I will list a quick few signs (of course bad) about Yao, some will be obvious, others won't be that obvious unless you think about it. also there might be 2 or so slang words, just letting you know I tried to censor them the best I could. Un-Obvious - Without being double-teamed/triple-teamed, I am talking straight 1vs1 Yao has trouble SOMTIMES gaining position, the reason is he can't do anything when fronted, if you try to pass over the guy fronting Yao, it usually bounces off Yao Mings hands out of bounce, so basically Yao must not be fronted in the post.. Yes I know 'That is obvious' but the 'Un-Obivous' is the vice-versa One on One, when Yao is being posted up, unlike how Yao struggles getting position his opponent ALWAYS seems to be able to get postion on Yao a example is tonight, they had inside postion on Yao all night so they kept feeding it, then bouncing it back out for 3's. Yao must work on this. Un-Obvious Yao can get 25 points and people will be like 'Oh snap Yao is the sh/t'... BUT how many turnovers came with those 25 points? 6?...7??...8???, by a little math I take points off for turnovers(thats just the way I grade, not just for Yao, I do that to everyone) so while Yao is getting 25 points with his 8 turnovers that equals to 9 points with usually about 6-8 rebounds. This hurts us more then we realize, we think Yao went in and did this great job and really helped the team but it really didn't help that much. Now if Yao cut his turnovers down that would help us easily to a victory.. and you can quote me on the 'easily' because going from 9points to 25points is huge plus the momentem it brings to the team which isn't a stat but helps. Please Yao work on hanging on to the ball. Obvious He needs to demand the Ball more for shots, if he doesn't get it, demand it. He needs to thinks of his team-mates as his g/f.. thats right Yao, order them biatches around!! and after you order your shots demand they hand you a towel when you go rest on the bench. no pun indended (that last line was a joke, not to offend since I know girls do read this forum) Obvious Yao needs to not rush shots, he needs to take his time and put a CONFIDENT shot up. When he does put confident shots up they seem to always go in. Also on a side note, I think after every practice JVG needs to have Yao do 100 Dunks. Thats right, he needs to just sit under the basket and dunk the ball 100 times before he can go. Not only will it help his jumping but he will get that natual intinct to jam it instead of laying it up and being vulnerable to a block.
Nice points. I agree that his turnovers should not be overlooked when he has a "good" game. I also had a thought the other day but wasn't quite sure where to post it, but this thread seems as good as any. Yao is completely deaf in one of his ears, right? Well maybe that has something to do with his propensity for getting stripped of a ball by guards running along the baseline. I think maybe people take their hearing for granted in sports. It can actually serve as a sort of third eye, or extra peripheral vision. Anyone else ever considered this or is it just me?
Well, those two go hand in hand. If Yao has trouble getting post position, it would make sense that Yao has trouble keeping people OUT of the post with his body as well.
Funny thing is, Yao is averaging right at 2.5 turnovers per contest. That is less than Tim Duncan. If you take away the 10 turnover game he had earlier, his statistical turnovers are even lower than that? How is that possible? He was only credited with 3 TOs last night in 38 minutes. Meanwhile Swift had 5 in 19 mins, Howard had 3 in 29 mins, and Derek Anderson had 3 in 28 mins. For his career, Yao is right with Duncan and Shaq in the turnover department based on minutes. Even when you look at his turnovers per 48 minutes he is still right there with Duncan this season. Are we overexaggerating Yao's turnover problems???? He's done all that without McGrady in the lineup meanwhile Duncan is playing with Parker and Ginobilli and a role players who have boatloads of experience playing together. We're trying to integrate 4 major new players in Alston, Anderson, Swift, and Head.
I think some of you have a point about practicing dunking and about the turnovers he is credited for which usually aren't many. Alot of the strips that are done against him are fouls that the Refs are not calling. They almost always get a piece of the hand. Another problem not mentioned yet is the quality of low-post passes. The passing is just awful. Bill Walton mentioned this in a game and for once I agree with him: Tell me what is the point of wasting energy fighting for low-post position if the pass takes you out of the low-post block?
Well yao usually recives the ball in the low post, he automaticly brings the damn ball to his hips. thats a recipe for quick steal by the help defender.someone with his wingspan should allways( thats the opreative word) keep the damn ball over his head. that way there is no chance in hell that that the help defender can steal the ball off him.
Yao has no hearing in one ear. Oh McGrady is gone! We have four new players. Is ANYTHING ever Yao's fault? Yao is a very talented yet very flawed player. Face it. And stop making excuses for him.
Those are some great stats you just threw out there...... Also, Offensive fouls count as turnovers and He gets at least 2 a game just trying to post up 'cause of all the floppers. YAO is in a real tough situation because I remember one game when Bill Walton was saying that a center should keep his elbows out to stop people from stealing the ball but because everyone is smaller than him if YAO leads with the elbow he'll end up clockin' someone in the head like he did to Raef Lafrentz.
while I share your frustration about the turnovers, combining a "Total" category like points scored and an "efficiency" category like turnovers that leads to wasted possessions is a very flawed practice, IMO. If you figure in how many turnovers he has had in a game and counts that as how many points he should/could have scored without the TO, you gotta count the number of shot attempts he make as well. -- the less shot attempts for him, the more shot attempts for his team and theoretically, he is contributing to a part of his teammate's scoring. lists like "wasted possisions", "efficiencies", etc are all good to discuss and important in the game, but when these "should/could haves" are combined with "have dones", it simply creates a statistical nightmare that can not be quantified and reasonably interpreted.
Trust me, I'm not making excuses for Yao. I think he absolutely stinks right now and I think it's pretty much all on him whether it's his passion, his skill, or his physical attributes holding him back. I don't think it's other people's faults that are making him look bad. I was simply curious if anyone had considered his hearing problem in terms of having an effect on getting stripped so much. That wouldn't be an excuse anyway, that would be a REASON.
For one, anyone who watched tonights game KNOWS how misleading the turnover stats are. Yao on stats had 3 turnovers, but anyone who saw the game knows it's not that true, Yao's other turnovers were credited to people such as Barry, Juwan Howard ect... The reason they were credited for it was because Yao kept backing up as the pass came in instead of going to the ball to get it, he went away, thus his fingertips barely grazed it bouncing out fo bounce and the passer getting credited for a turnover, anyone who watched the game should know those stats are misleading 2.. TWO of Swifts turnovers should have been a Yao turnover, although the other 3 were definitly Swifts
Not trying to be a stickler here, but it's not "out of bounce". It's "out of bounds". As in, short for "boundaries". The only reason I pointed it out was because I saw it happen twice just in this thread, so I figured maybe a lot of people think it's that way. Just trying to help.
Part of what is misleading is people saying he's got all these turnovers. I watched the game last night. I saw many plays in the post where the pass was just plain off. And I saw a lot of plays in the post where Yao grazes it with his fingertips, or is falling backwards, or was falling forwards. I'm sorry fellas, if that was Hakeem out there back in the day, the whistle would have been blowing when he went reeling like that. Yao gets no benefit of the calls. The point is he is averaging 2.5 TO's per game for the season, and that's with the 10 turnover clunker thrown in there. If the official scorers missed TOs on him last night, then they've been missing them all season. After all, this game was in Memphis, no home cooking there.
Bowen had a horrible pass to Yao tonight. I was actually ecstatic when I saw the Bulls have a bad pass - finally one that wasn't by our own boneheads.