HAHAHA What a classic moment in sports. Jason stepping on Shaq's toe. Right up there with Nolan Ryan giving Ventura the business.
I agree. If Yao is on offensively, why not let him drain the 18 footer and force Shag daddy to come out of the lane and guard him at the top. I'd love to see Yao pull that little spin dribble move if Shaq bodied up to him out there. Then all yao has to do is front Shaq and stay out of his way defensively. Yao front him and let Eddie defend him from behind. Rick Fox is the one we have to worry about. He is the dirty player that will pull some crap out there with Ming and try to fire up the Rockets. The Lakers will expect him to do that, thereby keeping Shaq from getting into any technical foul situation. It doesn't matter much if Fox gets booted. I'd love to see Yao lay an elbow on Fox's chops or something, just kind of accidentally come down with a rebound and hammer Fox right in the noggin. As Karl Malone would say, "OOPS!, that's just the way I play."
I agree. That is why Shaq is not a top 4 center and never will be. You cannot put him in the same class with Kareem, Hakeem, Wilt, and Russell. And the only thing he does defensively is take up space.
But don't you see? Statistics dont show you what really happened... let me direct you to derrock's post right underneathh yours... You know, dont bother reading this last part...Shaq's quote is all the backup I need to validate my response to your assertion. Isn't that good enough for you? Shaq himself admitted that the Dream took him to school...the stats dont tell the whole story. As dominating as Shaq was in that, his 3rd season, he was man enough to admit that Hakeem was simply the better player. Without the Dream, can you just imagine what Shaq's line might have been?...
Most Dominating Player ever????????? Are you nuts? He's just super big, the dude didn't even have any move besides a straight bull power move up until last year when he finally started developing a back to the basket post game. And that post up game still isn't the greatest. Shaq wouldn't last 20 minutes in the era of Kareem and Wilt. The dude would be on the bench with 6 fouls, 4 of them offensive. The other 2 fouls would be when he tried to rough up Kareem on the offensive end. Is Shaq good? Sure. But he isn't even in the top 3 centers much less the most dominating over all player ever in the game. Kareem, Wilt, Hakeem, Majic, Bird, Jordan........I'd take every one of them as just as dominating a presence if not more so than Shaq. What about good ole Moses Malone? That's all Shaq is, a 7 foot Moses Malone. Bang, Bang, Bang, clang, clang, clang, dunk. Shaq may physically eat Yao's lunch right now. But Yao has way too many skills. In 2 years, Yao will be sick, averaging 25+ ppg, along with 12 boards, 4 blocks, 2 steals, and 4 assists, barring serious injury of course. And Shaq will be fading further still into the land of Sabonis.
Um... someone else has probably mentioned this, but you haven't been paying too much attention to this incident, have you? In all the quotes I've seen, Shaq has been getting more and more respectful towards Yao and doesn't really care that Yao is getting more votes than him. He understands it and why it's happening, and I think he has more important things to worry about anyways... And why the hell did you always put YAO and MING and SHAQ in all caps? Looks very stupid.
I am a Chinese, I like Yao.However I like Shaq too.Shaq is a player who can dominate a game. Yao does not now.I don't known whether will come reality that Yao become a the most famous player of NBA, but I wish that Yao will become a bridge between Chinese and American. I like USA.
Let's just call Yao a bball player eh? I'm thinking the faster we get away from focusing on the fact that he is Chinese, the better off we'd be.
You make some valid points, but hasn't the All Star game always been a popularity contest and not who deserves to be there? Yeah, China is a pretty big country and I agree that Yao is not a starter status yet, but I stopped taking the All Star game seriously long time ago since they let Magic Johnson play out of pity. Shaq is a lot better than Yao. He should (but I hope he doesn't) dominate Yao this year. But even if Yao sucks against Shaq..he's just a kid. He's a rookie going up against one of the dominating centers of all time. Should Yao hang his head if he does not perform well? Hell no. And as far as getting "killed", I know you guys are exaggerating, but if Greg ostertag can hang with Shaq ( and when I mean "hang" is that he is absolutely worthless but stays healthy throughout the game) I'm sure Yao can hold his own.
Yao leads the ALL STAR center position in the INTERNET VOTES AND IN THE STADIUM VOTES...so it is not 'just' CHINA that is giving him the edge. The Americans are also voting for him. GO ROCKETS!!
i remember shaq being afraid of barkley after the chuckster slammed him. shaq is all talk, a coward. just for some perspective, it's interesting that we're debating whether yao, the rookie, will be dominated by the most dominant player around. yao 16pts, 12rbs, 7dimes, 4 steals, 4 blocks shaq 29pts, 15rbs, 3dimes, 0 steals, 2 blocks rocks by 6
no, let's penalize the rest of the league to cater to his physical abilities by changing the rules of basketball, especially what constitutes a foul.
First off... Just because a guy says good things about YAO doesn't mean that he has respect for him. SHAQ has become more respectful toward YAO on the outside but on the inside i'm sure he feels a little bit of anger toward the all star situation. He may be respecting YAO more but he is just planning on using his play as his case rather than a verbal assault. Shaq is still going to go all out on YAO and bring his absolute best. Thats all I'm saying. He probably understands that YAO is starting because of popularity and thats exacty why he will use this as an incentive to punish all th people who chose YAO over him. AND when SHAQ brings his best, he embarasses a lot of guys (MUTUMBO in the finals anyone?.) YAO is very solid and is going to be one of the greats. However, his first meeting with Shaq couldn't come at a worse time with concern to the all star votes and YAO just hasn't played anyone as good as SHAQ yet. SHAQ is going to punish him. But the ROCKETS will win anyway! and ROCKETGUY3.... i hope you enjoyedall my CAPS
I agree with you, I don't think that Shaq genuinely respects Yao. Sure, he's given Yao some compliments, but he has also pelted the guy with some rather racist remarks. I don't care too much though because Shaq sometimes has a tendency to say things that are really immature. I think Yao will do fine against Shaq. In Nov. and Dec. he amazed us everytime he faced a difficult challenge.
