Mutombo frowns on Yao's drawing charges By FRAN BLINEBURY Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle Don’t count Dikembe Mutombo among those who are applauding Yao Ming’s recent penchant for stepping in front of driving opponents to draw a charge. “I’m very critical,” Mutombo said. “Those are bull. I told him that. He’s too tall to be taking charges. He needs to learn to play defense without using his chest. You don’t block a shot with you chest. You block it with your hands. “The man who taught me the game, John Thompson, never said that a 7-footer should take a charge, even in a basketball 1-on-1. There’s no rule or writing in the books that you should take a charge. They teach you how to rebound and block shots. So I’m going to work on that. “Maybe Yao is listening to Shane (Battier). Maybe he wants to be a guard or something. Man, I’ve got a lot of things to work on. Maybe he’s planning to lead the league charges. So I have to stop him. I have to teach him to lead the league in blocked shots, not charges.” http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/6211326.html ------------------ I was skeptical about signing Deke because of his age and didn't buy the theory that his role off the court was that important but reading this has changed my opinion. Deke knows what's up. Maybe he had more of an impact on Yao's defense than I realized in past years. Yao does seem to be a little more sloppy under his own basket so far this season. Hopefully, Deke helps him tweak a few things on top of providing Yao with a better sparring partner in practice.
I was going to say that Yao never gets the calls when he goes up for blocks, but it looks like he doesn't get the calls when he tries to draw the charges either. So I say, go for the block.
Yao is in a lose lose position. He gets called for a foul either way. Might as well get a good smack in while at it.
i'd rather he taking a charge than jumping in traffic, just my opinion. every time yao jumps i have a heart attack
Yao doesn't need to learn the charge or the block, he gets called for a foul anyway. He needs to learn the Dikembe elbow
Yao doesn't get call when he goes for the block because he's never really learned to meet the ball as its being released, especially on a layup or shot within a few feet of the rim. Deke knows no matter how many fakes or type of shot a player takes, it's always going to cross a certain area as it's being released. so he just waits and goes up to meet it there, reducing the chance of hitting the shooter's body in a big way. Yao still swings down on guys and ends up catching their arms/wrist.
I am not sure, given Yao's personality he will never throw any hard fouls on anyone who drives in. The only thing that i would advise Yao WHAT HE SHOULD LEARN FROM DEKE's the way how deke used his elbow in his career. Please throw some invisible elbows during scrambles YAO. Please!!! No one, i mean NO ONE in the league would hesitate to try to poke the ball out of Yao's hand, but if he obtain that elbow skills i am sure those smaller guys will hesitate to even try to steal the ball from Yao.
This is pretty stupid. Yao doesn't have Mutombo's reaction time. One of the main reasons he has cut down on his foul troubles from earlier in his career is precisely because he stopped going for late blocks.
You understand how stress fractures happen, right? It's an overuse injury, nothing else. Jumping has nothing to do with it.....if you're worried about him getting another stress fracture, then you should be having a heart attack every time he steps foot on a basketball court. I'm not sayin....I'm just sayin....
