From Bill Simmons' ESPN Page 2 article assessing and ranking the values of NBA players: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/071218 And here's the snippet about TMAC:
That's crap. If you put Reggie Miller, Antonio Davis, Del Davis, and Travis Best around Yao that would be a champion calibur team.
bill simmons has always had something bad to say about yao. it's not a surprise that he still compares him to smits. he projected yao to be a bust before he was drafted, then retracted his statement after yao averaged 20/10. now right when the rockets are struggling, he reverts back to his old opinion and compares yao to smits. sports journalists/analysts never want to show that they were ever wrong in the past assesments, so it's not a surprise that simmons said what he said.
Smits is probably the closest player Yao's playing style is similiar to. Some of their moves are mirror images. There was a video showcasing this. Also Simmons said he's regressed into a rich man's Rik Smits. H means even though Yao's not playing at his best he's still an All star calibre centre.
Isn't he saying he is a better version of Rick Smits? Sounds about right to me..... What is wrong with 22ppg and 10rpg? Those are great numbers.... DD
Well if you had to compare Yao's skill to someone from the past who would it be? Surely it's not Hakeem or Shaq... Rik Smits is a good comparison but I think Yao is better.
Nothing is wrong with those numbers, they are great. I think people are just pissed off by stupid comments. A rich man Rik Smits...well, if by rich man you mean Rik Smits is lower middle class and Yao is multi-millionaire. Rik only averaged over 7 rebounds a game once in his career. He only averaged over 18 ppg once in his career. Rik only averaged more than 2 bpg once in his career, and his average was under 1.3. Rik had just as many seasons shooting under 50% as over 50%. I guess you can say all his stats are lower because he only twice, and then just barely, played over 30 mpg...but that's part of the problem, too. And he had some injury plagued seasons as well. Basically, what I'm saying is, Simmons is an idiot if he thinks Smits was underrated....especially in the era he played. He was a slightly better than average big-man back then, but certainly nothing special. There's a reason he only made 1 all-star game.
Rik Smits was a pretty good player -- close to an allstar. Very polished post up player with a nice jumper. Here are their career numbers (for Yao, before this season): Code: mpg pts/40 reb/40 ast/40 blk/40 to/40 pf/40 TS% PER Yao 31.8 23.3 11.2 1.8 2.3 3.2 4.2 59.3% 23.2 Smits 26.6 22.3 9.1 2.1 1.9 2.7 5.2 54.8% 17.9 Statistically, Yao blows Smits away. I think they have some of the same weaknesses, though.
he's not even saying yao's the same as smits. if a rich man's version of smits grabs 3 more rebs ans scores 3 more points than smits's best number. that is exactly what yao's currently producing.
there's all this talk about Yao not impacting or dominating the game, but if we had more guys hitting open shots or stepping up in any way, then the whole perception of Yao changes. if our guards are draining wide open 3's, suddenly Yao 'makes his teammates better', and we win more games, and Yao is an mvp candidate. Look at Dirk's numbers last year. They're not that great, but his team won, and he got tons of credit for that. With guys throwing up terrible bricks and airballs, Yao is suddenly a no-impact, defensive-liability stiff. We win some of these games, and Yao is suddenly a better defender as well.
