Even Ewing ate Mourning alive in the playoffs. How good of a defender could he be? Also I have checked the stats, Mourning's career high season rebounds were 11 rpg, his average in his prime years was around 10 rpg, just a lil better than Yao, far from "a monster".
what?? did you watch Mourning play? he was a tremendous defender. at his best, he was first team all defense twice. Where do you get the idea that Ewing wasn't an offensive threat? Patrick had seasons where he averaged 28 ppg. He was absolutely an offensive threat...and more than most centers could handle. Ewing beating Mourning in the playoffs hardly suggests that Mourning wasn't a great defender.
I watched Mourning play. I remember his frequent choke job in playoffs. When he faced Ewing, he's in his prime while Ewing was already past his, but Ewing still beat him head to head. Anyway, I am not comparing Mourning to Ewing here. I would rate Mourning better than Yao defensively, but not nearly as a big gap as Yao better than him offensively.
I'm pretty sure I'd choose Mourning in his prime over Yao in his prime, regardless, if you were asking me to rank them.
Yao's best year was 25 ppg. Mourning's was 23 ppg. Yao had 3 years of over 22 ppg. Mourning except that one year never averaged more than 22 ppg, averaged around 19-21. Also my eyes told me that Yao had way a better and more skilled arsenal of offensive moves than Mourning. Yao had much a better jumper also and shot FTs better. Yao also passed better. Yes, I think Yao's a much better offensive player than Mourning. The only advantage Mourning had on Yao was probably offensive rebounding due to his better jumping ability. But even then it didn't really reflect on Mourning's rebounding numbers. Mourning's rebound average in his prime years was around 10 rpg with one year of career best of 11 rpg. Pretty mediocre compared to 13-14 rpg posted by the true elites of Olajuwon and Robinson and others.
Yao wouldn't be top 5 all time. But with the old rules and good health, he would have dominated the league and been a perennial top 5 player. And with Morey assembling the supporting cast, we would have been a contender for the length of his prime.
Shaq didn't have a jumper and certainly couldn't shoot FT's better than Yao, but he was a far more effective offensive player than Yao. I don't care how a guy scores...I care about his FG percentage and how many points he's putting up for me. If I look at Mourning's best 4 years in scoring average, he averaged 21.93 ppg. If I look at Yao's best 4 years in scoring average, he averaged 22.25 ppg. We're talking about a difference of .32 ppg. There's no way I could agree with your assertion that Yao was a "much better offensive player" than Mourning. There's just not that much of a distinction.
IMO, Yao had top 5 center talent but never could reach it solely because of injuries. I'm the biggest Yao supporter but even I can't put him top 10 because of the lack of on court successs, which was due to injuries. With all the said his post play and shooting touch was phenomenal and when u combine the fact that he was 7'6 325lb it made him literally impossible to guard 1 on 1. Yao would have not only held his own but would have destroyed players like russle, Ewing and Robinson if guarded one on one with the same rules those guys played with. Yao is a very very special offensive center he was a mediocre rebounder and good but not great defender (team defense very good with him) but so was shaq that prob the best comparison even though there games were different they were both just too big for everybody and had the skills to back up the size. Yao is a special player and just like Hakeem shaq wilt Kareem and all the othe greats were not going to see a player like him ever again. Bynum an Howard's come around every 5-10 yrs those other guys I mentioned are once in a lifetime and while Yao didn't achieve what the others did it wasnt because he wasn't good enough cause he clearly was it was just his body failing him. Remember Yao the player when he was playing and leading the rockets to the playoffs every yr not the last comeback attempt.
I would definitely take a healthy Yao in his prime. You might say this because unfortunately Yao was never really healthy in his prime.
I love how when you compare Yao vs Bynum you simply show the numbers; but when you show Shaq vs Yao you justify the numbers by Shaq being in the league more etc. What do you think happen with Yao vs Bynum? Not to say Yao wouldn't be better, but you can't just do that
You couldn't compare stats like that. Sometimes stats varied because of the dynamics of players' teams. For most of Yao's career, he was either a 2nd option or a first option surrounded by role players (when McGrady was injuried). Also Yao was never really fully healthy in his prime years. Anyway, I don't need any stats but my eyes to tell me that if I needed a score, I would choose Shaq > Yao > Mourning among the players mentioned in your post. Mourning was never a dominant scorer in his whole career. Shaq was dominant. Yao had flashes of dominance.
Yao had a far bigger offensive repatoire then Alonzo. Yao really in his prime could have been a 27 point player if the offense gave him more touches. Overall i agree that Alonzo was the better overal player. People who just go by stats are not getting the whole picture. Mournings interior defense was incridibe.
He did have a Hall of Fame career... http://www.nba.com/video/channels/hall_of_fame/2011/08/12/20110812_hof_speech_sabonis.nba/index.html
I think you would have gotten a much better response if you had framed the question a little differently. "Top 5" centers of all time has begin a bit of a closed discussion since Shaq secured his place there; you're not displacing Wilt, Russell, Kareem, Hakeem and Shaq from that no matter what. I think you get into more interesting territory when you say "top 10". Then you're dealing with Moses, David Robinson, Ewing, Dwight, Mikan if you think old school guys could hang in this discussion, and it drops off pretty hard after that. I think if you look at, say, per-minute numbers or winshares per minute, he hangs with the guys in that echelon. But I don't think you really need to invoke zone defense rules to place Yao in that echelon. I think you just need to invoke "healthy Yao" and you're there. And obviously if you don't invoke "healthy Yao" there is simply no way he can be considered a top 10 or even top 15 center of all time with only 15k career minutes and one playoff series win.
yes, he definitely was. I wish Yao would come back and do guest color commentary on Rocket games sometimes.
No. Yao has faults that could be exploited by the top centers of all time. My problem with Yao was his dexterity. Dude couldn't play a whole game. He has to sit and get his energy back. Maybe we were spoiled with Dream playing the whole damn game and not get tired with like 5 guys draped on him.
