Van Gundy is the man. Did you see last night how he made the Rockets play through that terrible start without switching anyone. He even left Taylor in with 3 fouls in the first. Van Gundy is trying to fire this team up. He is trying out different things and playing unconventional. After all, this is an entirely new team. Yao is not playing up to his potentional, and needs to show more assertiveness. The offense goes through him, so if he can't be assertive, where does that leave us? Yao is not playing like a player worthy of a max contract next year, and he needs to catch the fire. Van Gundy is completely warrented dissing on our starters, they are playing like ****. T-mac is taking circus shots (worse than Mobley), and Yao is playing like a girl. I say, lay into them Van Grumpy, that's what a coach is supposed to do when his team is not playing up to their potential.
Eaton averaged 7.9 rebounds/game for his career. Sampson averaged 8.8 Kareem average 11.2 Sabonis averaged 7.3 At least use career statistics rather than season bests as a comparison. Smits 6.1 rebounds/game Yao is currently average 8.6 for his career. If you took a look at just the non-black players, Yao is right there with everyone. Rebounding is like track and field. When the Chinese guy actually won a track and field event, it was like a historic moment. When a black guy wins a track and field event, it is ho hum. I never think a non-black guy will ever lead the league in rebounding. That includes Yao. Understanding his limitations is the part of the maturity process. Look at the best non-white players in NBA history, I can come up with guys like Mark Price and Larry Bird. They honed their shooting to be up their with the greats. With that being said, Yao should at a minimum be able to shoot from outside similar to Brad Miller which will enable him broaden his offensive array. Brad Miller is no dummy. He doesn't have the physical tools to go mano y mano vs the defenders in the low post. He's got that jumper. Going 100% scoring in the low post is relegated to the big SOBs who have very strong upperbodies. Yao has a weak upperbody. He's stronger than Shawn Bradley, but I doubt he's stronger than 25% of the guys who are actually defending him. This is why he is so dependent on the referees calling a tight game in the paint. If the refs don't call the fouls, he is dead in the paint. Dampier said it last year, and it still rings true today. Be physical with Yao, and it is game over for Yao.
What a fitting post #666 for you. Francis had all sorts of problems, but one thing you can say for him, he wanted the ball. And a second thing, he left it all on the floor.
What's frustrating is seeing Yao getting his dunks blocked game after game. I think he needs to grab the ball with two hands and **** it back behind his head and try to brake someones hand when they try to block it. Basically more aggression.
Ralph Sampson's career rbs average is 8.8. Sabonis's career rbs average is 7.3. I agree with bob718. I'm tired of people using Yao's height against him. there's no reason to expect him to average 10 rbs a game only because he's 7'6. Yao will never be a great rebounder. deal with it. but i bet he'll average around 9 rbs for his career, barring major injuries, which is very good for a center if you ask me.
Sampson was a hell of a lot more athletic than Yao. One can't make a fair comparison. Ralph could dribble the length of the court, and sometimes seemed to think he was a guard, which drove his coaches crazy. He was a true center, who was the MVP of the All Star game the year before the Rockets drafted Akeem, if I'm remembering correctly. Dream moved Ralph out of his natural position, and Sampson played PF when they were on the court together. Ralph had some bad luck with injuries. Without them, he would have had a Hall of Fame career, in my opinion. Ralph wasn't "more of a jump shooter." He was a legit 7'4" center who didn't weigh a lot, true, but he could bang, he could block shots, he intimidated, he sure as hell could rebound and, in his short prime, he would have made Yao look silly.
That might be true, but I think the problem is more with the players, especially our backcourt. Players are humans, the talks about sacrify ones' game for the good of the team is just craps, whenever players get the opportunity, they will take it. Against the Nets, everyone on the roster, include 12th man, probably thought this is a night he can pad his stats, and still be able to win. It happens with every team, Yao just have to deal with it unless he develops into a vocal leader, and yell at whoever don't pass the ball to him. But, I don't hold my breathe for that to happen anytime soon. On the other hand, 1rb in 22 minute is hard to defend. I don't know who to blame for that stats.
I can't agree more... Yao is useless... how about trade Yao for Chris Bosh? You'll have a great young power forward, and we will finally have a center (a not so good one)
The question was "Name one 7-3 or taller player in history who averaged more than 10 rebounds." I answered it. He didn't specify season or career.
The question was "Name one 7-3 or taller player in history who averaged more than 10 rebounds." I answered it. He didn't specify season or career.
Kareem is the right model for Yao. Believe it. Tmac isn't quite Magic, but closer to that than he is to Jordan. They should study those teams. They played good d. They could also score on anybody, moving the ball with precision to the right target. Kareem was no greyhound, plodding up the court. He nevertheless is one of the greatest centers ever. Yao needs to step it up. Sure. But that doesn't have to mean playing like Ben Wallace. He's not Ben Wallace. He's going to get more done playing to his strengths - being Yao.
the criticism is fair. it's not even that bad. Yao seems to be the most "inconsistent" superstar in the nba. Which for many calls into question if he is even a superstar or does he at this point only have superstar potential. I think Yao has awesome skills and seems like a great guy, which are among the reasons he is my favorite player in the NBA. At the same time I'll be the first to admit that he's not "there" yet. He's a very good player but he's not at the level of the NBA's elite. Fortunately, it's still early in the season but at the same time Yao's already had three games where he had under 10 points and three games with 5 or fewer rebounds. The best big men in the league like Duncan and KG don't put up numbers like that three times during the whole year.
Yao needs to be a slow KG. It's either that or a slow Tim Duncan. He shouldn't try to be Shaq. To put it another way, he should try to be a fast Rik Smits.
GROW up, JVG. You have a star in Yao. Don't bench him on top of the bad calls he got from the refs. THis whole team metality is just so absurd, JVG included, Yao is got to make every shot and grab every rebound. Hakeem never warmed up the bench after missing 3 shots. For Yao to be consistant, leave him in there, give him the minutes. He is a great player, it is about time to treat him like one.
Yao Ming's problem is very simple. He wants to help the team more than himself, and that's great. But he has to learn that in order to help the team, he must assert himself FIRST. Then the defense will collapse to stop him, and that will open up the opportunities for his teammates. Strong post move, bucket. Strong post move, foul, 2 free throws. THEN when you get tripled and kick it out or find the cutter, you have an easy 2 or 3 points, and your teammates are "involved" and starting to "feel it." Got it?
Trade him to Golden State, please. I hope all Rocks fans can sign up for the idea. Please, do it. NBA fans in SF bay area will thank you for that. BTW, there're doggie days once in a while for all of us. Watch Yao makes a come back in Atlanta tonight. However, Yao does pay more attention and play harder against better teams. Atlanta is dead last right now, maybe Yao will only get 4 points with no rebound, and get benched by Van Grumpy. Let's wait and see.
I completely agree. It must be extremely hard to ref a guy of Yao's size (much like Shaq), and Yao not only has to adjust to different defenses against him each night, but also how the refs are calling the game, much more so than other players. Because of his size, he's getting a lot of bad calls. Opponents are pounding him in the paint, and he isn't always getting those calls because it doesn't seem to affect him as much as a smaller player, yet they are still fouls. After watching every game and reviewing a lot of plays (thanks to tivo!!), there just isn't any constistancy in reffing from game to game. I think Yao's poor play last night was more because he was frustrated with the reffing from the very beginning. Within the first few minutes, they missed two calls which were VERY obvious, then made a call against Yao which was not even close to being as bad as what they missed. This is still not an excuse for his poor play, and I think he needs to work on his mental game more and just being able to adjust and think forward rather than getting overly frustrated and letting that affect his play. I hope the Rockets are sending tapes to the league officials so we can get some consistant reffing, otherwise it's going to be much harder for Yao to establish a consistant game every night when he isn't sure of how the refs wil handle him.
