that's not really his fault...he's just slow. if you zip a pass to mutumbo he CAN catch it...its just he cant finish the play.
Yao just needs to swing his elbows more to protect the ball. He got stripped a lot because people are fouling him and slapping him everywhere, the only thing to do is swing your elbow so people don't come near you after you grab the ball.
If you were getting fouled every time you had the ball swatted at and no one called it, your hands would look crappy too.
It does look that Yao gets stripped a lot, if your eyes are focused on his plays most of the time. But objectively, he is not doing worse than most of top players who touch the ball a lot. Also you need to realize that he always gets surrounded by 2-3 players, so it would be a lot easier to lose the control of the ball. Therefore, I don't think he has the worst hand for a big man. It is just a visual bias for those of you who spend all your time watching his every single move.
Why people even try to argue about Yao's hand? He got stripped more than almost everyone else in the league. But his problem has less to do with his hands, than his slower reaction. The guy is 7'6", and slower than almost everyone else, so the quick hands will get it before he can react.
I was unable to watch most of the game yesterday but it sounds like Yao had a bad day catching passes and grabbing rebounds. He sprained his pinky finger and thumb on his shooting hand in the Bulls game. They were concerned enough to get x-rays and an MRI on the them. You don't think his sprained fingers and having a bad day grabbing onto the ball yesterday had any correlation? I thought prior to the bulls game, Yao was doing well in that department. He was committing less turnovers than usual and his rebounds were up.
The reason why Deke talks like the cookie monster is because they used to practice throwing the medicine ball to him and it would go right through his hands and hit his adams apple every time, totally gnarling up his voicebox. You apparently haven't seen much bball if you think Yao has the worst hands ever. Mutombo would fumble away a fishnet thrown to him standing on the moon.
but yao has a decent jumper. he can't jump though. lots of centers get the ball stripped a lot of times. yao should act like D. Howard and dunk everything up when he sb wants to strip the ball from him.
Yao gets stripped because guards don't really respect him. When a guy develops a rep for not punishing people who poke and swipe at the ball it just encourages more poking and swiping. If a guard got popped with an elbow or a flailing backhand it would send a message and I guarantee you would see player's thinking twice before trying to strip him so aggressively.
