i never knew the best passers ever to play were over 7 feet... for his height he is an excellent passer. passing is more about mobility and intelligence than it is about height.
I dunno BB, those big guys you mention dont even come close to Yao;s size, you need to compare him to bigger 7plus feet guys, not PF's. Hakeem.....Deke.....Manute Bol (LOL), Shawn Bradley....SHAQ. Therefore I think of him as a good passer. He is good at hitting the open man off of doubles, no let me rephrase that, FINDING the open man and hitting him. How ever he has poor handling skills.
He was a good passer before he became a pound-it-in low post scorer. He has been conditioned to be a mechanical low post player after his first season, which has made him an unstoppable scoring force but unimaginative play maker. This is both JVG's credit and fault, depending on from which side you look at it.
I don't know if he's a poor passer, but he is a poor ball handler. His passing is ok at best, but he can't see developing plays well. When teams pressure him on the blks, he's very to prone trying to make a pass. I've said it all along, Yao tries to make the correct basketball play, but his ability to make it happen in quick fashion is a problem. Yao is like Francis was as a passer/decision maker. He's not good with mutliple options. He either needs to be aggressive and try to score or stay back and read the defense. He's not good trying to do both at the same time, and seeing the play evolve and making the correct decision. I don't think you would trust yao to make a the pass in a pinch.To those that say asst:to ratio doesn't mean a lot, that's bull. Even as a center, you at least want to be 1:1. A guy like Camby is almost 2:1 which is guard like. Shaq was a great passer in the triangle and a good ball handler. Dream became a good passer mid career when he start trusting his teammates. Its all bbiq and recognition, like qb's.
You guys focused way too much on his stats. When he sees a double-team, he is able to kick it out and make sure that whoever has an open shot can have a chance at it. I think Yao is an above-average passer because he is able to more or less understand the situation and kick it out when necessary. Seriously, Yao does a heck of a job kicking the ball out. As for the "extra pass" following the kick-out, you must also remember that a double-team narrows down the range of where to pass. A risky pass does not mean that it is necessarily good.
He's pretty good at passing out of double teams, but it's something he's gotten used to and comfortable with. In general, I would say he's average at best. He doesn't have good court vision, or general awareness of where opponents are around him. And he's obviously not a guy who'll make accurate passes off the dribble, or when under duress.
This is the first year that passing become a part of Yao's work. We are 21-10 shows our tactic works and still have space to improve. That's enough.
Besides kicking the ball out to the 3 point player, Yao doesn't really make any pinpoint passing or anything. So I would say average.
Above Average for a big man, and slightly below average for the average player. Most big men are not very good passers, but they aren't usually supposed to be, since it is not a necessity, like a guard. Especially, if you look through the NBA history, there have only be about a handful of big men who could pass better than the average guard....Wilt, Walton, Shaq, Unseld, Russell, Sabonis, and few more...then that's pretty much it. It's just a position you're not going to get alot of assist out of it or have a center making Pistol Pete type passes. I don't think the guys above are a good measuring stick, because they are very exceptional and are even better passers (or more willing ones) than a number of shooting guards and small forwards. It does make your team better, but I wouldn't give up a big man just because he wasn't good passer. Since, their job is primarily to get rebounds and clean up the paint, which means most of the passes that make aren't gonna be something that shows up on a highlight reel.
Imagine if Celtics were losing and sayin all we need is a better PG? There is no or was no perfect team with perfect players, its the chemistry. If it wasnt for Rafer there would be Rafer 2.
82games.com has a "passing rating" stat, which I think combines assists/min and assist to bad pass ratio. I'm not saying this is a be-all, end-all stat for evaluating passing ability. But I think it gives a pretty good indication, in general, on which players are effectively utilizing their passing skills in their respective systems. http://www.82games.com/0809/RESORT8.HTM I classified all the players by position, and here I rank all of the centers by pass rating. By this rating, Yao ranks 25th amongst 32 centers that qualified with enough minutes played. Code: [B]rnk Team Player RTG ast48 a:t 3pt-ast Jmp-ast close-ast dunk-ast total-ast[/B] 1 SAC Miller 5.4 5.4 2.9 17 30 31 10 88 2 SAS Duncan 4.6 4.4 4.7 27 25 41 1 94 3 IND Nesterovic 4.4 4.9 3.2 18 18 20 4 60 4 ATL Horford 4.1 4 5.5 33 21 11 6 71 5 CLE Ilgauskas 3.8 2.9 3.4 7 9 19 6 41 6 PHO O'Neal 3.2 3 3 16 7 13 6 42 7 UTA Okur 2.8 2.4 2.3 3 16 14 10 43 8 MEM Gasol 2.7 2.2 2.9 13 6 11 8 38 9 LAL Bynum 2.7 2.7 3.9 13 15 17 2 47 10 IND Foster 2.6 3.3 2.8 8 24 12 4 48 11 MIL Bogut 2.6 2.9 3.3 12 18 20 2 52 12 DEN Nene 2.5 1.8 3.5 9 9 12 8 38 13 DET Wallace 2.5 2.1 3.2 6 9 23 3 41 14 WAS Blatche 2.4 3.1 2.3 6 9 21 1 37 15 GSW Biedrins 2.4 3.2 3.3 15 28 23 0 66 16 SAC Hawes 2.3 2.5 2 10 9 19 7 45 17 TOR O'Neal 2.2 2.5 3.7 17 13 8 3 41 18 MIN Jefferson 2.1 2.3 3.8 24 9 15 2 50 19 CLE Varejao 1.9 2 4 6 15 10 1 32 20 ORL Howard 1.6 1.8 2.6 21 1 11 4 37 21 POR Oden 1.5 1.4 3.8 7 4 1 3 15 22 DAL Dampier 1 2.3 2.8 7 19 5 0 31 23 LAC Kaman 1 2.5 2 9 8 11 0 28 24 MEM Milicic 0.9 1.2 1.9 4 3 6 2 15 [B]25 HOU Yao 0.8 2.2 2 28 2 14 1 45 [/B] 26 POR Przybilla 0.8 1 4.7 4 7 3 0 14 27 BOS Perkins 0.7 2 1.5 11 7 15 3 36 28 NJN Lopez 0.4 1.2 1.8 4 9 6 1 20 29 NOH Chandler 0.1 0.8 1.8 4 4 3 0 11 30 CHA Okafor 0 0.9 1.2 6 4 7 2 19 31 MIA Anthony -0.3 1 1.3 6 3 0 1 10 32 PHI Dalembert -0.8 0.5 0.5 0 1 5 1 7
I think brooksball pulled a veteran move on you by baiting you start another thread, hoping you would get demoted. 5 stars from me! And i think yao's passing is pretty good, he always finds an open rafer.
