kphy

Rockets have confidence in Yao, and themselves
Houston Rockets\’ CEO Ted Brown, the teams\’ general counsel Rafael Stone, and player Carl Landry all expressed confidence that Yao Ming will return successfully from his injury in an interview with sina.com, one of China\’s major news portals, on August 2. But they also said the team would do well, regardless of what happened.
Yao Ming, the Houston Rockets\’ all-star center underwent surgery to help repair a broken left foot on July 21 and is expected to miss out the entire next season. Without him, fans are worried that the Rockets will not do well, and may not even make the playoffs.
While Brown acknowledged that "missing Yao will be tough," all three were all optimistic about the Rockets\’ prospects this year.

"We still have many solid players like Carl Landry, Shane Battier, Louis Scola and Aron Brooks." Brown said. "We feel very good about where we\’re going to end up."
In addition, Brown said he thought Yao\’s absence would provide a big opportunity for young players on the team to grow and mature.
As for Yao, Brown said he needed to focus on rehabbing his foot. If everything goes well, Yao could even return in the middle of?next season. And once Yao returned, Brown said, "he would still be the best center of the game."
Asked if the Rockets would change their style of playing, Brown once again emphasized Yao\’s importance to the team, but did say that the team would play faster since the players are smaller and younger.
At the same time, Brown addressed a rumor that the Rockets would offer a contract to Sun Yue, another Chinese player who was just waived by the Lakers. Brown said that the evaluation of Sun Yue was the business of Daryl Morey, the general manager of the team. He promised to let fans know as soon as there was any news.