Now that Kelvin Cato is gone, how is Yao gonna continue to improve his offensive game without legit defenders during practice? Who is Yao gonna hone his post-moves against? Slow-mo Mutombo? I dunno about that... Mo-T? too soft and short. I hope this doesn't have any adverse effects.
Motumbo can still block, and he is a legit 7-2........ this may be even better for Yao. He'd learn to keep the ball high and not get blocked as easily. He'd also start to get aggitated at the elbow being thrown at him by mutombo so he'd figure out a way to deal with that against opponents.
rest assured, with the state of centers in this league being what it is.....Motombo and Ewing are more than enough to get Yao ready for the season. thats a little over 14 feet of experience to work against.
I still remember that NY game where Mutombo elbowed Yao in the throat. I wonder if Yao still remembers that. I know 'Cato's lightning-quick lateral movement' isn't an official oxymoron but it should be.
By the way, in the past week, there were 4 diferent articles on sina.com saying Yao may have serious injuries this season, his toes, knees, and elbows all in trouble.
Getting blocks is great, and Cato might look slow (esp when guarding power forwards), but Mutombo is like the San Andreas fault, and there's more to post-D than getting blocks. Look at Cato's excellent defense against Shaq last playoffs. Can Deke at his advanced age do that??! Yao burned him for 28 pts last season I believe. I guess I'm a worry-wart.
Are these the same writers that claimed that Yao had hypertension last year. They're just overreacting to nothing. If Yao did have serious injuries, he wouldn't be working out like has been doing with Falsone and the rest of the team. End of story.
Cato wasn't the one that contained Shaq last year. I remember numerous times where Shaq rolled over Cato on the way to the basket. It had more to do with JVG's double teams and getting the ball out of Shaq's hands. Hence Malone beating us bad in that one game of the series.
Yao should be practicing against a guy 6'10" who has a good strong lower body. His problem isnt with big centers, its with the smaller gyus who always wind up making him look silly sometimes
And since Mutombo is a 4 time Defensive Player of the Year, I imagine he knows a little about defense.
God i still remember those years that Hakeem won and all Deke could do was whine and cry how he did this and that and deserved it. I mean he was good on defense cause he was blocking a lot of shots but Hakeem was all around better at defense. He eventually got his but it was just annoying hearing him whine about it.
