https://www.theringer.com/nba/2020/4/14/21219388/nba-redraftables-2002-yao-ming-amare-stoudemire Ringer rates Amare to better than Yao... but I remember the debate between Jay Williams and Yao. I think we made the right move of course. And is Nene still considered an active player?
Amare took 846 games to achieve about the same amount of stuff that Yao did in 486 games, and that's with one of the three greatest passers of all time feeding him. It's debatable if he even had a "better career"; he was certainly not the better player. He might have been Yao's equal on offense - maybe even his better for one or two years at his very peak - but Yao's defense was constantly underrated and Amare posted a negative career defensive BPM. Yao was the best and most important player in that draft. He just got unlucky with longevity. (lol at them listing Mike Dunleavy over Yao for "career rank".)
Yao had range... 11 of 32 in 34 games in his final season in China. 34.4%, which is better than Dmo in China numbers, but it could have developed just like how Ariza improved his shot. Carroll Dawson wanted him to be in the post. Van Gundy turned him into a Ewing. http://english.worldhoopstats.com/stats/cba-cn/yao-ming-101628.html
But Amare was also much more durable and posted much better number in the playoffs due to his athleticism. Also Amare was just as good a shooter as Yao, if not better. Yao's limited mobility hurt him especially against opponents who fronted him in the post. We really had hard time getting him the ball. Yao also had trouble guarding mobile big men like Amare and Boozer. From a pure basketball perspective, I would’ve picked Amare. But obviously Yao was instrumental in opening up the Chinese market for the Rockets.
Imagine yao's numbers had the refs called a few of those hacks. He was just so big that mugging him was ok.
This. What a lot of analysts fail to highlight in their retrospective reviews on Yao’s career is timing. Yao came at a time the league was moving away from centers, and officials started to officiate to favor expediting that transition. Seeing how we was officiated in that 2005 Mavs series was a travesty..
I loved Yao, but I think it’s fair to say that Amar’e was the better player and had a better & longer career. That Bill Simmons quote guaranteeing that “Yao over Jay Williams” would be remembered like “Bowie over Jordan” is amazing. LMAO. Bill Simmons is very entertaining, but his predictions are generally on about the same level as Charles Barkley in terms of accuracy.
As much as i have always and will always love Yao, he came in at the tail end of the big man era as they were being phased out. He belonged in the 90s and i think in the 90s, he would have been better than Ewing, Dike, or Zo in the list of Centers under Hakeem, Admiral and Shaq. Even so, Yao would have battled Hakeem, Admiral and Shaq and gotten the better them many times through his career. (Hakeem had trouble with the much bigger centers) In the era he played, and his teammates, i'd rather have seen Amare and Francis and later T-Mac duo take on the league.
I respectfully disagree. Centers were not being phased out in any way during the Yao Era, not even a few years after he retired. The center position was lacking because the talent wasn't there, not because the position wasn't viable. The pace of the mid to late 2000 was very slow, every elite team's defense needed to be anchored by a big men. The offense was slow and grinding and relied heavily on postups and wings iso'ing. Spurs were always anchored by Tim Duncan, the 2 peat Lakers anchored by Bynum, Gasol and Odom, The Celtics were anchored by Garnett and Perkins, Detroit had the Big Ben, Orlando had Dwight Howard, Miami with Shaq etc. The first true small ball team was the Miami super team where they didn't have a center, but then you remember how impactful Tyson Chandler was in beating them in that series. It wasn't until the Warriors came along that the league started to fade out centers for more 3 point shooting.
Amare in Phoenix played on better teams. He had MVP Steve Nash, and All-Star Shawn Marion throughout most of his PHX years. Raja Bell, Barbosa, Diaw, Joe Johnson were legit ballers. Who did Yao have? Either Franchise/Mobley or TMac. On the role player side, you had Juwan Howard, Chuck Wagon, Scola, and Rafer (I didn't include Mutumbo cuz he wouldn't help Yao on the court). When Yao was on the court, the dynamic of the game shifted dramatically both on the offensive and defensive side. Amare had far less of an impact when he was on and off the court because the run and gun Suns of that era had so many ways to hurt you offensively. I agree that Amare's offensive ability was similar to Yao but defensively, Yao had a much bigger impact than Amare and had to carry much more of the team than Amare. Had Yao had a team as talented as PHX, it's quite possible his career could have been longer.
I don't know if Amare had "longevity" either. He had multiple seasons cut short due to injury issues. He had 1.5 good seasons with the Knicks and then stopped being an effective player. Obviously he was less injury prone than Yao, but not really by all that much.
Yao couldn't last a full 82 games + whatever dog and pony show corrupt Chinese officials threw at him in the offseason. Always the golden worker. Always the guy who never said no and had to have his body say it for him. smh on the wasted NBA legacy.
That's still more than Kawhi First 3 seasons, Yao played 80+. 2008-2009, he missed 5 games before the playoffs happened. In this era, he would be taking less of a beating, having pick and pop plays, and be load managed ... until China seizes him back after a tweet.
