Funny how it's more interesting to talk about Yao all these years later than talking about Jabari Smith.
Houston cursed: - Yao/Mac years plagued by injury and horrible role players - Finally have good role players, Mac throws the team under the bus by announcing season-ending surgery before he could be traded, then both Yao and Deke have career-ending injuries in the playoffs AND still push the eventual champions to 7 games - Luck out with James Harden AND managed to surround him with great players. Run into arguably the most dominant team in NBA history. Lose CP3 to injury and somehow miss record numbers of 3s in a row to lose a close game - Miss out on #1 pick 2 years in a row. End up with 2 rookies who are statistically amongst the worst players in the league. Praying they can turn it around. lol. Edit. F Orlando in particular, drafting the soon-to-be ROY who actually wanted to play in Houston.
Yeah but he wouldn't be able to guard anyone in todays league. Imagine him trying to defend a pick a role. Boozer destroyed him enough.
Crazy if you think Sengun can't be a good defender. Yao had 0 chance. One of the slowest players to ever play, do we need the clip of him getting crossed by Marbury. Yao Ming and Battier are two of the most overrated players in league history. Simply because they were good guys and worked hard. But man Yao had soo many weaknesses. Williams and Boozer destroyed him in the playoffs. Imagine what the guards in todays nba would do to him.
All this is true. It was also a time where the big man was dying and people thought it was the right time for someone like Oden to come in and dominate Shaq's leftovers in a manner like Shaq- Oden even had those Shaq like hanging dunks. He was going to be too big and strong and mobile for all oposing C's. The Bill Russell comp was true and always ridiculous because he played nothing like Russell(draymond O with Hakeem post D) and more like a traditional post bruiser. The mindset was still to draft the next big C prospect that's sort of under the radar held firm up until Ayton who was getting Admiral comps. We saw Wiseman go #2 in a weak draft. Chet had no real comps and sort of an outlier prospect, while Mobley was more of a 4 prospect who IIRC was getting Chris Bosh comps and "soft" views. Overall the idea of a C dominating the game and anchoring your top rated O and D is still a fantasy for most GM's. The Wemby hype is bigger than Oden and biggest since LeBron in part -physical marvel, in part high skillset already(lebron) +part anomaly which makes him as a whole a bigger prospect than leBron. We've never seen this kind of prospect, in part due to the era. We don't know what Ralph Sampson or even Lew Alcindor born at the same time as Wemby turns out to be. Wemby is like taking a modern day guard and mixing him with KG defense and stacking that guard on top of KG's height. He's coming in at a time where Euro's are finding great success in the NBA. He's coming in at a time where shooting and handles are extremely valuable and he's coming in at a time where small ball, positionless bball can be dominated with his size. He can shift the NBA landscape completely in the way teams build to stop him. Sure, he can bust like anyone else via injury, but i don't believe someone like Windy who says there's no such thing as a "can't miss prospect." Wemby is a can't miss prospect and only injury or disinterest will stop him from stardom. Honestly, maybe Oden was the right pick all along? Oden was 17 on 60% with 13 boards and 3.5 bpg per 36 with over 20 PER in year 2 after a nice per 36 rookie season, but injuries. Can't predict them. I think at minimum, while on the floor, he showed he was going to be a C on the level of Zo or Dike at least if he stayed on the floor and didn't get better.
Yao was horizontally slow and that's why you get the switch onto a guard, but he was a great floor runner and far from the slowest player ever. Not even close actually. Tons of players have been caught with a cross, and ended up on their ass when they had no size excuse like Yao. You can only point to that one lowlight, though. At least on the perimeter. How about Yao offense https://www.sbnation.com/nba/2017/2...ent-houston-rockets-crossover-behind-the-back Yao was absolutely a liability in matchups, especially against the Jazz and Warriors of that era. He was already the bigger, heavier and slower guy we're all discussing he would NOT be if he had to play today. Battier comes form an era where role players were still valued for the role they needed to play. Now everyone plays the same and we look back and i see role players get trashed on all the time. Those guys have very high value on championship teams.
Put some respek on his name, but yeah we did bulk him up. Thanks JVG. On that same note, we did the same to T-Mac, although T-Mac blames his trainer for ruining his body by training it wrong. The truth is, the way JVG wanted to play demanded they both bulk up.
There used to be a sick mixtape of the Rockets vs. Mavs in the rigged playoff series. Jon Barry, Sura, Wesley dropping 3s left and right. What a horrid roster. Lol
Zion showed you can be injury prone all the time, fat at times and still make the All Star game when you are 23.
He doesnt need to do much else on offense except hit 3s and go to the rack. Giannis became MVP just doing the latter.
