Rockets can NOT win it all with Yao in the middle

[GermanFan120]

Yao is one of the most overrated center who

1) moves slow on D
2) unable to rebound well
3) occasionally a shot blocker
4) unable to dominate the paint
5) physically and mentally soft
6) bad stamina, only show up in limit mins
7) turnover maniac due to stamina problem
8) lose jump ball against anyone

I know you guys won't be happy about this, i just wanna point out that Rockets is a good team now, but they need someone else to be able to win it all, i like the chance for Rockets, but with Yao in the middle, it is not gonna get done!

I am a Chinese guy, I am proud of him playing in NBA, but also i am a truth teller who thinks Yao is overrated. 2nd round exit or trade him, make your choice!

[MaxRider]

Told you Adelman wont be a good coach for Yao. We should've promote Thibodeau as our head coach after JVG. It's too late now. Unless Les wanted to trade away his biggest golden egg. It's now Adelman job to get everyone to play off of Yao. Fernandez is awesome this kid never stop moving, we need this type of player playing around T-Mac and Yao. Too bad Portland messed up our draft again!!!

[GermanFan120]

Told you Adelman wont be a good coach for Yao. We should've promote Thibodeau as our head coach after JVG. It's too late now. Unless Les wanted to trade away his biggest golden egg. It's now Adelman job to get everyone to play off of Yao. Fernandez is awesome this kid never stop moving, we need this type of player playing around T-Mac and Yao. Too bad Portland messed up our draft again!!!

you are so right! no one will actually trade Yao because of his market value in China, its just too much money to give up so i think you guys are pretty much screwed

[moofs]

I've said that for 3 years now. This year is pry the best shot we'll have at winning with him since 2005, though I still think we'd have rolled last year if not for all the late season injuries. It's not impossible, but he does have a lot of shortcomings in his ability that have to be compensated for.

[GermanFan120]

i don't wanna jinx this great Rockets team, but injuries cannot be prevented again this season.

why? Tmac and Yao's body condition is just like that, they just cannot keep healthy after 82 games... You never see Artest or Kobe or even Dirk injure that often. The only solution will be to limit Tmac and Yao's mins like how Celtics play KG. However it will cost Rockets more games to lose

[MaxRider]

I've said that for 3 years now. This year is pry the best shot we'll have at winning with him since 2005, though I still think we'd have rolled last year if not for all the late season injuries. It's not impossible, but he does have a lot of shortcomings in his ability that have to be compensated for.

This year we have better shot than JVG era. But we are missing two pieces. One backup big man and a backup PG. Brooks aint PG he's a scoring guard under 6'.

[abcdef]

Yao is in the midst of a quick, ugly decline. This year he will be an average player, next year he will be a bad player, the next he will be a complete scrub, and he will retire when his contract runs out because he will only get minimum salary offers. It is obviously best to trade him now while he still has some value.

[MaxRider]

Yao is in the midst of a quick, ugly decline. This year he will be an average player, next year he will be a bad player, the next he will be a complete scrub, and he will retire when his contract runs out because he will only get minimum salary offers. It is obviously best to trade him now while he still has some value.

Yao is slow, but he's still a threat on the offense. But we can't keep him on the floor if he's bad on defense. We just need 4 good defenders on the floor to cover for Yao as well.

[smapor]

Yao is one of the most overrated center who

1) moves slow on D
2) unable to rebound well
3) occasionally a shot blocker
4) unable to dominate the paint
5) physically and mentally soft
6) bad stamina, only show up in limit mins
7) turnover maniac due to stamina problem
8) lose jump ball against anyone

I know you guys won't be happy about this, i just wanna point out that Rockets is a good team now, but they need someone else to be able to win it all, i like the chance for Rockets, but with Yao in the middle, it is not gonna get done!

I am a Chinese guy, I am proud of him playing in NBA, but also i am a truth teller who thinks Yao is overrated. 2nd round exit or trade him, make your choice!

I know you are dishearten but in some ways your statements are incorect

1. Moves Slow - True, but ever since Yao arrived to the Rockets they have been one of the best teams to hold opps FG% low. Granted he may not be the best shot blocker, but people have to alter thier shots.
2. Rebound - In some ways he is not the best, but he is not the worse. Anybody who can average 10 rebounds is not a horrible rebounder. However he is very good at boxing out his player so his teamates can attempt to get a rebound. There were a few rebounds he choose not to get but allowed his team to pick it up by boxing out Portland C
3) occasionally a shot blocker - Yep only avg 2 rebounds a game is not awesome, but his biggest impact is altering shots (no stats on that number)
4) unable to dominate the paint - True but we all seen spurts that he can, too bad its only spurts (mental, physical who knows)
5) physically and mentally soft - Maybe but i guess we won't know unless you drag a 7'6 frame around and play basketball all year around.
6) bad stamina, only show up in limit mins - i disagree he is averaging 37 mins a game and quite frankly this is Ric's fault on time management.
7) turnover maniac due to stamina problem - What he is avgering 1.6 TO this season, his normal avg is 3 TO
8) lose jump ball against anyone - so what, is this worse than T-mac taking a long ass jumper when the Rockets need the go ahead score and than to only have a long rebound happen and the opp goes down the court and drives for a layup?

He is overrated because we make him overrated.

He is pretty much a 20/10 player for the last 3 years, i guess you can say that is overrated because we all expect him to be a 35/15 player, who has a vertical of 24".

I still expect him to be a 20/10 player at the end of the year or near it, unless his injury is finally catching up.

Take a deep breath, its only 5 games and 2 horrible games by Yao. Hey i wanted to punch him in the face last night too.

now if only we can combine Scola/Landry/Hayes into 1 person and find us a better PG than Rafer (I pray AB starts)

If JVG saw anybody complain about Yao's defense, he probably would slap you silly, as has stated he thinks Yao is one of the best defensive center (today), because he does the little things. He ain't a monster but as in Team defense (he is one of the top ones in our team) because quite frankly Scola, Rafer, and T-mac has isssues for various reasons.

Anybody notice as soon as you insert Hayes, portland only scored 16 pts in the 4th, thats because Alderidge wasn't burning Scola's ass. (do we blame this on Yao?)

[NYKnick87]

Overreacting much? Yao, like all other players in this league, has his flaws. However, who are you going to replace him with. Better yet, why would you want to replace him? He has had 2 bad games in a row and all of a sudden some fans want to trade him. TWO GAMES! Remember two weeks ago against Dallas? What were you saying then? Up until the loss to the Celtics, the Rockets were 19-0 with Yao. So now they're 19-2. Yao isn't the problem. Nobody is right now. T-Mac and Yao are coming off of injuries, Artest is being incorporated into the offense, Barry is the new backup PG/SG, Brooks is now getting significant minutes (and deservedly so), Battier isn't playing, Deke is no longer here, etc. etc. etc. Last year the Rockets were 15-16 after 31 games and the prospects of the team going anywhere was dim. Well we all know what happened afterwards. Remember....5 games....

[PocketRockets]

For real, Yao isn't the problem...it's our undersized PF's!!! Are you guys blind? Whether Yao is out/in, the other team's big men are killing us on the boards. It was so sad that AB had to stay in and help rebound a couple of times last night. That's pathetic!! All our man-love for Scola and Landry are crap. We need to trade one of them and get a legit PF that can guard decently, but mainly grab rebounds. That's all we freaking need!!

U see the way we can push the tempo with brooks and Artest. They had some good fast breaks from turnovers, but the same can be done if we could push the tempo. I don't know the stats when we get a lot of fast break points, but it would definitely help our halfcourt offense as it's seemed to be out of sync right now. AB/artest/mac cant do that though b/c our damn "big men" can't grab a damn defensive rebound (against Bos/Port). Sorry for the language, but I'm sure you all know how it feels when the other team is getting like 3-4 offensive rebounds a possession.

Also, is it just me or does it feel like our team is really cocky and feels like they can just turn it up the last 7-8 mins or so? This has got to stop and it starts with Rick. He's gotta keep the fire and sense of urgency going all game. You're a freakin professional. You play until ur up 30, maybe then the coach can tell the players to slow it down a little. I agree with some of you....RAdelman hasn't lived up to his expectations...and if he doesn''t soon...fire his ass.

[Baller 24]

Haha, give this roster time man. They need time to get adjusted, they need to find the perfect rotation/offensive scheme. Rockets.com, Rick Adelman, and the rest of the coaching staff all said that this roster is a work in progress at the moment, and don't be shocked if we are around .500, the panic button is far from our reach as its only been 5 games; in which 2 of Yao played terrible. I remember the Dallas game, everyone was praising his performance, early MVP props lol...panic button is out of reach as of right now, cannot use it because the season just started.

[Iggyemu]

Overreacting much? Yao, like all other players in this league, has his flaws. However, who are you going to replace him with. Better yet, why would you want to replace him? He has had 2 bad games in a row and all of a sudden some fans want to trade him. TWO GAMES! Remember two weeks ago against Dallas? What were you saying then? Up until the loss to the Celtics, the Rockets were 19-0 with Yao. So now they're 19-2. Yao isn't the problem. Nobody is right now. T-Mac and Yao are coming off of injuries, Artest is being incorporated into the offense, Barry is the new backup PG/SG, Brooks is now getting significant minutes (and deservedly so), Battier isn't playing, Deke is no longer here, etc. etc. etc. Last year the Rockets were 15-16 after 31 games and the prospects of the team going anywhere was dim. Well we all know what happened afterwards. Remember....5 games....

FLAWS A NUMBER 1 OPTION SHOULD NOT. Would you agree?

That makes McGrady our number 1 option and we have tried that...it doesn't work. My only hope is that Artest and McGrady can work well together when Battier comes back and Artest and focus on scoring more.

[teamny1]

Yao is not Option #1. Him and McGrady share that title with Artest as of right now as #2. Best projection would be all 3 play off each other and are #1a,b, and c. Look at any bigman in the game that you can consider #1, they all have flaws which are/can be very detrimental. Dwight can't recognize doubles, can't shoot free throws, which makes him a liability at the end of games. Duncan's free throws are weak too, and he is much more likely to take a fadeaway jumpshot than pound it in ala Shaq, Dwight, Amare. Amare doesn't play defense and barely rebounds. Bosh settles for jumpshots all the time and his D is suspect. You can go on and on.

Yao is not good at pounding it inside so I don't know why people still expect him to. Yeah, he's bigger than everyone else but he's also slower than everyone else. He can push people in but his slow movements easily allow a help defender to come and block him since he doesn't get good lift. Yeah, he's slow on defense and against guys 8 inches shorter than him with good footwork and speed, he has trouble. Duh, anyone would if it's one on one and you're the bigger slower guy. He doesn't get rebounds as much as we'd like, but he also seals his man and lets other guys take rebounds from him. What's the problem if it's our team getting rebounds? I could count infinitely more times Yao going for a block or sealing his guy off and the rest of the team doesn't try to get boards at all than Yao missing a rebound.

[Spanish_Laker]

Agreed. Yao is a nice post player IMO, but he is really soft and a turnover machine for the Rockets, I like his nice shooting touch but he is not good enough at what he needs to be. He can´t even dominate the paint being guarded by smaller centers, he refuses to have contact inside, he always does the same predictable plays (catching and fadeaway, 10-18 foot jumpshot, babyhook) and the most hilarious thing about Yao is that he´s easily blocked by everyone, moreover he is really a bad shot-blocker, very bad at timing, he´s only getting blocks because of his huge body.

That´s not all, I also think he has been always lacking HEART and ATTITUDE during his NBA career. We´ve seen it when T-Mac has been injured/sidelined, Yao can´t lead a team, Yao can´t be an efficient reference, he needs to be on a team leaded by a superstar (TMAC) to have enough spaces for himself and to be able to contribute. Despite last game´s uncredible shot, he is NOT a clutch player, he usually dissapears when the game is on the line. Anyway, the Rockets should trade him now that he has still some market value.

[Iggyemu]

Agreed. Yao is a nice post player IMO, but he is really soft and a turnover machine for the Rockets, I like his nice shooting touch but he is not good enough at what he needs to be. He can´t even dominate the paint being guarded by smaller centers, he refuses to have contact inside, he always does the same predictable plays (catching and fadeaway, 10-18 foot jumpshot, babyhook) and the most hilarious thing about Yao is that he´s easily blocked by everyone, moreover he is really a bad shot-blocker, very bad at timing, he´s only getting blocks because of his huge body.

That´s not all, I also think he has been always lacking HEART and ATTITUDE during his NBA career. We´ve seen it when T-Mac has been injured/sidelined, Yao can´t lead a team, Yao can´t be an efficient reference, he needs to be on a team leaded by a superstar (TMAC) to have enough spaces for himself and to be able to contribute. Despite last game´s uncredible shot, he is NOT a clutch player, he usually dissapears when the game is on the line. Anyway, the Rockets should trade him now that he has still some market value.

Dam..tell us how you really feel. You are right on most fronts. But I think the Rockets will simply let him walk in 2010.

[abcdef]

Dam..tell us how you really feel. You are right on most fronts. But I think the Rockets will simply let him walk in 2010.

This is true because he will be worth no more than a minimum salary in 2010. The handwriting is on the wall. He is in the midst of a quick, ugly decline that will force his retirement once his contract is up. He is finished as a legitimate NBA player.

[TMU]

Dam..tell us how you really feel. You are right on most fronts. But I think the Rockets will simply let him walk in 2010.

This is true because he will be worth no more than a minimum salary in 2010. The handwriting is on the wall. He is in the midst of a quick, ugly decline that will force his retirement once his contract is up. He is finished as a legitimate NBA player.

I hope you are being sarcastic.

Right now we're blaming everything on Yao which I think is unfair. Our poor defense and lack of effort off the glass are the two main concerns. McGrady and Artest also should get some of the blame.

[Iggyemu]

I hope you are being sarcastic.

Right now we're blaming everything on Yao which I think is unfair. Our poor defense and lack of effort off the glass are the two main concerns. McGrady and Artest also should get some of the blame.

I am sure he is.

I agree Yao doesn't deserve all the blame. As I stated in another thread we did a poor job constructing the PF position. We knew Yao was soft and didn't play well when teams were physical with him. You need for lack of a better reference...Kelvin Cato...next to Yao. We don't so he is relied on to snag every big rebound and he just isn't that type of player. He never was.

As currently constructed we can't win with Yao b/c he doesn't give the team what they are lacking in the front court. And if you are physical with him he isn't going to score 30 points and make up for what he lacks defensively and on the boards. For a guy 7'5...he plays like he is 6'8 and you can't have that.

[NYKnick87]

Yao is what he is. A talented but flawed center that can give you 20 and 10. You guys are all talking about who's the number 1 option and what not, but the truth is that nobody on this team is or should be the number 1 option. It should already be an accepted fact that the centerpieces of this roster, Yao and McGrady, both have huge flaws in their game. That is why it has been so important for the Rockets to acquire other pieces to help them out, and it seems like management have finally accumulated the pieces to give the team a legitimate shot at a title run. What's incredible is that the yearly chants for trading Yao have started just 5 games into the season. Ridiculous.

Forget about who's going to the number one option. T-Mac isn't going to carry this team by himself at this stage in the season or his career, unless he transforms into the beast he was in Orlando. Yao isn't capable of being the "main man". Artest? Forget about it. The fact is that in order for this team to win, they have to be given the time to gel. This team is a whole lot more improved and talented than it was last year. Once all the pieces start clicking, nobody will be wanting to trade anyone. The 22 win streak proved one thing about this team - the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. That's why I say forget about the "number one option" label - it just doesn't apply to the Rockets.