The Trade That Wasn't

Hey, remember when the Lakers, Rockets, and Hornets were involved in a three-team deal that sent Chris Paul to Los Angeles, Pau Gasol to the Rockets, and Lamar Odom/Kevin Martin/a few other players to the Hornets? No? Well, I can't blame you. It happened, and then un-happened in the span of about two hours. "How can a trade un-happen?" you ask. Good question.

The Legacy of Yao Ming

*Update: I had an idea for this that turned out to take longer than what I was originally going to do. I'm going to test out my "player's peak" formula with Yao and see how it stacks up against some of the all-time great big men. It's taking a bit more time than I anticipated to work the kinks out of that, but I'd guess it'll be up by the end of the week.


Basically, I was just going to look at how his career measured against the careers of other greats, but since Yao's career was "injury-plagued" at best, I decided to look at his "peak performance" of his best year, his best three year stretch, and his best five year stretch, and compare those to the following centers:


Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Bill Russell
Wilt Chamberlain
Shaquille O'Neal
Hakeem Olajuwon
Moses Malone
David Robinson
George Mikan
Patrick Ewing
Robert Parish
Bill Walton


(These are currently the top ten centers according to my Greatness Equation, plus Bill Walton, who, like Yao, was an amazingly gifted big man whose body just couldn't do what he wanted/needed it to do in the long run.)


Any other centers you'd like to see in this test run of my Peak Performance Equation?

(#10) Mavericks - (#7) Rockets Series

I said before this was one of my top three first round match-ups I wanted to see, not because I think these games will be close, but because I really want to see how a lineup featuring Olajuwon, Moses Malone, Yao, and Ralph Sampson plays out. This should be interesting, so here we go:

Houston Rockets Ultimate Roster

Houston Rockets, 1289.0 rating, 13th overall (7th seed in West)


1. Hakeem Olajuwon (502.9 rating)
2. Moses Malone (205.4)
3. Yao Ming (120.8)
4. Rudy Tomjanovich (97.7)
5. Calvin Murphy (65.8)
6. Ralph Sampson (61.9)
*7. Tracy McGrady (61.6) (on Magic roster)
*8. Elvin Hayes (60.8) (Wizards)
9. Steve Francis (56.4)
10. Otis Thorpe (55.7)
*11. Clyde Drexler (53.2) (Blazers)
12. Robert Horry (34.3)
13. Kenny Smith (34.2)
14. Robert Reid (29.0)
15. Mario Elie (24.9)