# Is Yao equally important to Houston's success as Tracy ?



## Skeet Skeet Skita (Dec 11, 2005)

Without T-mac:
83.4ppg
0-8

Without Yao:
82.7ppg
1-6 

is it possible that Yao is just as important to Houston as Tracy?


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## naibsel (Dec 21, 2005)

i think you have to take into consideration the fact that quality guards are a dime a dozen but good big men are hard to obtain.

i would put the scoring output down to benefits of having a quality big man, big men obviously find it easier to get to the basket ( higher fg%) and to defensively compensate for that, lapses are created are created which makes the lives of the other offensive players easier.

now without yao, tmac constantly gets double teamed and occasionally triple teamed. in some of the games during yaos departure tmac will have a very healthy 3pt% but abysmal overall because generally he will take a three when he see's the opportunity but at other times he feels forced to throw up a shot.

examples of the benefits of big men can be seen predominately with shaq. other than his sophmore season, samaki walkers first year in LA stands out above all the rest. he posted respectable numbers of 7-7 and 1.2bpg in 24min per game, they had horry at the time so that took away some PT. udonis haslem also reaped the benefits of shaq last season, altho it could be attributed to adapting to life in the nba, haslem increased his fg% by 8%, scoring by 4ppg, and rebounding by 3rpg and PT by 9mpg. a considerable statistical improvement considering how much more talent filled the big men ranks.


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## Mavericks_Fan (Apr 19, 2005)

naibsel said:


> now without yao, tmac constantly gets double teamed and occasionally triple teamed.


Maybe, but T-Mac has faced plenty of double teams in his career, "lesbian". And he's always been a proven scorer even being the almost complete defensive focus for the opponent. This year he isn't keeping up though. Either he's just too injured or he's declining...or both. I think he's just not healthy, and if he keeps pushing himself he may really screw up something and never be truly healthy again.


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## IbizaXL (Sep 21, 2005)

It happens to some teams,the rockets were built around Yao and t-mac, not just one of them, so naturally, when one of them is out , the team struggles a bit. Its like with Heat, the team was built around Shaq and Wade, but when one of them isnt playing, the team struggles a bit.
Philly in the other hand, builds teams around just iverson, thats why philly has had success with only iverson(i.e. 2000 finals)
I tip my hat off to the suns, their team is built around Amare and Nash, yet are doing so well without amare, havent missed a beat.


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## shoprite (Dec 18, 2002)

gio30584 said:


> I tip my hat off to the suns, their team is built around Amare and Nash, yet are doing so well without amare, havent missed a beat.


Suns are not a two men team. They have way too much talents than Philly and Rockets.Amare is replacable in Suns system as long as Nash is there. Marion can do pretty much everything Amare does, and they have a lot talented role players to fill the needs. 
Heat suffer without either Shaq or Wade, but not nearly as much as Rockets because Heat has talented players too. 
Rockets has nothing except Tmac and Yao, that makes it a lot harder to hold the ground when one of them is out.


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## Sith (Oct 20, 2003)

and the only reason why yao-less team won a game out of 7games is because in that game, the Lakers played absolutely horrid. and the rockets only won it by 2 points at last second.


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## leidout (Jul 13, 2005)

Anyone considered the possibility that the Rockets are just overrated? They can't seem to cope with any sort of injury and their starters (outside of yao and tmac) are not exactly the types that can step up and win games.


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