He's fooled everyone into believing he could play NBA level game. All of that because he's had a half dozen good games in a little less then a year and a half. He was a novelty when he came to the league. So many people underestimated him, that when he finally scored double figures last year, then got his 20, and made a fool of Barkley and his predictions, nobody dared say anything against him anymore. This year, as the season progresses, he is showing all of his limits again. Last year it was called the Rookie wall. I don't know what to call it now, but it's definitely a wall, and it's coming a lot sooner. However, because everyone wanted him to be a god and almost made him into one, the Rockets are playing their worst ball ever right now. I cannot recall, ever, a Rocket team struggling so badly to score 70 points, not once, not twice, but in 3 straight games. People here keep wanting to blame Steve (and even Cat) for the Rocket's woes. People want Yao to lead this team and are asking for the game to go through him every time down the court. The result is what we've been seeing. Yao is not close to being a leader on this team. He is the 1st player being benched, night in and night out. He got a total of 2 rebounds last night in almost 30 minutes of play. Should i name the Rocket players who outrebounded him last night ? Clutch's recap summary states that Alton Ford outscored Mobley. As if that was the problem. Steve Francis, Cuttino Mobley, Jim Jackson, Kelvin Cato, Eric Piatkowski, Maurice Taylor, Scott Padgett. They all outrebounded Yao Ming !!! He looked so tired of banging inside last night, that in the 2nd half he kept standing on the 3 point line. Actually, i wouldn't even call what he does banging, because he's getting pushed out of position every single time, regardless of who is guarding him. The saddest thing i saw against the wolves: Yao Ming trying to back into Kevin Garnett. Garnett gives him 100 lbs, yet pushed him out 5 feet. Francis may not be the best PG in the league, but look at who he's playing with. Cato is inept offensively, and Yao has become as ineffective as him. It's 3 on 5 when we're on offense ! How are you going to score more then 75 points that way ? At this point, i would have to say that people who compared Yao to Rick Smits when he came into the league were right on the money... Yao still has everything to prove...
Yao didn't try to fool anybody. He said before coming to NBA that this is about improving his game. He's a rare talent but he's also a huge project at the same time. Rudy said as much when we drafted him. What did happen is that Yao showed people he has the talent to be very good (where as people already belived that about guys like Lebron) and everyone got excited. But that wasn't his goal. Even now he still looks to defer first (one of his biggest flaws). It's not Yao's fault that so much pressure has been put on him and people are trying to make him the mesiah for who knows what. The main thing is that all these new "fans" are jumping on the bandwagon of Yao (notice I didn't say the Rocket's bandwagon) and are complaining about not enough touches, our guards suck, our offense suck, owners suck, gm suck and basically this team suck. So we changed everything and IS running pretty much everything through Yao, but as a project, this is all premature and he isn't ready to lead yet. Now that he's struggling and he shows that the offense isn't ready to run through him just it, half of the people still complain about everything else and is oblivious to his flaws and the other half completely turns on him. That's not what we should be doing in the best interest of both Yao and the organization.
So Yao's 20/20 game a mere five games ago was an illusion that he perpetrated on us with devilish trickery and his incredible promise is but a basketball version of fool's gold? By George, you are right! Trade him immediately for Kwame Brown or Olowakandi (other former 1st picks) while we still have the chance! A week's worth of bad games after posting a average of 17/10 is more than enough reason to doubt the entire future of a 2nd year player. Let's run him out of town before we are all lose interest.
I agree. I didn't mean that he purposely fooled anybody. We got fooled into thinking he was going to be a much bigger impact on our team. It's not a week's worth. He's had many more bad games then good ones. He's gotten a lot of points in garbage time (just like Francis by the way). Anyway, as i said, he had a few good ones and therefore you think he will dominate this league sometime in the future. Bringing up his 20/20 game just proves my point. He's been consistantly mediocre with a few bright flashes. The argument that's often heard here is that when Shaq retires Yao will be the only true center in the league and he will dominate. Forget Shaq. Yao gets pushed around by lightweights. And nowhere have i said that we should run him out town.
So you are willing to give Yao the benefit of the doubt? That's plenty generous considering you just called him out by accusing him of fooling everyone. If you misspoke then you should have titled the thread "We fooled ourselves about Yao" which is at least debatable. He is still only 1 and 1/4th of a season into a NBA career so I will give him at least until the end of his 3rd season to judge whether he is a bust. Centers are notorious for taking the most time to develop into competent players in the NBA and Yao's innate talent got people a little too excited last season as he overshot expectations by a big margin. I mentioned Brown and Olowolkandi as examples of former 1st pick centers who been playing longer than Yao who don't even approach his numbers or the impact he has on a game (Olowokandi is career 9.8/7.8 and he is a six year veteran. If Yao had those numbers now, we would demand that he be benched or traded). I don't want to defend Yao's lousy play of late and am as frustrated as everyone else when he loses rebounds to 6'9 forwards but it is not his fault when we expect him to turn the team into an immediate contender and he occasionallly plays like a 2nd year player who is still learning one of the most difficult positions in the game.
Some fans may overlook Yao's weakness, however, all these complainings are all valid. It's undisputable that our PG does suck, when PG sucks, the offense goes bad. I can't count how many bad deals CD pulled.
The problem is that many fans including me are not expecting him to be Olowolkandi , personally, I was expecting him to be Dreams' type. Maybe I am wrong.
we need a champion winning point guard, someone with the experience and the knowledge to get the ball to the right man. thats right, you know who im talking about derek fisher
How many games do we have to lose, how many coaches do we have to fire, before people realize Mr. Yao is the cancer?
Will yao ever be able to CONSISTANTLY excel against NBA talent throughout his career? the guy cant even get position on the ervin johnsons of the league. i may not go as far as saying that he fooled us, but he is generally playing worse than he did last year. you see guys like a garnett and a duncan, and hope that some day in the not so distant future, yao will dominate in his own way as well. will yao ever be quick and fierce enough day in and day out????????????????? yao is in no way the only problem in this team...it is as if van gundy is a life saving organ that is being rejected by the team as a whole.
Out of curiousity... Why would anyone evaluate a heretofor unseen player from the other side of the planet, from a dissimilar culture, who speaks little English and whose major accomplishment was finally getting his Shanghai Sharks to triumph over the six year championship run of Wang Zhi Zhi's Bayi Rockets to be the equivalent of an NCAA dominating Center from Phi Slamma Jama and the University of Houston? And all of this was expected in a matter of 15 months? Not a very realistic evalualtion IMHO. Personally, I always expected just a little more than Rik Smits with a low post game and a few more blocks.
Good point. Elite, mvp type players have a base dominance regardless of who their teamates are. Alot of people assume that bringing in a pure PG is going to turn Yao into a dominant low post presence, when that is pretty far fetched. Brining in a pure PG might make our offense better, and it might win us a few more games, but in the end, we will still be an also-ran until Yao develops his game into one similar, or close to that of the TD's and Shaqs of this league.
bringing derek fisher in to make yao better is not my point, even if we get a "champion winning point guard" we still won't be much better. There are a lot more things wrong with the team than just our point guard and center and it will take a lot more than just one player to fix it. However, i will admit that id rather see him at the one, cat at the two and steve on the bench, with the way francis has been playing recently.
Exactly, Centers don't need championship point guards, just look back in recent history, kenny Smith wasn't the greatest point guard, Parker is a good point guard but right he's just a slightly above average player. Nothing is special in the way he gets Duncan the ball. Its funny how Steve all of sudden turns into a good post passer when Yao isn't being defended by someone of his caliber, but as soon as he goes up against good post men, Steve doesn't know how to pass into the post.
I think they need to try something new this season. Take the ball out of Steve's hands and try Yao as a passer around the top of the key near the free throw line. Have Steve and Cuttino be the high flying cutters and slashers. How fun would that be to watch? If it doesn't work, they should use their lottery pick to draft a good passing point guard.
Get a life danjojo, you talk about how Yao had a couple good games and fooled everyone into thinking he could be an all time great. Now I say the same to you: You are fooled into thinking that Yao will suck because a couple of bad games he has had this season. Btw, when did he ever hit the Rookie Wall??? He had a couple bad games late in the season, then he recovered. Even the ESPN haters admitted that if there was ever a Rookie Wall for him, then he has already passed it. He did suck in a couple crucial games, but so did every other Rockets. Plus Rudy's absence, it was bad luck that we missed the Playoff and Yao wasnt named RoY. What terrible tragedy happened in your miserable life that you feel the need to keep bashing Yao and Yao only? Life plz gg Life? ...
Being Rocket fans, it's been just a few years since we saw Hakeem dominating the NBA. There are two types of teams in the NBA. There are the teams with the absolute monsters, and there are the teams without the monsters. Lakers and Spurs have those monsters. KG is great, but he's no monster. Rocket fans need to wake up and understand that Dream is no longer on the Rockets. We just can't have a below average passer getting this team into the offense. Having Kenny Smith walk the ball up court and dumping it down low to Hakeem doesn't work in this offense. Yao is not Hakeem. He can be something else, but he will not be Hakeem. It's time to trash the theory that most teams can be run without a good passer. If Hakeem were still 30 years old and playing for the Rockets, the Rockets would not need a passer.
