every team has fans like that. if anything, i would say that the rockets have the most level-headed fans. not as many homers as other teams and more willing to see things less subjectively. but yeah, we are rather bipolar but so is the play of the rockets. its a cause and effect.
i was responding to you. the other poster plugged himself in. love the ones who try to say others don't read while themselves are the ones who don't see how a debate was developed. and simple question for you, were yao doubled while mcgrady was up and running? ... thought so. by your logic, we have an "average" center as our best player who has been a 20/10 guy. but we are 3rd in the west. i don't know what that makes other best players on other teams. are you saying dirk, nash, roy and the like are all scrubs? lack of offensive choices? what an insight. so artest was good enough to be the no. 1 guy on the sacto team and now he's not any good?
Sometimes comanding double teams doesn´t mean much, Duncan for example is only double teamed occasionally, because if you double duncan then the spurs kill you with the 3 ball, same for Howard in Orlando, also, i remember the Pistons doubling Duncan in the Finals and Duncan still scored at will, you double a player when is effective. Yao is a player that gets to be double a lot because A- He really becomes a non factor if one of the players is fronting him, and B- The team doesn´t punish double teams. I bet you that if Yao was surrounded by Parker-Ginobili and Bowen, no one would double team him as much as they do with him on the current Rox team.
where in your post can i find evidence that supports yao is "average"? howard doesn't get doubled as much because they have sharp shooters? did we have sharp shooters when we acquired the trophies back then? and did they double akeem?
I guess the definition of "average" in the original post is different from what most people think here. When you say someone is "average", that means he is in the middle of the pack, regardless how good/bad the pack is. Your claim that the league doesn't have good centers is not valid to justify your argument that Yao is an "average" center in this league. You is one of the best centers in the league today, that means he is a top center, not an average one. If you wants to compare Yao to the past great centers, than you should make it clear. On the other hand, it doesn't make much sense to say that Yao is the best player because he gets lots of double teams. If you look at the NBA games, players get doubled all the time, that's because you cannot guard players 1on1 in this league, everyone in the league knows that! The objective of defense is to take your best option away, so if the Rockets' best option is Yao get the ball in the post, then the other team will do whatever to get the ball out of his hands, that doesn't make him the best player on the court. You don't see James, or Bryant, or Wade get doubled much unless they get into the paint, that doesn't make them any less a player than Yao, it's just that the other teams don't feel that would be an effective to win.
LOL, I know. I was shaking my head when people were calling Yao an average center. How many centers today are even better than Yao? The only one i can think of is Duncan. Howard is debatable but I think Yao is still better than Howard. Yao is an average center OF ALL-TIME, He's the best center in the league if you don't consider Duncan one.
Agreed. Fans tend to use this argument way too much when they compare to Yao to other centers like Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol, etc.
that was wrong, too. over the history of aba/nba of half a century, how many starting centers have come and gone? 100 let's say? amongst these 100 centers, how many can you name them that are above yao's level? average of all time? i think not. and being doubled or not IS a measuring stick for post players (and it doesn't apply as much to perimeter players). when akeem was nearing his retirement, he admitted that he knew his heydays had passed because he didn't see double teams no more. if we truly want to be fans of the team we root for, we need to be objective. more importantly, we need to learn how to appreciate the players on the team. pointing the weaknesses alright, but also learn to appreciate them. it is the players who bring us joys after all.
I think the lack of athleticism is what Yao needs most. When yao first came into the league. He is thin and quick. Now he is strong, but too slow. that's the problem. seem to me, at least
you try to stop him. he is probably one of the hardest guys in the world to stop one on one, this thread... FAIL
yes he is easy to stop in crunch time but if you play him one on one he is deadly. if yao had a face-up game (eg: one dribble power move and easy layup) he would be a beast in the fourth qtr and harder to stop in the fourth qtr.
No,,Yao is not too easy to stop, In fact, Yao is too hard to shout on his teammates when they miss their direction.
yao is above average. but him commanding double team is overrated and overused to prove he's great. sometimes the opponent double teams yao not because yao would kill them if they did not double (it's not like yao's gonna drop 40 every time if single covered) but because it's simply an easier way to disrupt rockets' offense as a whole because double team freaks out yao. it's like just because shaq gets fouled a lot doesn't prove that he's so unstoppable but rather shows his weakness with ft shooting.
i think akeem said that would be what he'd like to see yao do more often, when they were doing the summer 1-on-1 sessions.
yao is real hard to be stopped if guarded 1-on-1. with a few exceptions, almost no one can guard him one-on-one. a simple fronting won't kill him, a fronting plus a looming defender at the back could sometimes (and that's still a virtual double). getting his touches, yao kills most defenders. see his 06-07 pre-injury form for one example. the difference is we're so used to see players kill their opponents by their sheer athleticism. yao doesn't do that. yao kills his defender by a combination of his size, post moves and shooting touch (incl. ft's). yes, he could be predictable sometimes in his moves, but so what, it's hard to stop him even if you know he's gonna dribble to the middle and shoot a jump hook. that's the reason he gets doubled so often in so many varieties of ways.
So true. But I wouldn't say it has happend only once. 2004/05, 2006/07, 2007/08, 2008/09... It happens every year. The worst thing is, every year we have a championship caliber team, EVERY YEAR. It is freaking fruatrating, because one year Yao goes down, than McGrady does the same... It is not like we've been having good teams, those have been GREAT TEAMS. The bottomline is, we haven't even gotten out of the 1st round with all those great rosters. Every year people talk about championship. Me? First of all I would like to see them in the 2nd round, at least. Of course, we should look to give Yao the ball more often, BUT he is not making it easier for his teammates.
People take these things so personally. He's right... as great as Yao is and can be, when teams decide to shut him down, it's not difficult for them. This is a problem for our team, especially with Tracy gone (say what you will about him, he took some of that pressure off). If anyone here remembers though, Hakeem used to get flustered and turn the ball over when people double and tripled him, then suddenly, his team learned how to get him the ball where he wanted it, he started learning to seal his man off, protect the ball, and most importantly, developed his passing ability when he got people around him who were ready to hit the open shot. There is still hope, but it's taking a while. Perhaps his partial deafness is an issue, but I think they can figure the whole thing out. He needs some consistency in the players and coaches around him, and I think they'll get it figured out. There is still a lot of untapped potential in his greatness, but right now, I completely agree that he sometimes, SOMETIMES, is too easy to stop. The team around him has to facilitate as much as he does, I don't put it all on him. The way he is refereed is also a huge factor... but I mention it last as I suspect that will not improve.
Yao is an averge player in NBA? OMG, how biased,blind and naive one has to be to make that kind judgement. his hook shots and jumpers are almost automatic against 95% defenders,that's why they double him, otherwise he can kill the opponent by dropping 40 with 60% every game. His defensive presense in the painted area is also huge. and a suprestar should be measured in many levels(skill, personality,image,contribution,etc), and Yao have done well in most of them. he has flaws. yeah.admited. But he is a true superstar in the league IMO.
