I read someone posted on other board claiming that Yao's Offense+Deke's Defense=50% Dream?. Do you agree?
Hakeem was the most complete offensive big man of all time. No one had the combo of speed, power, touch, hands, finesse, and footwork. Thats my 2¢
Well, I know if Dream had the ball with Dirk on him with no DOUBLE TEAM and there was a minute to go in the game...he would have schooled his sorry ass. He wouldn't have passed it, that's for sure. Dream was so good it's beyond description. I feel bad (and old) because so many of the people that read this board never had the privelege to see him play. You know the "We want Steve!" chant? Well I was at Dream's last game as a Rocket. In the 4th Q we started chanting, "We want Dream!!" It gave you chills...especially when he came back onto the court...did a vintage dream shake at the left baseline and swished it...I think he had 26 pts that night, it was like he turned back the clock one last time. In answer to the question it's probably more like 75-80%. Deke was a very intimidating defensive player in his prime, and Yao is pretty gifted on the offensive end. The other 20% is the "intangibles," like Hakeem's will to win, etc.
Not a fair comparison. Dream was just an awesome complete player, athletic, intimidating, energetic, and with a heart of a champion. Seriously, could you just imagine Yao and Dream going head to head at each other (and both 27 yrs old?) Yao would even be shooting fadeaways on his faceups to the basket to avoid getting it blocked by the Dream, and the Dream would still block a few of them. On offense, the Dream would use his great footwork that would just make Yao go dizzy and cause him to fall to the ground.
Or how about the LONG standing ovation he got when he came home after that stupid trade to Toronto? He was my IDOL growing up. Those fakes and spins were like watching freakin' Baryshnikov. <object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hW4uXlRGAF0&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hW4uXlRGAF0&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object> And he's also why Emeka Okafor is my favorite center in the league (though Dwight Howard is a close second); 'Meka (by the way, it's eh-MECK-uh, not ee-MEEK-uh) grew up in Houston and idolized Hakeem in the same way. Only he grew up to be SLIGHTLY taller than my 5'9" height. He's patterned his game after Olajuwon and works with him every summer.
I second that. Yao doesn't seem aggressive enough when going straight up for the dunk. His soft layups when he's suppose to thunder it down.....makes me sick. Glad me made the shot, but we need that arggggggggggggggh to bust out in him.
u know hakeem is one of the legends when he could do that patented tmac shot where he goes one way and fallaways to the other way. man what a special player. easily the most talented big man i have ever seen.
I am a very big fan of the Dream but you are talking rubbish my brother! You are talking about two different types of players and two different eras and two different playing RULES.You can't equate!!
if yao had deke's defense and rebounding then he'd have no weaknesses. the only problem left would be his assertiveness on offense.
Well I am not sure whether you guys catch my points or not. That equation basically says that: Yao's offense ability = 50% Dream's offense ability, while Deke's defense ability = 50% Dream's defense ability. Of course I know Dream was way better than either Yao or Deke. But seriously, if that equation is true, Yao would be only 25% of Dream cause Yao's defense is only 50% of Deke's. Yao is only a quarter of Dream?
sorry my math above was wrong. Should be: Yao's O = 50% Dream, Yao's D=25% Dream. so overall, Yao is 37.5% of Dream.
more like 5% of Dream.. no but seriously, Hakeem is light years ahead of any center/bigman/player (yes, even player) in today's game ... heck, he is ahead of every center in the history of the NBA, the only one that comes close is Moses (since he worked with him in early years), but Hakeem has the ability to do every single thing on a basketball court.. dribbling? no problem, shooting 3's? he got that down as well, heck, even steals.. the guy is unbelievable.. and btw, for those weirdos that keep talking about "different sets of rules", please STFU and watch some Rockets games back then.. even though there were illegal defense rules, they were loosely implemented and Hakeem used to get hacked 10x harder than Yao is getting hacked today, and guess what? no call.. that's why he came close to fouling out almost every game in the beginning of his career.. it took him countless Technical fouls and ejections to get some respect (notice I said some) from the refs, but he still got robbed every single time, he was never officiated correctly; even Shaq was officiated better than Hakeem.. on a side note, did anyone notice how different Clyde sounded in the video that blathersby posted? only if he uses that voice in commentating instead of his best Bullwinkle voice, he would actually be great..
It's obviously an exaggeration, but the difference between them is pretty considerable. Lately hasn't really been a very good showing for Yao, since it seems like he can't play without T-Mac getting him the ball, especially with how much trouble he was having with players fronting him. Dream didn't have those kind of flaws -- he had better hands and coordination so getting the ball over-top when he was fronted really wasn't an issue. Honestly, right now the difference feels huge, but we haven't seen everything Yao can do yet.
No, Yao alone is about 68% of dream, so with Deke, the math doesn't add up. I checked and double checked and even used Excel to put together a nice spreadsheet explaining it all.
"even used Excel"? what kind of software you think Excel is? It's simply garbage. If you really want to use some serious statistical software, you should use SAS, SPSS, or Matlab, etc. Excel? LOL, only amateurs use it.
Hakeem is an alltime great you are up 8 with 2 min to go there was no way hakeem would let a big game slip away. I luv Yao but he is not close at least not yet.
Sorry, Maple 8 is down for me (limited compatibility with Vista) and MatLab is just being a b**** as of late.
