some of you YOFs need to spend less time jerking off to Yao's pics and spend more time learning some more about basketball. theres so much revisionist history on here that its almost not worth responding to borderline r****ded posts like this one. fyi, the argument usually goes the other way around - that shaq mostly relied on this strength back then, and had not yet developed moves in the post. did you miss all those highlights of him tearing down all those rims during his first couple of seasons? I'll start considering Yao to be on Dream's level when I see Yao not get shutdown when he plays against the better defensive players -- the way he did when Duncan shut him down in the second half of game 1 of the Spurs-Rockets game or how Garnett shut him down in the Rockets-Wolves game in Minnesota. Even last night, Yao didnt put up good numbers when Duncan switched over to him -- most of his points were against Ellison and Umberto. Whether in 1 game or in a 7 game series: Dream: 35 pts/13 rebs/5 blocks/5 assts Yao: 19 pts/7 rebs/2 blocks/5 assts
Yao has trouble sealing off some of the stiffs that guard him now but he's going to seal off arguably the quickest center of all-time in Hakeem? That's ridiculous. Yao is highly skilled but athletically he's not in the same universe when it comes to the great centers of the last 20 years. In their primes, Hakeem, DRob, Shaq... would run Yao off the court. Get real. It is fun to watch Yao develop but some of you have lost your minds.
We get more and more players can run Yao off the court. Next one will be bradley. Yao did really not worth Rocket # 1 pick. Where is Wlliams? Too many Barkley or Barkley clones at thsi board. That's sad. Are you truely Rockets' fan?
In Yao's 2nd year as a Rocket, Shaq is still considered in him prime. Guess what? Shaq didn't run Yao off the court. In fact, he was fouled out by Yao in one of the games. Get real. It's good to remember those great players of the game but some of you have lost you mind.
When you advice other people to spend time study basketball, you better do it yourself first. Did Duncan shut down Yao or did the refs shut down Yao? Let's rewind to 1st half, Yao got an offensive rebound and tried a layup. Duncan literary pushed Yao's back with two hands so Yao's layup didn't even touch the rim. Refs let it go. Next, Yao got a pass under tha basket and tryied a layup again. This time, Duncan pushed with 2 hands again, and pushed even harder so Yao fell to the ground. Guess what? Refs let it go again. On other occasions, Yao was pushed to the ground by TD, got slapped on the arms so the ball were lost and refs just ignored them all even though they were obvious. In other word, if refs call those fouls, TD would have at least five fouls in first half alone. On the other hand, Yao got whistled for standing his ground against Duncn. if the refs treated them equally, only two things would happen: Duncan fouled out before Yao or Yao scored 30+.
I forgot to mentioin 5th year Yao is head and shoulder above 2nd year Yao. And one more thing: Best center in any era was eventually considered as one of the all time great centers. Now the best center in NBA now is Yao. If hee can keep this up, go figure.
Is this thread comparing Hakeem in his prime to Yao in his fifth season?...stupid thread, insulting and unfair to both players. But the atheletism argument doesn't hold too much ground in my opinion, because otherwise Amare would have dominated Yao in all there match-ups, but we know the opposite is true most of the time. Seems some of you seemed to forget Yao did well against Shaq in his 2nd season (barring the last regular season game), when Shaq was toward the end of his peak years and Yao was still wet behind the ears. I think Hakeem definitely has the advantage, but some of yall think Yao would just roll over for Hakeem, and I don't think that would be the case. You guys forget that besides Hakeem, Jordan took all the rings when all those other legendary big's of the 90's were in there prime (maybe Shaq can be considered before his prime). Some of you seem to have overated Hakeem's competition at the 5, and underated Yao's williness to put a fight. Hakeem is the greatest 5 of his era, but many of you have lost touch of reality. I don't remember any dominant player of a position completely shutting down another dominant player of his position in mulitple games.
Yao has to worry about the guards poking their hands in too. I've followed Shaq throughout the years, he was far less effective when defenses were allowed to double off the ball. Every time he has great position, a defender would sag back and force him to vacate. Remember a "rookie" Yao dropping 32 and 17 against the so-called Twin Towers? Yao is not bothered by great one-on-one defenders. He's bothered by the constant sagging of the guards and reaching their hands in. It is far easier for bigs to play in the pre-zone era. Since there are few bigs that span both eras(save for Shaq, but you'll just say it's because he got older, which he did, but the drop-off is much more dramatic than one would expect, due to age), to make an accurate comparison, you can try to look at the guards' play. You think guys like Joe Johnson or Gilbert Arenas would have been able to average 28 points in the 90s? You think Kobe would be able to average 35 in the 90's? Since the overall scoring is about the same, then that means the high scoring from the guards must have been taken away from somewhere, which is the bigs. This leads to the logical conclusion that it's much more difficult for bigs to score in this era. The fact that Yao is able to average 27, at less minutes than Hakeem, makes him that much more impressive.
thats basically all it takes to shut down yao. you put a little body on him while he's shooting his turnaround fadeaway and his shot is totally off. thats what San Antonio did to him in the first game, and thats what Duncan did to him yesterday. You cant use the refs as an excuse because thats basically how every game is called. If Yao cant learn to adapt to that style of play, then thats his fault and not the refs'. The playoffs are going to be much more physical - if he cant handle it now, its only going to get worse. and if Yao cant handle a little pushing from a skinny Tim Duncan, theres no way he lasts in the 80s/early 90s when the NBA was much more physical and when players were legally allowed to put two hands on the opposing players back.
But he did score on Duncan a few times yesterday, foul trouble kept him off the floor for most of the second half. He did miss two hook shots that are usually gimmes for him, but he made a few too. He hit hook shoots on two occasions to stop momentum when the Spurs made mini-runs.
In fact, Duncan forced to play d on Yao took a lot of his offensive game away, which made a big impact on the game.
Skinny Tim Duncan? You really need to learn basketball more. So it's Yao's fault that TD can push him anytime he wants but Yao can't? LOL. How about someone can repeatedly rob you and the police won't do anything, then when you try to fight back they arrest you? Do you think that's your fault?
Yeah you're right. If Yao was born 10 years ealier he would never have made the NBA. The Alton Listers, Paul Mokeskis, and James Donaldsons were all obviously much better players than him.
So whats your excuse for the first game between the rockets and spurs? If yao can drop 30+ points on anyone and at anytime, and the only thing stopping him is the refs, then why didnt he do it then when he wasnt in foul trouble? They could have used the most unstoppable offensive center ever when the Spurs were making that comeback...and why didnt yao drop 30+ on the wolves when garnett was covering him? whats your excuse for those games?
Refs screwed Yao both times, YOH. Refs can screw Yao in two ways: 1) whistle bogus foul calls against Yao's defense on his opponents; 2) ignore illegal defense played against Yao by his defenders.
Shaq wasn't in his prime in 03-04. He had the worst year of his entire career at that point. My gosh.
Yao has never faced a great one on one defensive center. He never played Olajuwon DPOY, he never played Mutombo DPOY, and he never played Mourning DPOY. The three best defensive centers of the last 20 years. Your whole zone postulation is just worthless. In the 90's teams could beat you up in the post. It's easier for everyone to score now. Every hard foul gets a technical foul. Nobody is afraid of going to the hole any more and you can't touch anyone. It's not more difficult for centers to score in this era, there just aren't any great centers in this era. Really though, forget scoring. Hakeem played defense and rebounded at the highest level. He's got rebounding titles and a DPOY. If you watched Hakeem and understood his game then you know how much energy he expended on other facets of the game that hurt him on the offensive end. That's one big reason why this debate focusing on just scoring is just weak. Some of you Yao only fans need to go watch a tape of Hakeem in his prime playing against DRob or Shaq or Ewing and you won't be posting these comparisons.
Common misconception. Argument most often used by David Robinson fans when the rape occurred. I have all the games on tapes. David Robinson had just the same opportunities to beat Hakeem on single coverage but he wasnt having the same success as Hakeem was on him. In fact, it had become so bad by Game 6 that during a timeout in 3rd quarter, Spur's coach, Hill, pleaded Sean Elliot to help David Robinson on offense. Why? Because D. Robinson was not having great success against Olajuwan. The problem with Robinson was that he had NO post up moves. He was a face-up center. Hakeem was just as quick, if not quicker than Robinson, and stayed with him. On the other side, we all know what Hakeem did to Robinson.
No, it's much harder for any pivot man to score, check the top 10-20 scorers of the league, it's all perimeter players. Check before the rule change, and how gradually less and less post players score over that time. Duncan, Garnett, even J. Oneil are legit examples. If you remember, when the rule change was first brought out, Jason Kidd, amongst many others believed it was made to phase big men, especially Shaq out of the game. And as teams got used to utilizing the zone better and better, you be lucky if there is one pivot player in the top ten now.
