This topic has probaby been beaten to death, but recently i stumbled upon some of his old CBA stats and have found a few things very curious, and telling. Year G MIN FGM FGA PCT FTM FTA PCT REB AST BLK PTS AVG 1997-98 21 - 91 148 .615 32 66 .485 8.3 0.6 - 210 10.0 1998-99 12 - 100 171 .585 51 73 .699 12.9 0.6 - 251 20.9 1999-00 33 - 285 487 .585 127 186 .683 14.5 1.7 - 699 21.2 2000-01 22 - 221 326 .678 139 174 .799 19.4 2.2 - 596 27.1 2001-02 34 - 411 570 .721 255 336 .759 19.0 2.9 - 1102 32.4 Totals CBA 122 - 1108 1702 .651 604 835 .723 - 15.4 1.8 - 2858 23.4 Often people around here forget that Yao is still a young DEVELOPING player, which in his case is even more important. Heres what i have heard, "Yao will NEVER dominate, no player can just BECOME dominant. look at shaq, he came into the league averaging 27 14, same thgin for all the greats." In shaqs and along with all the other great's case they came into the league PHYSICALLY developed and dominant. They leave little to improve upon, shaqs point total actually peaked his second year. Yao on the other hand is much more like a high school player jumping to teh nba, like KG, Kobe, JO etc. Yao has hardly ever had any weight training prior to the nba and it showed(upper body). KG, kobe and co took a few years to develope physically, and the same will apply to yao. the main difference between yao and the great centers is they came into the league developed. The above CBA stats further prove this. back in 97-98, when yao was 17, he averaged 10 8 in the soft cba. if you knew that you would not take him over george meruson. but in fact at 17 he was alot weaker than he was entering into the nba, so he couldnt even take the cba physicality. but by the time he FULLY adapted to it physically, around the 4rd year, he averaged an amazing 27 19. this is proof that he CAN develope into a dominant force even when he started out 10 8, much like his rookie year in the nba. The most telling stat from the above is actually his rookie year FT%, amazingly he shot a shaqesque .485! wait thats WORSE than shaq. but by his 4th year when he came into his own, he improved it to a spectacular .799. THATS effort and hard work. i wonder how many thousands of FTs he must have shot. this stat further illustrates that Yao works hard and IMPROVES his game. REBs from 8.3 to 19.0 PPG from 10 to 32.4 staggering improvment. rememeber before you say hey he averaged 32 19 in the CBA woopdydoo... well he also averaged 10 8 in the same cba. from his past performance and current trends, i fully anticipate a fully developed Yao(physically and mentally) in 2 years at the age of 26, in his prime, averaging 32 points 14 rebs on 60% fg This is a player that needs TIME and patients to develope into a truely dominant force, and his CBA stats prove this.
after reading that i notice some parts arent exactly perfectly coherent. i apologize, im not in the most coherent state of being... 420 however i am confident i did not hullucinate the stats tho, they are from http://68.121.172.186/yaoming/
Nice job on the research. It's a funny coincidence that Yao averaged 8.3rpg his first year in the CBA and NBA, but if you ever expect him to get 19rpg in the NBA, you're crazy. He will definitely keep improving nicely each year though, no question.
dude, people thought that it would be crazy if yao could ever take it to shaq, and guess what? it happened, in only his second year.... when are 'clutchfans' going to stop being so 'safe' with their predictions....with Yao, the sky is the limit.....
yeah i know, thats why i said 14, because there is a limit to ones physical developement. just because he went from 8 to 19 in teh cba, he wont in the nba, but i do believe he has room enough to get to 14. i know alot of us doubt that, and i thought he would probaby average a soft 9 for his carreer before seeing his cba stats, but he went from 8 to 19! thats huge. i think he can improve. My whole point of the post is taht yao is not like other greats who came in dominating, he grows into it.
If Yao can get the ball when he's open or has good position down low on a consistent basis, he could an MVP contender next year.
His last year in CBA was scary: 72% FG with 32 ppg. 19 rpg If he can get anywhere even remotely close to that in NBA, I will be thrilled.
i see no reason why he cant average 90% FT, seeing how he improved from 48 to 80, he can still improve if he works on it.
So true. Although is seems absurd in some ways, when all is said and done, Yao will probably go down as one of the all-time greats. And we definitely don't have to worry about problems with too much partying or substance abuse.
After I watched the first 2 games Yao against Shaq, I though there's no way Yao could score point playing Shaq one on one, at least not in a few year. But hey, take a look at the last 3 games, YAO prove me wrong. HAHA....I'm happy that I'm wrong.
I also got a story about yao after reading some chapters of YangYi' book. WZZ used to be Yao's strongest opponent in CBA, just like FatFat in NBA. 1997-1998 WZZ is still better than Yao,but Yao is impressive by 2blk to WZZ. 1998-1999,WZZ is intimidated by Yao. 1999-2001 Yao overcomes WZZ overall. Now lets back NBA 2002-2003 Shaq is still better than Yao,but Yao is impressive by ?blk to Shaq(it looks familiar,right?) 2003-2004 Shaq is intimidated by Yao. 2004-200X ?????????? some quotes from the book£¡ Yao's mother said," he really studies and trains hard,whenever he's back home,he asks his father and me some questions regarding center." yao said."I want to fight against him,i feel good only against the strongest opponent!" Its really interesting to see what will happen............
