panda, your reasoning is so flawed. I'll take your whole paragraph down with one simple sentence. If numbers mattered to Lebron as much as it mattered to you, then James would be unknown. Your whole argument is based on stats. I'm not impressed. the same way no one was impressed by Pao Gasol, who was on the bench in Spain with bull**** numbers. Like Tskitsvili who played behind Boki in Italy. Like Eddie Griffin who wasn't his team's star and didn't play the big minutes and average monster numbers. Granted, Griffin's per-minute numbers were impressive, he never had great averages. But the potential they showed was all that counted. Do you think that you know that James is playing against weaker competition than NCAA but scouts don't know? Don't you think they thought this through? Don't you think they considered all this before their assesment? Who's the NBA scout here? Is the head coach wrong after seeing him in a 5-on-5 workout? Are you telling me that a starting 5 of Coles, Stith, Jones, Mihm, and Diop wouldn't win the CBA? Is that what you're telling me? Yao is not far more complete. He still has to work on his defense. On his strength. On his shotblocking (Jerry West). James has no glaring hole. Right now, he has developed physically, and is not that 16-yr old kid who needed to do physical developing. He has a whole year to work on his game as a whole. BTW, he is considered an excellent shotblocker at his position. his fundamentals are sound. The only negative thing abotu James I've heard is this article claiming he's a spoiled brat. Can anyone honestly say this is NOT some guy that got stood up like everyone else and tried to make a story out of it? Listen, we will never agree. I'll tell you with all hoensty, I think it's because you're Chinese. But I'm not American. I'm not Chinese. I'm not biased. In fact, I'd prefer it if Ming succeeded. But I'm telling it like I see it. So far, against real competition, Ming has gone down to Christofferson. According to you (and only you), he held his own against those Cavs. If you actually read the article, you can see it talked about how he got by his man, how he sank jumpers, how he dunked, how he ran the point. Not "a few dunks and some assists". Not by a stretch. BTW, gotoloveit, this talent argument is old. You pick talent. But we're talking about the draft, so Iverson is irrelevant. You have a pick, you pick best player. You, then, either trade another player at that position, or trade that player that you picked for 2 talented players.
dwil, Please read the third paragraph and the last few lines of my post before you get too carried away. But I think this question #15 is legit (even though my answer might not be). How many talents have been ruined and how many teams have been burned by that? You have to consider it before you acquire a player.
Sane I could do nothing but agree on every thing that you just said. I"m glad to see a poster with good basketball IQ on this site.
Sane: Although the argument gets meanless when it's implied that I am biased towards Yao as I'm his countryman, I guess I've got to resume for the sake of that implication alone. Your arguement is that stats don't mean nothing evaluating talent. Wrong, you'll be fooling yourself if you think that GMs don't look at stats assessing any prospects. GMs can go draft a player without putting much weight on stats, but that's exactly why such draftees are huge risks. Pau Gasol, without a nice set of stats, was a huge question mark when he's drafted. Stats are facts, they don't tell everything but they are objective measurement. They reflect a player's current level more than anything elso. Indeed, stats doesn't tell potential, but it's common sense that a player with much better stats has a better chance to be a better player.It's not a law of certainty but the law of probablity. Just like Microsoft with its nice past record will very likely fare better than any other software company in the future! Shawn Bradley was not drafted based on stats but on his "talent and potential" and he's a huge bust. The same can happen to James if you just go by feel. The less you rely on his stats, the riskier he gets. Since you've already discredited the importance of stats in this case, I can say that you've helped me prove that James is a risky prospect. Thank you! Another pillar in your arguement is that you are so dead on the importance of other so called experts words on James. You have used them over and over in every post ad nausem. Who can blame you, when you have nothing to cling on but some so called experts' words, such as John Lucas, who's a huge draft loser that wasted all those lottery picks to assemble the crappiest team in the NBA. Don't give me MJ's take on James again 'cuz MJ is a great player but a dumb GM who thought Darius Miles is a NO.1 pick.That's fine if that's all it boils down to, whipping out some remarks and make youself out to be a winner, as I am telling you Yao Ming is still better than Lebron James in this aspect. Pacers President Donnie Walsh: Yao Ming is the real deal.(How about this compared to that loser John Lucas) Steve Nash: Yao Ming will create his own legacy. He'll be a great player. (how about this compared to Cavs players Coles, Stith, Diop and Jones) Bill Walton: Yao Ming can revolutionize the way the game is played. These are just off the top of my head and it goes on and on, but I don't need no more 'cuz these lines alone kills all those generally diplomatic and vague praises on James, such as "he's got untapped potential", or "he'll be a great player if he realizes his potential" blah blah blah. There's also people who thinks that James is talented but not NBA ready, such as Shaq and Kobe's comments after watching a James game. Finally, I am still waiting on your take on all the things that Yao do but James can't. In a nutshell, no, my arguments are not flawed and biased. On the other hand, I can't find much argument in your post apart from all those excerpts from newspapers.
I created this thread with the sole purpose of injecting some humility to those who debate on this hypothetical issue. My point has been that it is very difficult to project talent and impact of a player because it is so complex and there is so much unknown. Those who want to reduce this to some simple numbers or a single aspect of the game are clearly oversimplifying the issue. Those who still think this choice between Yao and James is a no-brainer one way or the other don't really get it, IMHO.
There are 2 schools of thought of drafting... Draft for need. Draft for talent. Now if you have the 1st pick, I feel you should draft for need unless you think that who you want would fall to you in the draft later. Ming was clearly the best center in the draft and it is readily apparent that he would not last to the 15th pick. So in this case you draft for need and the bonus is that he is most likely the most talented of the center being drafted. If you have a later pick ( and not the 1st pick as well) you should draft for talent unless the guy you wanted anyways is still on the board. James over Ming Ming over James It is really a matter of need and draft position. To compare the 2 is really an excerise in futility since they are from different levels of competition and you cannot equate talent with greatness before that talent has proven that he is great. If a person wanted to take a chance on James well fine with me but the person taking a chance on Ming is in the same boat. I personnally think that Ming is less of a gamble than James due to the fact of his level of competition is a bit higher ( Pro League, Olympics, International tourneys, etc). No matter how you slice it, High school competition cannot compare to that.
