes billions. There have been huge China-US business deals larger than these shoe deals long before Yao became a Rocket. Also, China is not a rich country. Most of those 1.3 billion have to work just as hard as anyone over here. So say they love Yao alot. It's not like they'll fly over here to see him play and generate a billion dollars more for Rockets. Plus, it's soccer that is their main sport.
If he was getting half the money generated by yao, he would spend like the knicks. I mean how many times have the rox used the full mle on 1 player. Really chew on this. i'll take the rox and lakers for example. Kobe/tracy, yao/pau make the same money, but odom makes 9m, and fisher/vlad make ml money. If les was making so much, where is our 9m player? Shane make a little more than mle, bj is at the end of a mle and rafer signed for less than mle a few yrs back. If a good owner was making all this money why is being 2m over lt if u can win a ring? I'm going to find the link about revenue sharing then we can talk real trades about yao.
From what I understand all franchise revenue is coupled together with everyone else. At least as far as merchandise goes. So Yao isn't directly providing a lot of income for Les, but definitely the NBA. His name is providing exposure as well to all other franchises and that of course is more money. Attendance is consistent I bet and hasn't changed much. You still hear often about how the Houston home crowd doesn't always show much interest in the game or on the court. I'd imagine Yao is bringing Les income by exposure on tv ratings possibly, but definitely by advertisers looking to have their ads placed on court side by the scoring and televising table. Yao has helped Les make more money, but not in the context you put it. Also wasn't there a report on here about one of Les Alexander's investments costing him hundreds of millions of dollars?
