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

Would Yao compliment Dream like Ralph did?

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/3663271.html

"It was a really good ballclub and probably missed its mark in history with all the things it could have done," said head coach Bill Fitch. "I had so much fun coaching that team, because they had a lot of talent and because they were, for the most part, willing to do everything I asked of them.

"That team had a lot of guys who could shoot and would shoot the big shots at the end of games. It had a player like Ralph, who could do a lot of different things at 7-4, like get the ball off the glass and throw the outlet or run down the floor and finish the break.


"We took a lot of criticism for drafting Hakeem when we already had Ralph," said general manager Carroll Dawson, who was then an assistant coach. "But we were excited about the Twin Towers concept. We were pretty sure it could work, and once it did, everybody around the league tried to copy it."

 

Anyone could compliment Hakeem....Even freakin Darko.

 

Good question. I think the key issue is whether Hakeem could guard the 4s, and he had plenty of quickness to do just that.

 

tell that to Scottie Pippen.

 

Shawn Kemp?

 

Well, aren't we glad the Rockets didn't have Yao to hinder Hakeem against Shawn Kemp. Hakeem's Rockets matched up so well against the Sonics.

 

Ralph has superior ball handling, could run a break, and finish alley oops.
Plus let's remember who Ralph/Dream had to face, Kareem, Parish, Eaton,

wonder how Yao would have stacked up against the legends?
would it be a hook fest? Yao vs Kareem?

 

The Sonics were a tough matchup for everybody but they really were our kryptonite back then. Thank god for the Barkley trade. Watching Olajuwon make that reverse dunk to seal the deal and finally get past Seattle was a thing of beauty.

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Yao usually does pretty good against traditional bigs so I think he would have held his own.

I don't think Hakeem would have had any problems at all playing the 4. How do you think he would have done against Nowitski? While I don't think he would have shut him down - I think he would definitely have curbed his efficiency.

My memory is also very fuzzy during the Sampson years. Did Hakeem guard a lot of 4's during that time?

 

Dirk is a tough matchup for anybody defensively because he's so unorthodox and he can shoot from anywhere on the court and he can put the ball on the floor to boot. I think a young Robert Horry would've been a great defender on Dirk.

 

I think Hakeem's shot blocking and quickness would help against Dirk, however Dirk can pull Dream out to the 3 point line leaving the paint open.

As Asian Sensation said, Horry would be a good guard on Dirk, letting Dream go back to the paint.

As far as offense, Dream would post him up every time.

 

So Hakeem would have had to play the 4 with Yao. Sure, he could have been a 4, possibly the best to ever play the game, but it would be the height of irony (using this "dream" analogy), as Sampson was forced from his natural spot at the 5 in order to give Dream that position. What should be remembered when discussing Ralph is that he was not only Rookie of the Year and in the All Star game (as a center), but made the All Star team again in his second season, winning the MVP award playing as a center. At the same point in their careers, Yao, while clearly an excellent player with a great future, was still finding his way in the league. Sampson came in and dominated from the beginning.

 

I will take Ralph over Yao any day of the week. Ralph was just a beast who became injured, then PLAYED injured. There was no baby coddling like there was with him and T-Mac.

 

Okur was flat out garbage that series. Something around 12 ppg on 30% shooting. I don't know of another playoff performance that bad, which gets brought up as good even years later.

Boozer was a superstar offensive player that season (20.9 ppg, 11.7 rpg, 0.561 FG%, 24.1 PER). Not exactly a "bum."

 

Yao's offensive efficiency was on par with the great centers of history but his defense and rebounding were average.

Yao was at his peak during the 05-06 season, before his injury. I remember him absolutely beasting that season, averaging a dominant 26/13/2 in the couple of months before his injury.

 

Yao's defense and rebounding were very underrated. You call him "average" in those areas, as do many other people. Quite a few people even claim that he sucked in those areas. Which is totally untrue. It's rooted in simplistic, per-game statistics, as well as preconceived notions about how a good defender or rebounder is supposed to play.

Yao's has a career rpg of 9.2, in 32.5 mpg. Not bad, but doesn't jump out at you. A lot of people think that because he's 7'6, or because he was coming off of Prime Shaq (a monster physical specimen unlike any the league had or has ever seen), he should've gotten a lot more. They set 10 rpg as the standard for a star rebounder.

His actual rebounding % (the portion of available rebounds he got while he was on the floor) was 16.5. Again that's not monstrously, superstar good. Not quite KG or Dwight levels. It's still a pretty good rebounding %, and above average. 82games.com shows Yao's stats against opposing centers for every season of his career. He outrebounded the opposition on average, every single year.

He may not have been the most mobile center, or the quickest or highest jumper, but Yao was BIG and knew how to box out. Average rebounders don't outrebound opponents, they break even. Yao's rpg looks a tad unimpressive because he didn't play huge minutes, and he was on a slow-paced team in a slow-paced era of the NBA. Quite a few of those vaunted "10 rpg" players actually had lower rebounding % than Yao did.

If Yao sucked or was only average at defense, then one wonders why the Rockets were one of the league's leading defensive teams throughout his tenure here. Check 82games again. Yao shut down lots of big men, holding them to low FG% on lots of outside shots. He had good but not amazingly great bpg numbers, but again there were reasons for it. Yao played on a slow paced team, and he routinely clogged the lane and forced outside shots. As I recall, the Rockets were among the league's leaders in forcing outside jumpers as well.

Adjusted +/- actually suggests that Yao's defensive impact on the team was bigger than his offensive impact. I have a spreadsheet that I downloaded from the APBRmetrics forum, showing adjusted +/- for players from 2003-2009. Yao's offensive +/- was +1.58, which is good but not amazingly good. It makes sense considering how hard this team struggled to get him the ball at times, although I would blame that on the offensive schemes and the teammates more on Yao (who did what he was supposed to by posting up). But Yao's defensive +/- was 4.38, which was EXTREMELY good, near the top and just a bit below Duncan.

 

Luther Head is an embarrassment. Nobody disappeared in the playoffs more than him.

What's more interesting is the supporting cast outside of Yao and McGrady were 2nd to 3rd to unwanted tier level players. In fact, that has been the case since 2004.

 

His best statistical month was February of 2006. Absolutely beasted though the team did not see much success.

http://espn.go.com/nba/player/gamelog/_/id/1722/year/2006/yao-ming

There was no doubt that Yao was the best center of the league in 2006-when he played. Check out his stretch to start the season. I remember that 12/9/06 game and that stretch he had to 12/20/06. Incredible numbers.
http://espn.go.com/nba/player/gamelog/_/id/1722/year/2006/yao-ming

Sorry it didn't last longer.

 

So is Yao the only superstar, top 5 center of all time(at the height of his career) that can be taken out of his game by fronting him? Yeah, he looked good on paper but he had notable weaknesses. Fronting, rebounding, stamina....he was great, but no where near the level of Kareem, Wilt, Shaq, Hakeem, etc.