Yao calls out team again
December 11th, 2007by John
For the second straight game, Yao stepped up after a lackluster game by the Rockets. Here’s what he said after the Philly debacle last night.
“When you are soft yourself, everything will feel tough. It’s not because they are so tough. It’s because of how soft we are.
“It’s weird that we changed that quick. I never had that feeling. I feel like they traded me to another team, a new team I’ve never been on before.”
Yao has called out his Chinese national teammates before, but this is really the first time he has done it with his American teammates. I really think that Yao can be a leader, but it takes a disaster like this one to get him there.
December 11th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
John, I don’t believe Yao can be a leader. He is to soft. He misses layups instead of dunking, he don’t use his big butt to block out on rebounds, he passes up to many shots, he makes to many turnovers, he lazy, and he gives up to much. Thats not a leader. Thats not all - star material. I don’t think I will vote for him any more this season for all - stars. Fran Blinebury said the team has no leader, Yao and Mcgrady relied on Van Gundy to be leader. I never heard a team who needed a coach to be team leader. If thats true, no wonder why the Rockets never could win a playoff series.
December 11th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
I don’t think Fran Blinebury (spelling?) could have been any more right about JVG being the leader of this team in years past. We’ve got to face the fact that neither Yao nor Tmac is a leader. In order to lead you have either got to have a driving personality or you have to be the best player on the floor. But you have to be one or the other. Rarely are Yao and Tmac either, especially this season. Yao is often the best center, but never the best player, and Tmac is only the best player once in a while. Neither has a demanding personality. What is said to the media is a joke. Obviousley the other players aren’t listening to Yao. Hate to say it but I think the dream of Yao being a leader is fast fading. Sad to pay someone (this goes for Tmac too) a max salary and have to look to your role players for leadership. Also, Yao’s comments say to me that he misses what we had last year, for all its faults, and he misses having a designated role and being the part of a defensive unit.
Its on all of us though. We called for a “player’s” coach instead of the disciplinarian JVG. We wanted more freedom for our players blah blah blah. I’ll be the first to admit maybe we were wrong. I don’t give a crap how much fun the players are having so long as they are winning. The only thing we have managed to do with Adelman (so far) is lose our defensive intensity in the name of an offense which frankly is not that much, if at all, better than what we had last year. The only person’s number who have increased are Tmac’s, and in reality it is only his points that have gone up. Yao’s numbers have taken a dive and so have Tmac’s overall numbers. JVG did far more with far less talent (boring as it was), plus the INJURIES haven’t even set in yet. Lord knows it won’t be long before Yao or Tmac gets hurt.
What a year, eh?
December 11th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
John,
I wrote awhile back about calling out Yao. You had mentioned that there were too many problems with the team to single out Yao, but acknowledged that he has issues.
Well..with Yao calling out the team against the sixers I think is quite ironic. His performance against the sixers was straight up an embarassment. His declaration of the team being soft is ridiculous. Ridiculous in the sense that he displayed that same characteristic during the game. I can respect him more if he admitted that he was pathetic rather than call out the team as a whole.
The one thing that really got to me watching him is his laughable grimace. Clearly he was frustrated that he couldn’t score, but he absolutely showed no presence on the defense end. Guys were dunking over him as if he was 5′6. If he had balls he would he’d slam someone on the ground. Remind folks that there’s a price to pay if you’re going to dunk on him. So what if he fouls out, at least it shows he has a little moxie. But no, he plays like a frustrated scared little kid - doesn’t look good and doesn’t bode well for his team and his career in the NBA. Just another freak with some skills but no heart.
CALL HIM OUT!!!!
I think he included himself as being soft. I wouldn’t want him to take the McGrady approach and say “it’s on him” when it’s more than just him. — John
December 11th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Rocket should play the way they play last year as YAO was dominating, Last year Yao dominated Eddy Curry early. and then in his next game coming he said I got another big guy coming meaning shaq and YAO WAS INSPIRE AND IN POSITION TO DOMINATE HIM TOO.
Changing the style of the game confuse the hell out of the players. sometimes they don’t know when to play defense when to play offense, when to run and when to do half court. Just don’t add to much style to it, play like how they were and how they were good at it.
December 11th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
Fine. If the fault is on Tracy and Yao. Then, trade them away and see what happens. Please do them a favour and trade them away. Anyway, if the rockets are not to find a competent coach, these two guys can find themselves one by going to another team. The problem is now obvious enough. The existing coach is having a much better team than last season; but is having much worse results. The GM should be smart enough to be able to identify the problem and brave enough to admit that he got the wrong man as the coach. But it is early in the season, if he makes the brave decision NOW and not a month or two LATER. If no action is taken now, the Rockets will have to find out where goes wrong in the Toyota Centre at the end of the season, when other teams are busy in the play-off games. A man of authority must be aware of the ills of procrastination.
December 11th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Yes, YAO blamed himself soft as well. His performance is really pathetic. As a fan I am really disappointed with him for losing the aggressiveness. This is his major fault. I read some of the chinese articles. Yao indirectly complain’s the game’s preparation, the confusing he has with the system. As for the leadership, with humble nature and culture difference, he also subtly commented his center position impaling this on the field. He needs the ball to be dominating. His unusual vocal and pathetic performance sent the clearest signal to the Management that there is serious for this team!! The team under RA completely fell apart against inferior team again and again. It will get much worse if nothing happens soon!!! Every single player except Bonzi performed much worse than under JVG. I am not a fan of JVG. But IDLE-MAN is not doing his job properly. He may be a good coach but NOT the coach for current Rocket players. Same as Larry Brown as for knicks. Even he assembles the players to suite his system. The best we can achieve is the later stage King. And even this could take a few years. I don’t see any defense in his system. That means no play-off win. The speed of rocket cash yelled for shocking treatment. Bring back JVG if that is the best we can get. I don’t need another month to confirm that.
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December 12th, 2007 at 12:43 am
Yao calls out his team again, yet he still plays soft the next game. Yeah, it’s good he’s calling out his team (including himself), but if he’s going to do that, I expect him to come out storming and take charge of his team. Do we see that? Nope, we see him fold like the rest of them. I know deep down inside there’s a monster waiting to be unleashed and now is the time. Lead by example.
December 13th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
the only thing holding yao back has got to be what he perceives to be language/cultural barriers. if yao is worried his english isnt good enough, he must realize his english is already better than probably 30% of all nba players.