2nd Quarter: 10 mins. Left: Yao Ming enters his first NBA Game

No in 5 years we'll be saying "Remember those people obsessed with Amare Stoudamire? HAHA! Ming just put up 20 points and 17 boards again".

 

We can't judge his ability on one game. Remember how Cato went off that one preseason game, and everythought- Oh my what a steal for the Pippen trade.

Gosh, were we wrong.

 

Yao looks good, windandsea. Thanks for the pictures. Yao has some seriously long fingers. He looks like he would be a good musician. Hard to believe someone so large can be so agile.

 

This is just the 1st NBA game that Ming has played (even though it is preseason). Give the guy a BREAK!

 

I thought Yao looked simply awesome -- not so much in his performance but in the way he performed. You can just tell this kid wants great things. I'm so stoked.

 

Now that is a sight to see...

 

Quick, somebody get Ferry a stepladder!

 

Yao Ming - 6 points(1-5), 4 fouls, 3 turnovers, 13 minutes

Undisputably the best performance by anyone making his NBA debut, EVER. Let's open the Rookie of the Year and MVP talk...

 

Hey, everyone needs to hop off Yao Ming. He just got to Houston. He must be tired, but yet he's excited about playing that he went out and gave it a shot tonight. If anyone can base him on one game, they aren't true fans of basketball. I'm proud of Yao, and the Rockets. They played hard tonight. To bad they didn't pull it out. Let's not forget, we aren't at 100%, this is the pre-season, and the team will gel soon. Go Rockets!

Good show Yao!

 

Heres another pic...damm hope he got a foul on this one.

btw ..eldorkoqueso

 

Elgrande,



Are u being sarcastic? .....

 

if only can Yao jump higher, this looks like a BJ to me...

 

The offensive foul on Robo was a bad call. I am very happy with his performance. It is only the beginning.

 

Ming seem to need more elevation on his jumpshots as evidenced by Robo getting to his shot.

How dangerous is that man going to be based on the way we put the ball on the floor. In the picture above he was fouled and that is going to happen regularly. He can average 8pts a game, at least, just on FT's.

 

Gee El Grande Trollo...

You left off a couple of stats didnt ya?

like blocks and rebounds...he did have a few ya know...

Why do I bother with you..
I second DARO......

 

Actually, when Yao got his shot blocked by Robinson, it was because he made a couple of unnecessary moves first. When he got the ball he would have been able to take his turn-around jumper, but he pivoted a couple times and then ended up taking his shot from near the baseline and not even being able to jump.

Once Yao establishes his turnaround, people will be trying to play really tight on him. Then he will be able to spin to the basket. I suspect it's not going to take him long to adjust however. The cool part is watching his first turnaround J over Robinson. Robinson couldn't even get his hand within 4 feet of the ball when the shot went off.

Anyway, don't worry about Yao's technique - once he makes the right decisions in the post, we'll be laughing.

 

This is exactly why Rudy rushed to play Yao Ming. He said the point of playing Yao Ming was to let him get his feet wet and get over nervousness. It wasn't to see if he could post Kareem numbers his first time out. What better way to do that than have him go in against Robinson and Duncan and a bunch of wannabee hackers that are bent on doing nothing more than just that against him? Throw him in the fire, let him get torched, he is the kind of player that will get motivated by it and come back stronger and wiser. He doesn't have to debut any more, and he knows what to expect now. I was glad to see he didn't get frustrated and maintained good composure. He will improve markedly day by day and game by game. In a couple of weeks watch him start getting consistent and have some break outs.

Teams are going to try that intimidation, hack him ploy. They want to see if he has grit and is tough, or is he just a Bradley. They'll find out soon enough when Yao Ming is 10-12 from the free throw line and they are consistently in the penalty early.

Nevertheless, he was supposed to look bad. I thought he actually did OK. Would you be nervous and a little out of sync not knowing the plays or your team mates tendencies and expectations on the court yet? And debuting in your first NBA action after a lifetime of dreaming about it? The guy was 70 hours from being in Shanghai, reporters and a whirlwind swarming all around him for most of that time. I say give him at least a couple weeks to really start playing his game and solid team ball and to fit into the flow of the games. Once he gets acclimated to this style play and the team gets acclimated to him the results will be far different. Just his presence changed the way the Spurs played offense and defense, and he wasn't a fraction of what he will be.