When T-Mac was injured, Yao was lack the ability to win a match by himself. Now Yao is injured, can T-Mac lead this team to win? We will see what happens in the coming matches. When Yao was in difficulty, I did not see support, all I saw was "Transfer him!", "useless","not worth it". Come on, basket Ball is not a one man game! Every champion team of NBA has at least two key players. Spurs has Duncan, Parker, Billy. Lakers has Kobe, O'neal, Fisher. Piston has two Wallece. If Houston want to become one of them, she needs to have at least two key players. T-mac is one, who has the ability to be the second? Remember, when O'neal was in Orlando, he could only dunk but nothing else, no middle range shot, no assit, Orlando never had the chance to become a champion team. But when Phil Jackson got O'neal, he changed the big guy into the most powerful center of the whole divisions. Yao has many physical advantages, he can definitely become another great center! You do not have to expect him to be more powerful than O'neal, but Rockets has the second greatest center, dont be too greedy. What we really need is a coach who can make Yao into a real monster!
I think you were dead on until the last sentence. I don't think Houston needs a coach that will make Yao a monster, I think Houston needs coaching that will provide the team to work better as a unit. Don't get me wrong, JVG is a particularly good coach, especially with clashing game styles and personalities, but he's a bit overmatched this year with injuries and chemistry complexities that no one could have counted on. I'm not even saying you have to replace Jeff, but he needs to create a working environment for these strangers that complements the abilities of the group. We've seen the offense either run through Tracy or Yao, and those are mutually exclusive offensive outputs. Put them together into a nice inside-outside game, paired with some good perimeter shooting (not entirely by TMac) and some players who are willing to hit the boards (I have no clue why Stro and Howard just aren't getting it done), and you've instantly got yourself a threat to steal a game every night. Obviously, I'm no personnel genius, or I wouldn't be writing here, but a good place to start would be to rid the Houston bench of Patty Ewing's influence on their inside game. He was no banger in the day, and he's not teaching nowadays. Worst tutor to pair with Yao? Perhaps.
I think you are right, I dont hate JVG, I'm just getting frustrated by the team's lose. Let's not blame anybody and give the team time to work everything out.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting mibfeng:</div><div class="quote_post">I think you are right, I dont hate JVG, I'm just getting frustrated by the team's lose. Let's not blame anybody and give the team time to work everything out.</div> yeah, btw, only a 1/4 of the season gone by...
There is cause for concern, even though half our team in injured. McGrady is not playing at the level of last year, let alone his years in Orlando when he was arguably the best wing player in basketball. He seems to have lost a step as far as getting past his man, and he's not exploding past double teams the way he used to. When I look at the offense, there seems to just be a lot of confusion. It's not fluid at all, and the spacing looks terrible. On several occassions in the last game, I saw POINT GUARDS setting picks for McGrady on the perimeter? Huh?! What's that possibly going to achieve, other than drawing another perimeter defender to put on him? McGrady isn't himself, and it's unclear how Yao will recover from his surgery. Stromile looks completely lost in Van Gundy's system and Alston appears to be a bust even when healthy. DA is wildly inconsistent. After the first game, Barry has been in a slump all season. Yep, I'm fairly dejected right now.
Point guards setting picks? Jesus, that's out of this world. That should prove my point about softness quite nicely. The big men won't even set picks, even though they spend all day outside the paint, hmmm. Jeff's system has been unnecessarily inconsistent, but putting that on TMac, when it sounds like nobody has any clue what's going on is a little much. You'd think a guy like Jon Barry would fit nicely in this offense, but if it's not there, it's not there.
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">You'd think a guy like Jon Barry would fit nicely in this offense, but if it's not there, it's not there.</div> Jon Barry's been injured for most of the time. And his shot has been off when he wasn't except for the season opener if I recall.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting mibfeng:</div><div class="quote_post">maybe houston need someone like Nash or Kidd</div> And how do we get them? Maybe we need someone like Duncan too, eh, while we're at it? Get realistic.
while its expected that the offense will suffer do to so many injuries, the biggest problem has been defensively for the Rockets...over the past five games (2-3), they've allowed 92 ppg, 45% FG shooting, 24 apg, and 40% 3PT shooting, which is inexcusable...
