Yao has his form back; he is a long way from the beginning of the season when at times he looked like he had regressed. If he can just stay healthy and keep rolling. He is looking very confident right now.
to see Yao banging with those guys Live is something else, Nuggets were pretty physical with Ming. He stayed his course & made them pay, the one after the travel call & he comes back & dunks on the very next play! Crowd goes wild is a understatement
Even if you are no reason to behave like that. I'm really glad to see something good happening when injuries get us. Like Carl Landry and Aaron Brooks last year or Von Wafer this year. Yao is just playing basketball. I think people expect less from him even though he is on higher level, the level of basketball he has been playing right now.
i think right now during the all star break it's the turning point of yao season, if he continue to play big for us and put up numbers and without getting injured, he will be big for us in the playoff.
Are you guys seriously complaining about Yao getting injured as an example of him not being an elite player? I mean, seriously? Unreal..... He gets stepped on which causes a freak break of his foot.....screw inserted. Someone falls into him which breaks his knee cap He breaks his foot from overuse.... That is unlucky, or a product of being so big.... Yao arrived his 3rd year......and is still here working hard.... DD
Yao has always had a half season to get into a groove - just like last year. This year his injury was also a factor in a slow start - and he had to do all that Olympic hoopla. Enough to give anyone jetlag for months. Let's hope he stays healthy into the playoffs and see what this team can do. Hopefully the team will jell in the last month of the regular season, when/if TMac and ARtest finally get beack healthy, and the Rockets can sneak up on the rest of the league come playoff time.
Its unfortunate, but longevity is part of the equation in what separates the all-time greats from the "could have beens". I understand 2 out of Yao's 3 major injuries have been "freak"-like... but the 3rd one (from overuse) may have been both the most dertrimental to any of our recent teams, as well as the one that may limit and linger (possibly re-occur) throughout his career due to his size. Brad Daugherty, Reggie Lewis, Ralph Sampson and even possibly Sam Bowie may have all been all-stars for life had they not had unfortunate circumstances.... but in the end, they were not considered "elite" due to their inability to stay on the court.
Fine, but Yao has played 7 years now, and he has been seriously injured in 3, some players go through an injury period.....it happens. If they leave the game because of it, then that is what defines their careers.... However, I only see one injury to Yao that was not caused by some freak accident....ONE..... He has arrived, just look at the team winning without Tmac and Artest....where are all the "Tmac carried us" people now? Why aren't they now saying...."Yao is carrying the team"? Yao is part of the championship equation, whether or not he is a SUPERSTAR is irrelevant, if we have 3 star players we can compete.... All we need are for the other 2 to get right....or heck, just one of them to get right, and for the breaks to go our way. This team is coming together, don't miss it. DD
I dont know, it was a good game for Yao, but as I recall the last 3 plays of the game were his and he couldn't put it away. It was a lot closer game than it needed to be. Yao had the chance to put the game away at least twice. Another close, almost too close game. Are we playing to the level of our competition rather than trying to dominate?
Yao looks unstoppable this past week. He's looking the way he did 2 seasons ago after the allstar break when he was putting up 32/12. Just an absolute monster right now
i think he needs to listen to dream's messege to him more carefully. he has the tools to succeed, now he just needs to get his mindset right and DOMINATE! we see stretches of yao using his ability to the full extend, but he needs to do that more often. I think he ought to take at least 20 shots a game, double teamed or not.
i think morey (?) said recently that yao is still learning to play mean on the court. i was quite surprised when i read that - it's his 7th nba season already. but otoh, this also tells how hard it is to overcome the habits and mentality he's accumulated from his china bball years. habits are tough to break sometimes.
Actually, it IS new. Yao never jumped into his man. I'm not sure what contact you're refering to, but it's definitely not what I'm talking about. Perhaps you mean he gave defenders a bump, but that was the problem. He'd bump them, but then he'd regain his balance by stopping, gathering himself, and then finally jumping for the shot, which by then, gave the defender plenty of time to regain HIS balance and constest the shot. Now, Yao doesn't purely bump them, he jumps into them, or i guess leans, and keeps his body on them as he goes up and therefore the defender can't effectively contest the shot because he's off balanced. Before he looked like a pinball, bumping into guys, only to bounce back off them, no he bumps into them and over goes them all in one move.
