Complaining about Referee's makes one a whiner no matter if you right or wrong. . . . At least that is what I heard all last year Rocket River
Interesting analysis Jeff. You make some pretty good points there. I think Yao just has to try to get through this. In the games in which he DOES score points and is active I think the refs give him the benefit of the doubt on those fouls and DOES call them for him. However on nights when Yao looks passive and isnt playing well the refs dont "bail him out" with sending him to the line. It kind of is a chicken and egg type of thing but Yao just needs to FOCAS on the game early and START well. If he STARTS WELL and gets some points on the board then I think his confidence goes up and the refs give him more calls in favor of him.
The refs just plain suck, and they are a big reason why Yao Ming sometimes plays passive because he starts to play not to foul instead of just playing basketball. He knows they are gonna call BS fouls on him so he starts playing with hesitation and second guessing himself. Also, notice most of the bad calls Yao gets are the offensive fouls in which his man flops and gets the call from the refs, so he just starts playing soft as to not draw anymore offensive fouls.
The 1st two times Yao gets the ball in the low post and tries to score, he gets fouled with no calls being made by the ref. He got fouled on a dunk attempt too soon afterwards. Ref did not call it. Refs can directly impact the contributions of a player on the court, and it involves players who have a position that involves a lot of contact. Yao will never win a fight with brutes. If Yao is to succeed and overcome the lack of calls being made, he should make jumpshots when TMac passes to him off the dribble drive.
Yao needs to take a few lessons from Sam Cassell. Just give them an occasional slap on the ass and their little man complex will subside. The Refs are people too.
I don't agree with this. On the first two plays last night, Yao was hacked going to the basket and taking a short jumper. He wasn't being passive. The other blatant no call was on a dunk. I feel like it's the same refs that are atrocious everytime. I going to do some research on past games and who reffed them to see if there's a clear bias.
Speaking of ironies, this may be one of the main reasons the game has gone down hill. Instead of increasing scoring, calling ticky tack fouls on the perimeter has decreased scoring. It's probably done it in two ways. First, it seems as if more fouls are being called on the perimeter that do nothing to impact other than slow it down. Second, these guys have big egos. Now that no one is handchecking them, they're free to drive wildly in the lane, or shoot a jumper they couldn't shoot before. Maybe that's not the reason, but it seems like the slow-down of the game and decreased scoring can almost be traced back to when they made the perimiter hand check illegal.
