And you all say that Dwight Howard is better than Yao???

Great defensive player!! He needs Dream in his life in the offseason!

 

Howard Career highlights and awards:

* 2× NBA Defensive Player of the Year (2009–2010)
* 3× All-NBA First Team (2008–2010)
* 2× NBA All-Defensive First Team (2009–2010)

Yao Career highlights and awards:

* 0× NBA Defensive Player of the Year
* 0× All-NBA First Team
* 0× NBA All-Defensive First Team

 

How would it be any different he would still be hurt.

 

End of discussion...

 

One year Yao was top 3 early MVP candidate until injured. If not for the freak accident (that was not a case of chronic injury yet), Yao easily would've won a First Team that year. Just too bad this is "hypothetical".

 

Quoted for truth.

 

I knew someone would say something like this, but I was (and still am) too lazy to even discuss the issue.

The idea is that the competition is weaker, and his luck may have been different. There's a chance Chauncey Billups would never have been a finals MVP if he played in the WC. Different matchups lead to different outcomes. Joe Johnson may never have been an all-star if he played in the WC. Simple things like that.

Even if he were to be injured 3 years out of the 7 that he's played, he'd definitely would have accomplished more playing at the level that he was, assuming he also had another player like prime T-Mac. Why not play an 8th seeded Nets, Wizards, or 76ers rather than the Jazz, Mavs, or Lakers? That's almost a guaranteed, free pass if him and T-Mac were playing the way they did in 2005. They'd have that 2nd round on their resumes much earlier, probably giving them more confidence and changing the way GMs/organizations view them. The monkey is taken off your back, if you will. Making the 2nd round in the EC, I would argue, is a guarantee if you have T-Mac and Yao playing together from 2005-2008. What a difference that would make, in terms of how people perceive their impact in this league.

These are all speculations, but the fact is that it is much, much easier to be a successful team in the east than it is out west. When people bring up 2nd round or conference finals, it is important to understand the huge disparity of competition that exists between the two conferences.

 

Steve Nash: 2x MVP, 3x NBA first team
John Stockton: 0x MVP, 2x NBA first team

I guess we know which player is better.

I'm not suggesting that Yao is better than Howard now, but we need to use reasoning and logic more than just X, y, z.

 

Whats your point? Nash might go down in history as a better player then Flopton.

 

Hard to top Yao's massive performance of 0-0 with 0, 0, 0 and 0. Not sure if Howard

 

Exactly, Nash has a chance to be the better player and even if not, they played in two completely different time frames. Nash did play vs Stockton but he was already past his prime so not a fair comparison. Yao and DH have played almost parallel in their careers so the numbers mean a ton more.

 

Yeah and Brooks is so great that he led the Rockets this season to the dizzying heights of a 42-40 season. Yao is less important than Brooks so his absence is not an excuse for this season's success. Even when Yao comes back all the NBA teams will "tilt" their defense to stop the Brooks juggernaut and leave Yao alone. The earth's north pole will also tilt towards the south pole.

 

First of all, this is a Rockets forum so I won't even argue a case for Stockton. Not many people will be able to digest reality outside of the Rockets.

Second, although they played at different times, they were both facing top competition. Stockton had to compete with Gary Payton, Isiah Thomas, and even Jason Kidd for his accolades. Dwight Howard, on the other hand, competes with whom? Andrew Bynum? Howard, arguably, is playing during a time where bigs are near extinct. It's not like I was comparing their numbers against each other. I compared their awards (about 10 years apart of each other), and it's not entirely off.

Ben Wallace, for example, is 1x NBA champion, 4x DPOY, 5x NBA defensive first team...with a bunch of other silly accolades, but I'm sure there are better players who have received fewer awards than that.

Once again, not arguing Yao > Dwight because, while Dwight has no skills, he's able to play the game, but these variable awards are not the be-all end- all.

 

Well we are in the NBA forum so if you want to discuss Stockton, feel free. You are correct on awards being overrated but when both have had shots at the exact same award and Howard took home the prize EVERY single time, it can be hard to just push aside that fact. I refuse to compare cross generations because of rules changes, competition and offense structures so I'll leave the Nash vs Stockton for another time or thread.

By the way Ben Wallace might be a scrub now but earlier this decade he was a difference maker on the defensive end. Sorry for being a little slow but not sure what your point on Ben really is, the dude was a beast who deserved his acknowledgements.

 

I never said he was a scrub. You act as if I just turned on the TV two years ago. My point is that, if I weren't so lazy, I could probably find 5 better players that have fewer awards than that.

Ten years isn't exactly cross-generation. And in fact, you're right about the rule change. They've made it easier to get to the foul line now. I understand the fallacy that exists when comparing players too far apart in the eras they were apart of, but this isn't exactly 1960.

So what if they have "exact same chance" of earning the award? Nash had 2X MVP, before Kobe even got his first. Did that mean, at the time, that Nash was a better player than Kobe? Since Kobe was a 3X champion as a sidekick then, we could use another player: Dirk?

Doesn't matter -- we can agree to disagree, but these awards are not the ultimatum, despite what you may believe. That guy failed miserably to provide an opinion/perspective. That's like posting scoring titles. We have to ask ourselves: so what?

 

So is Sasha Vujabitch. Your point?

 

this thread is about dwight and yao right?

so what does vujachic have to do with yao vs. dwight?

one center is playing in the ECF coming off a trip to the finals while the other is always injured and has been out of the first round only once.

that's a dumb logic to use when the topic is about comparing the both of them when one cant stay healthy.

whats the point of post moves when you cant even make it past the 2 round without injuries?

how do we know if yao is even going to return to his preinjury form?

what we do know NOW is that dwight is healthy and leading his team deep into the playoffs. EVERYTHING abut yao right now is SPECULATION that has yet to be proven until yao can RETURN and dominate.

 

yeah dude WE ALL KNOW THAT. its been said in this thread several times. we could also say injuries aside who is the better player.

carry on.

rinse and repeat

 

Amazing,

Dwight has a bad game and the YOF's come out of the wood works...

The same thing happen last year.. When the Rocks were doing good the first half of the season you didn't hear a peep from the YOF's... As soon as they slipped a little... The YOF wolves came out...