Indiana makes at least one or two more title appearance, if you were to trade the present day Yao Ming for Rik Smits. Yao paired with the Davis & Davis (J. Rose), instantly becomes one of the best front lines in the league. With Miller and Best (or Jackson) in the backcourt. I don't know if that team would be good enough to get passed Chicago, but I could see them have lesser headaches with the Heat and Knicks. Rik Smits was good player, but he doesn't have the same power Yao does. There are very similar players, but Yao is just more effective and commands more attention. Some teams game plans are center around just throwing everyone into the paint and make Houston shooters and guards win the game, and usually it works....because of the poor point guard play or shooting.
Yao only has one if some little yoinker guard doesn't come steal the ball from him. I think the comparison is valid. Yao's number are better than Smits, but Simmons did say "poor man's". The stats posted above do correlate, and the same weaknesses are there.
If If If If If If If... I'm reading alot of that in this thread. You guys can do all the "what if Yao was in the Pacers instead of Smits" but that doesn't change the shortcomings of Yao. Yeah he's a 20/10 player, does that mean he's done all that can do, no more room for improvement, he's not one iota part of the reason why we are sucking right now, nor part of the reason why we haven't got out f the first round? To me he's becoming dangerously close to a dreaded stat player, guys who get their numbers but cannot will their team to wins, in this case not because Yao doesn't want to, but it's not in his makeup. Yao is a finesse player, just like Smits. That's why he gets compared to Smits alot, that's why Dwight Howard gets compared to Shaq alot because both of them are power players.
A player like Yao being on team coached by Bird or Brown. They would know how to use him, plus for the mere fact of him being a 20 and 10 player does give merit to say that he is a better player than Smits, the only time in Smits career that he had numbers similar to Yao was Yao as sophomore.
As I mentioned earlier, an equally valid comparison would be to just say Yao is a poor man's Patrick Ewing. Because Ewing has a lot more cred than Rik Smits, this sounds a lot better. Plus, its as factually accurate. Ewing's teams had a ton more talent, and he never won, either. The point is, do you see Yao, right now, as: 1. Rich man Rik Smits 2. Poor man Patrick Ewing To me, they are very different things, and if you think it is one, you aren't watching the game closely enough, as Bill Simmons clearly isn't.
I think only people who can really assess Yao's talent are some of the fans, Rockets' announcers, and opposing teams. People like Skip Bayless and others who say the team is better off with Mutombo starting than Yao. I was like ...... ok. You can tell these people don't watch the same games we do. I know you can't put alot of emphasis on numbers, but they do measure how good player is. I mean you average 28 ppg on 50% shooting it's fair to say you're above average. If you average over 20+ ppg and 10 rebs, you're an all-star.
Isn't that what Simmon's basically said? Wanna know what a rich man's Francis would be? Dwayne Wade (ironically, just 4 years ago, Wade was a poor man's Francis....). If Corliss Williamson was a poor man's Barkley, then there's nothing wrong with being a rich man's Smits imo. However, the context Simmons used it in, shows that he's a hater.
Actually Yao has way more natural talent then Ewing, Ewing just worked harder on his game. JVG once said Ewing is the most prime example of a player maximizing what little natural talent he had, he could have been a Mutombo type and be a specialist, but he rounded out his game to have an offensive game.
Well, I wouldn't go that far. I think Yao and Ewing are closer to the same category overall as compared to Yao and Smits. But Ewing had an athleticism to him that Yao won't ever have, regardless of how hard he works. In either case, I think it's a good list from Simmons. You can't really argue with any of it. I might put Tim Duncan a little lower because of age, and Deron Williams a little lower (as he says he originally had him) because would you really take Deron, even with age a factor, over Nash, KG...heck even Boozer (who I'd move higher). Yao is placed fairly on the list, I just think bringing up Rik Smits name as a comparison is dumb.
Daughterty (sp)... the proto-Duncan?... Maybe. I've heard that Yao idolized Sabonis when he was a kid and got telecasts of USSR games, being in the red zone.
Sabonis sightings: http://youtube.com/watch?v=R88SiQPI5ck Sabonis vs. Barkley '93: http://youtube.com/watch?v=iv4jyXoMMLQ http://youtube.com/watch?v=RBdxARINWok Sabonis' prime was supposedly 1985...
simmons is spot on when he says yao is a rich man's rik smits. after all, they are very similar, but yao is just a better version of him. he'll carry that tag line until he can carry a team deep in the playofs...but who knows when that will be. id rather have the other ten guys on the list as well.
