How good was Yao when he actually played on the court?

The Rockets were suppose to win an NBA title with Yao and Tmac, they were favored to beat Utah, or do you not remember?

What the hell does AB have to do with this?

The original argument was who was more hyped up, the Twin Towers or Yao and Tmac.

The Rockets in 86 were not favored to beat the Lakers and not favored to beat the Celtics.

 

I think the unlucky thing about Yao was that we only saw Yao Ming at his peak in the playoffs one time, in 2009. The other the times he was still kind of raw (04, and 05), not quite healthy (2007, when he was still recovering from a mid-season injury) or absent due to injury (2008). Also, I really think 08/09 was his best year, both regular- and post-season. He might not have scored as much, but he had the most responsibility to create for the rest of the team, and did so very efficiently on a team where the 2nd best offensive player was Ron Artest.

I don't think it's an coincidence that 2009 was the one year when he finally won a series, even though his most talented teammate, Tracy McGray, was not along for the ride (thank God for Ron Artest, though).

 

As I remember, it was more like 50-50 before the season started by media. Some thought Rockets would win, some thought Utah had the advantage. One big reason was Yao just came back from injury and still was not 100%. It showed in playoffs.

It didn't have anything to do with AB until you mentioned Yao/Tmac were hyped up by clutchfans My point is: Clutchfans hype up almost every rocket player. But that shouldn't be counted as real "hype up". Tmac/Yao being best comb in NBA for those years were not hype up, but a real thing.

The original discussion was not twin towers or Tmac/Yao, but Sampson or Tmac/Yao. They had the same goal to win a ship and they both failed.

If you consider Yao/Tmac failure, you shouldn't consider Sampson a success just because he got a better team and went further. The only thing Yao failed to achieve is a Championship, Sampson doesn't have any advantage over Yao in that department.

 

Agree. Yao was improving each year, especially defensive end, until that injury. People look at stats would say 2006-2007 was his best year. But Yao wasn't as complete as he was in 2008-2009, His impact toward winning is smaller. Some people look at his 16 points ppg in Blazers series and completely forgot how he forced Blazers to change the entire game plan and opened the floor up for Scola etc.

Too bad Yao's best year becomes his last year.

Too bad his best year became his last year.

 

Now I know you are smoking something, saying the same thing twice in a row.

 

That has to be the first time anyone has thanked God for Ron. haha

 

LOL. Not exactly the same though.

 

Aside from the time your mom did.

 

It's not about his peak. Yao was pretty much developed by 2006. The difference is that 2009 was the only postseason when the Rockets featured Yao firmly as the #1 option. As a result you saw Yao take over that Portland series in game 1 and establish a tone over the Lakers big men before he got hurt.

Previous years, Yao was always in a subordinate position in the game plan to Francis or Tmac, both of whom had structural deficiencies when it came to closing in the playoffs. Tmac in particular had huge issues at the end of the 4th quarter in the playoffs even when he put up overall good numbers.

In 2009 you saw what a team built around Yao could do in the playoffs. It validated a lot of... not the hype that tinman is so obsessed with... but the reasoned argument of Yao supporters what an asset a true dominant Big Man could be come playoffs. And more specifically, **** that guys like JVG were specifically advocating about Yao: how an unselfish FT-hitting, undefendable center could set a tone, create mayhem for defenses and carry a team through the playoffs.

As for the hype, keep in mind that dozens of players are hyped every year, as hard as Yao and Tmac ever were. Think of the push that David Stern gave Blake Griffin around midseason to drive ratings for the All Star break. You'd think he was the 2nd coming of the Reignman. Hype is literally the first business of the NBA. Timan be aware that of the multitude of players hyped over a season all but 1 combination of players fails to deliver every single year as only 1 team can win it all. Failing to "deliver" hype is the norm not the exception and not delivering on the hype some media puts on you is a pretty harsh standard for "failure" whether you're Lebron, Yao, Clyde Drexler, Pippen or whoever.

 

Has Kobe lived up to the hype?

Can't even get out of the first round without Shaq or Gasol.

What a loser. Good player but not superstar worthy. Derpty derp.

 

Should rename the site Derpfans. Only on Derpfans does failure in the playoffs (from Ralph Sampson) equate to "living up to the hype".

 

Agreed totally with your take, Zboy. This is a very fair and objective analysis of his high's and low's as a player.

 

Yao is a better basketball player than NBA player, althought he's great in both categories.

People here always try to measure him based only on NBA achievement. That's all fine. But obviously yao himself and fans around world don't look at it this way.

Yao's idol is Sabonis. Yao'd rather stick with a rebuilding Rockets team than chasing a ring if he could come back. Yao refused Nike's ridiculous contract(1.5 times of Kobe's contract) just becasue Nike didn't treat him the way he liked. Yao wholeheartedly joined the Chinese team for world championship and Olympics and fight hard to advance the national team beyond expectations. For a man his size(over 7"5'), historically nobody did anything remotely close.

If he grew up in US, he will rest and train in the summer every year, and refuse team USA like a lot of superstars did(until the redemption team). He'll learn to be selfish and take a lot more possessions early in the career to develop himself. He'll join forces with other superstars and better organizations. He'll be healthier, more aggressive, more selfish and filling up the stats sheet and getting NBA rings in a much more impressive way.

But he is what he is, and he's unique. He's from a different culture and measured by Chinese culture, he's more successful as is than if he did all above mentioned. And that's exactly why he so choosed his path.

 

Clutchfans:

Where averaging 25/10 is considered "getting shut down by Okur".
Where Sampson constantly failing to get a ring means "SUCCESS!"

I need more material, keep it comin!

 

While I don't argue the fact that our role players got better, much better even.... as Yao got older I still can't NOT blame Yao for the loss against the Jazz in the 06-07 campaign. I still have nightmares of Boozer and Okur taking him to the back of the woodshed.

Yao played very well on the offensive end. He played like a "superstar" on offense in that series but he couldn't stop Boozer or Okur to save his life. Okur killed him from deep and Boozer was way too quick for him. His defense was flat out horrible. And to make things worse he only grabbed 6 boards in games 6 and 7. We had Utah on the brink when we were up 2-0 and then we were up 3-2 with game 7 at home. A true superstar center doesn't grab just 6 rebounds in the 2 most important games of their lives and expect to win. This is what separates Shaq, Dream, Duncan etc. (TRUE SUPERSTARS) from Yao. They were complete players on BOTH ends of the court.

If only we had either Scola or Landry that year things would have been different but it doesn't change the facts that we had the TWO BEST players in the series on our team, won 52 games, had home court advantage and were favored to win that series and had 2 chances to eliminate Utah when we were up 3-2.

 

Compare Ralph's first three seasons to Yao's first three seasons and then get back to me.

 

I don't think anybody is arguing that Okur shut down Yao but the problem was Yao couldn't "shut down" Okur or Boozer. Olajuwon or Tim Duncan wouldn't let those bums pop off on them.

Also, you bring up Yao averaging 10 boards in the series but he only grabbed 6 in games 6 and 7. Those were both elimination games. I still remember very clearly in the final minutes of game 7 when Utah kept getting offensive rebounds and they were playing volleyball with each other. Sure, better team rebounding coul have helped but a true superstar would have found a way to have gotten it done.

I loved Yao and when he was clicking he was very tough to stop but he had a lot of shortcomings that prevented him from being a true superstar (even if he was healthy).

 

1. The post I responded to was comparing the whole career.

2. Yao first 3 seasons: PER: 20.6, 21.9, 22.6. ORTG/DRTG: 111/100, 110/97, 113/99. Regular Season Wins: 43, 45, 51. Ralph first 3 seasons: PER: 20.1, 17.4, 16.9. ORTG/DRTG: 104/104, 102/104. 101/104. Regular Season wins: 29, 48, 51.

Main thing in Ralph's favor: His team made it to the finals in his 3rd year. During other two years, his playoff success level was pretty much the same as that of Yao: miss the playoff the 1st year (by a larger margin than Yao's team did... though probably not his fault since he and McCray joined a 14-win squad), and got knocked out in the 1st round in the 2nd year. He was very good in the playoffs during the Rockets run to the finals (18.9 PER, ORTG/DRTG: 109/103).

ON the other hand, Yao Ming probably would have won some more playoff games had he played with Olajuwon, too. His playoff peronsal numbers were generally pretty good (21.5 over the course of his career, close to his 22.6 career regular season PER). Unlike Ralph in 86, Yao never quite had the stars aligned with a great team and good health at the same time.

 

why are you that old yet getting online trying to start an efight?