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

He was trending upward, he was reaching his prime.
It's sad what happened. I wonder if he's going to get one last salute by the fans in Houston. They could do what they did for Barkley for his last game.

 

- Fronting D neutralizing Yao is only partially Yao's fault for not being strong enough or aggressive enough to fight through it. It is mostly the fault of the team however in not figuring out how to fight it. With fronting, Yao doesn't even get the ball. Rather than call it neutralizing Yao, it would be fairer to say it neutralizes the team's ability to get him the ball. This is the reason why star wings are typically more successful or valuable, they cannot be fronted and have the ability to break down and penetrate perimeter D at will and force interior D to collapse. Fronting would have been completely useless provided that T-Mac was healthy or if AB matured faster.

- H2H, there was no big that could match Yao. He was too tall and could score in too many ways; jumper, hook, fade, and FT's.

- Yao has no lateral quickness, but he was big enough to affect shots through sheer size and length alone. It is very difficult to lob a shot over a 7'6 center with decent wingspan, regardless of his actual defensive skills. IMHO his D was not underrated, just the effect of it that comes with being that big.

Yao was always a great player when healthy. However, "when healthy" will always be the stigma attached to Yao.

 

I remember that stretch. It was unreal. I always watched the games with my friend Josh at that time. He would yell "TWO POINTS!!!" every time someone tried to make an entry pass to Yao. And he was always right.

 

Utah single-covered Yao? Man, is this heading down the path of "Okur outplayed Yao?" You're literally saying that the Jazz single-covered Yao for FIVE straight games.

Once again, I have to point out that Okur in that series was garbage. He played like a total scrub. If Okur was one of our players, he would be mercilessly derided to this day, like Luther Head and Rafer Alston. But strangely, his performance in that series (below 11 ppg on disgustingly low FG%) has somehow taken on mythical proportions on this forum. Clutchfans, where people hate our own players more than our rivals.

Yao was one of the most doubled players in the league. I'm just astounded when people say that other teams could shut him down with single coverage or at best front him with one guy. One of the few times I saw a team single-covering Yao on a continual basis was Game 1 of the 2009 playoffs. Yao so completely murdered Przybilla to the point that the Blazers didn't dare do that again.

BTW, here's some of that "single coverage" that the Jazz gave Yao in Game 4 of the 2007 playoffs. I guess they must have had 5 guys in the paint each separately giving Yao single coverage at the same time. Man, look at that single coverage. Nobody on the Jazz was even paying attention to Yao, other than Okur. They didn't even bother sinking down to crowd him. Wow, Yao had it so easy in that series.

You claim that Yao's FG% in that series went down after Game 2. Here are Yao's actual stats:

Game 1: 8-18, 0.444 FG%
Game 2: 9-24, 0.375 FG%
Game 3: 6-14, 0.429 FG%
Game 4: 8-15, 0.533 FG%
Game 5: 6-18, 0.333 FG%
Game 6: 9-16, 0.563 FG%
Game 7: 9-20, 0.450 FG%

Yao did not shoot well from the field for most of the series. He lived at the FT line, which the Jazz sent him to at a far higher rate than his regular season average. But that's besides the point, because the pattern you claimed does not exist. Yao's three best field shooting games came after Game 2.

Yet +/- stats show that Yao was consistently a big help to the team. The Rockets' offense was basically built around Yao posting up and everyone else spotting up for 3pt shots.

Yao destroys Daugherty in rebounding %, blocked shots, PER, and scoring rate. Daugherty played more minutes in a much faster era than Yao did, and still has worse per-game stats.

You made numerous claims in this post of yours, which are completely disproven by both video evidence and the numbers.

 

What is with this forum hating on their team's own star?

Obviously it wasn't that easy, since Yao could consistently get about 20 ppg on 0.6 TS%.

Yeah, that's kind of the case with EVERYONE. Basketball is not played in a vacuum, one-on-one. Kobe could be shut down too, if teams just doubled or tripled him off the ball on every possession. That's not realistic though, so it's pointless to even talk about.

You talk about Yao as if he was some kind of inefficient, 0.4 FG% volume shooter. Yao was one of the most unselfish, efficient scorers in the league.

 

And the team couldn't win a game during that stretch.

 

Let me assumme you know what a double team look like. When a player gets the ball, makes a move, and in a shooting motion and the help comes is not a double team. Doubles happen to either get the ball out of the players hand once he catches or once he makes a dribble. Utah stop doubling yao after game 2 when they found out okur could handle him solo.

As far as yao destroying daughtery, check out www.basketball-refererence.com. now when. I made those statements and I have said them for a while, I did so way before I actually checked the numbers, I just watched the games. When I checked the numbers, I was really spot on. 19ppg 9.2 rebs and yao blked more shots but daughtery averaged 3+ assist per game. The fg% and evrything else were equal. So this destroying daughtery comments are way off base. For the record, I never said okur destroyed yao, I simply said the advantage we were supposed to have was neutralized because they handled yao without a double. Not only that, he shot 44% from the field. That's unacceptable for the so called best center in the game to be handled by okur.

 

The title of the thread is "How good was Yao when he actually played on the court?"

 

What was the pace factor for the teams they played on? You may want to check out what the average team was scoring during Daugherty's heydey (hint : during his best year, scoring under 100 points in a game was laughable). During Yao's best season, scoring over 100 points was something more than half the league didn't do.

 

25/10 at the center position... elite team defender.... extremely efficient... yeah, he was a superstar for a brief time.

 

Funny, that's how most people define double team. Double, as in two guys defending one. It's that simple.

So two guys (or FIVE as in those clips I posted) crowding around one guy to keep him from moving or taking more than a dribble or two isn't a double team to you. They are required to to make a ridiculous gamble to steal the ball without hedging in any way.

Your self-made definition of double team is ridiculous.

Which is why my clips showed multiple Jazz players, if not the entire team, converging into the paint around Yao, all with their eyes on him. Yeah, sure, Okur played him "solo."

Your words are at complete odds with the video evidence.

That's exactly where I got my stats from.

If you don't know what pace is, then don't talk statistics.

 

Just so we're clear here, three guys jumping up to put their hands in one shooter's face as he rises up for a jump shot doesn't count as a "double team" under this definition.

 

And how to David Stern take away his dominance? He called his thugs and told him to officiate him out of a game. As soon as houston would make a run with Yao, this would happen and Yao would have to sit out.

 

I love hearing people say how Yao was "neutralized" even though he was still putting up the numbers.

I'm guessing these are also the people who say Battier neutralized Kobe.

 

Battier did play good D on Kobe a few times
but fronting most of the time 100% of the time gives Yao problem.
and no its not guard's fault, its just that Yao Ming not only the slowest moving player on the planet, but also has probably the slowest reflexes.. so even a perfect pass would often turned into a turnover.

 

If so, the REAL Rocket dynasty will begin with Yao's retirement!! Because he's such a bad player.

 

I honestly don't know why people keep replying to that guy. Take a gander at all his posts and I bet you'll find the same unsubstantiated garbage repeated ad nauseum.

 

pretty darn good to answer your question

 

The people on this forum are notoriously unknowledgable, that's why they cite FG% and per game stats like they matter, lmao. Your statistics will not change anyone's faulty opinions.

 

well, there's the door...don't let it hit your backside on the way out, copernicus.