Rocket career potentials: Ralph Sampson vs Yao Ming

Except for one thing. Playing in the post would have destroyed Ralph's body even more. He didn't have the build to be a post player against big players. Ralph often wasn't strong enough to maintain position in the post and the knock on him was that he didn't want to bang down low. Ralph was 7'4" and weighed around 225-235 pounds. Hakeem was probably 4"-5" shorter and weighed 20-30 pounds more.

That's because Olajuwon was a great player. Great players are great players no matter who is around them. The team may not win, but they still get theirs.

Again, you're dealing in what-ifs and hypotheticals based upon really nothing. It's like saying Len Bias would've been as good as MJ. Sorry. We'll never know that. There was nothing I saw that led me to believe that Ralph's game would improve. The guy was a good center, but got knocked out of his position by an all-time great. There is nothing logical about saying a guy who neither showed greatness nor any great improvement year-to-year would have been as good as a guy who did show improvement.

Here's a 1988 article about Ralph after the trade to the Warriors :

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1066948/1/index.htm

The most damning line - "I don't believe in dominant players," says Sampson. "Only dominant teams."


Also, this shows exactly what frustrated so many people about Sampson back then. The guy would up and disappear for entire games or halves. He'd throw up 25 and 15 one game and then come back with 8 and 5 or something the next game.

The difference in Sampson's two halves on Thursday—the dominating one and the disappearing one—was an example of what has caused public opinion about him to be as fervently divergent as it has been for perhaps any player since Chamberlain. A Houston Post poll showed Rockets fans to be split on the subject of the Sampson trade.

 

Of course, of course

This kind of condescending attitude and sweeping generalization get pretty boring after the 200th time, 199 of which are from threads started by tinman

 

You're assuming I meant "physically" took him out of the game. I meant "mentally". Yao was mugged every bit as much as Ralph was down low. Hanzlik and Danny Schayes got into Hakeem's and Ralph's heads so much, they took the Twin Towers out of games mentally via retaliatory fouls or technicals against our guys. Yao got mugged, maybe complained, but it was rare for him to mentally fall for that stuff. Oh, and no, a knee up Yao's butt wouldn't do much. By the time Yao had gotten the art of posting up players down low, about the only player that was going to move him was Shaq. On the physical side, Yao weighed 295-325 pounds and had about 60-100 pounds on Sampson throughout their careers - Hanzlik wasn't going to move Yao.

He had a very good season his rookie year. I wouldn't say the guy dominated.

You're absolutely right. Sampson never had the opportunity. Which is why I'm wondering how you can say he would've definitely improved when in his first 2 seasons, nothing showed me that great of an improvement. Yao started off weak and people thought he would be a bust. He turned into a beast in the post before his injuries. He showed improvement. Ralph could turn it on - yes, but who the heck kept turning him off, because that sure happened a lot, too.

 

Lol

Life is so funny. Ralph would have been a HOF MONSTER playing under Rick Adelman. Imagining him in a Webber type role in a Rick offense is absolutely scary. I'd go so far as to say he would have been in convos about greatest PF ever, right alongside Duncan and Garnett (he was the prototype) playing under Adelman.

Ralph had a problem with physical posts that was negated in faster, open court play. In that state, he was unstoppable as a 7'4 wingman extraordinaire. 20 rebound games were NOT unknown for a guy shy of contact and that, unto itself, is amazing. I only wish today meds and training were available for Ralph at that time. He was so, so, so, so talented.

 

verse,
did you purposely write all that without mentioning Yao at all, or JVG? Or should we take that into consideration on your take?

still love ya man...but I do recall you and ChuckyBrownFanClub getting very sensitive about Ralph.

 

Samson, definitely. Irrelevant of Olajuwon and McGrady.

That guy could have been legendary. Yao has yet to be in the same circumstances for greatness that Samson could have found himself in. Injuries...

 

How do we land Dream if Sampson dominates. What did Sampson dominate the year we got last again to get Dream?

 

How many people here remember seeing Ralph Sampson play?

 

The rest of the team was still pretty bad and we got lucky on the coin flip.

 

You are correct that players are larger now than they were then but at people were allowed to play more physical back then. As you note guys like Hanzlik and Shayes would get even into Hakeem's head because they were allowed to play what is considered now dirty. Heck look at the D the Lakers played with Kurt Rambis and Mitch Kupchak essentially playing like hockey enforcers. Yao has gotten mugged but the D Yao has faced wasn't the same as what Sampson faced just as a consequence that the game has changed.

And I agree that mentally Yao is much better. That isn't close but you can't ignore the fact that injuries cut short Sampson's career well before Yao's. If you look at them during same amount of seasons that they played Sampson is just plain better. If Sampson got the chance to play more maybe he does play inconsistently but there is no doubt his innate ability was greater than Yao's.

 

Ralph was a 7'4" Kevin Durant. He had that much skill.

 

I think the question though - at least as posed by Tinman- is potential. No question that yao came closer to maximizing his (when healthy) than Ralph did, but I'll agree with the rest that due to his versatility, Ralph's ultimate ceiling was higher (though mentality & injuries limited him).

 

Really? It's Yao and it's really nowhere close. Quit comparing a 15 ppg scorer to a 20 ppg scorer. Saying stuff like he can dribble or move faster doesn't mean **** when it doesn't translate to the dominance that Yao actually achieves. Sure, fronting /double teams "takes Yao out of the game", but when the other team spends 2 players to take 1 player out of the game, he's already making an enormous impact.

 

great topic.

Yao, unquestionably. both are/were supremely gifted/talented players, but Yao has something Ralph never had: heart, grit, and determination.

had they played against one another, Yao would have destroyed Sampson.

 

I pick both Ralph sampson because he played with Hakeem and Yao because there are no true centers left. I mean, Bynum scores 18 points the entire national media is masturbating.

Then again, yao was never in a kurtis blow song. Love chance, but kurtis blow is a little bit more awesome.

I can't decide. =( It's sad that their careers ended due to injuries.

 

Sampson never could have been the dominant offense player that Yao was for a while. I think people got worked up on what he could do, and didn't pay enough attention to what he couldn't do (push people around in the post). Ralph could have been the most versatile giant ever, but Yao is just a better post player. That being said, I picked Ralph, because he played with Olajuwon. Olajuwon covered Sampson's flaws.

 

I wish Yao could play more under Adelman. JVG made him a great low post player. I've always felt that his game could expand beyond just low post. With his shooting touch and his court vision, he could be a bigger Brad Miller with a devastating back to the basket game.

 

More like a slower Brad Miller. Other than the occasional 4th period dunk against the Eddie Curry's off the universe, Yao's face up game was really nothing you wanted to see deployed on a regular basis, give his dribbling issues.