Yao does a pretty good job of defending the paint simply because he's so damned tall. His lack of mobility is a serious problem with the pick and roll or if he's forced to defend a jump shooter, but Deke and Shaq have the exact same problem. One on one with another traditional big man, like Duncan or Howard, he excels because of his size. As for the occasional game where Yao's outplayed by mediocre centers I did mention that his stretches of excellent play are interrupted by stretches of mediocre play. I'm not too worried about the double teams and fronting defenses because the last few games have demonstrated what happens when the opposing team tries that with Yao--the other Rockets tear them apart.
Shaq was miles ahead of Yao as far as defense. It's not even close. There has been plenty of occasions when you see teams scoring inside easily even with Yao in the middle (Nuggets). Shaq prime would never allow that to happen. Also Shaq is a wayyyyyyyyyyyyy better rebounder.
Yao's not a great interior paint defender like Shaq, Dream or Deke because he's not all that mobile. That's the same reason he can't chase down long rebounds. He's a very good interior paint defender because he's freaking huge. And that height does allow him to grab rebounds if they're just bouncing around the bucket. On the flip side Shaq never had and never will have the offensive arsenal that Yao has available. And there's no such thing as hack-a-Yao.
You mean not officially recognized by the league to where he gets to go to the free throw line, at least, because Hack-A-Yao does exist.
Who needs an offensive arsenal when you can establish low position and dunk it over anyone? Yao can't even establish low post position well. Heck it's hard for him to establish mid/high post position sometimes. I'll live with bad pick n roll defense from centers. I don't think it's crucial. Is Yao dominant sometimes? Sure, but that doesn't make him dominant. Does he have mediocre games sometimes? Sure, but that doesn't make him mediocre. Also when Yao has "dominant" stats the Rockets are either losing or still in a very close game often. How can someone be dominant yet the game be so close?
lol tell me ANYONE that would rather have prime Yao over prime Shaq you're making sound like they belong in the same class i mean, who needs a stupid offensive arsenal when the man can just overpower anyone and dunks on their head and has 4 championship rings er.. has Yao ever gotten pass the first round on the other hand?
So far the posting up goes Yao's had a lot more success this season with passing the ball back out, re-posting, and then getting the ball back. Add in some increased sneakiness/creativity in terms of swinging the ball from weak side to strong side or vice versa and I'm not too worried about Yao getting the ball in prime scoring position. When the offense is rolling Yao benefits, unlike T-Mac. I don't have a preference as to dunking the ball versus hooks other to point out again that Yao's shooting touch means there's no such thing as hack-a-Yao. Also, I don't buy the argument that Yao only has huge nights when the game is close. He dropped a ton of points on GS a while back in a blowout.
I thought he was just addressing Rafer's latest comments. IMO it's all damage control. Hopefully he'll get someone good when he deals McGrady.
No. Only if they do all the voting next year on playground courts with a bunch of wanna bees who value dunkers over any other valuable NBA skill. Bynum is one of the most overrated players in basketball although in fairness a BIG part of it is he plays in the over saturated LA media market. The dude made DeAndre Jordan look like Elton Brand of two years ago when they plaid the Clippers. Bynum can dunk and occasionally hit the hook shot in the post, but he plays NO defense, has a low basketball IQ(or just doesn't pay attention), and can't succeed as a #1 option unless he is playing injury depleted teams. In short, he's all flash picking up the garbage of playing with other far better players. His game works for the Lakers because of their personnel but I guarantee you any defense that wants to stop Bynum can easily do that. Watch him in the post - he doesn't read defenses and react, he knows what move he wants to make before he get's the ball. So far he has been able to get away with it because of the lack of quality bigs in the NBA and because he is never the focus of a defense but I promise you he will ultimately be remembered as a bust when all is said and done.
True, but Shaq was way more dominant inside. How many Lakers game did you see the ball thrown down to Shaq for a dunk after Shaq made a power move? In his prime, he averaged almost 30/14. He once score 61 (!!) points in a game. There is no way Yao even sniffs close to 61 (I believe Yao's highest is 41). Shaq won a bunch of rings. Yao hasn't even gotten out of the first round. Bottom line: Shaq in prime >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Yao in prime. It isn't even close.
I'm not sure who I would take but let me ask you this. If you played a game with only 5 players you could pick and no bench and your life depended on the game, would you want Shaq playing in the 4th quarter? As good as Shaq was, how many times do you remember him playing inside of 5 minutes left in the 4th quarter? It was brutal. One of the ESPN writers brought it up a year ago when they were ranking the top 10 centers of all time. At the time the argument was how can you place a guy like Shaq ahead of a guy like Hakeem when you couldn't rely on Shaq offensively or defensively to close out a tight game(even in the Finals) because he couldn't defend the pick & roll and because he couldn't hit a free throw.
We are talking about the PRIME SHAQ. Even the non prime Shaq during the HEAT days was dunking on Yao's head often. I would be curious to see the stats of Old Shaq vs Peaked Yao.
