I wonder if our honey moon with Yao is over. A month ago, anyone criticizes Yao will get stoned in public here at Clutchcity. But now, I see more and more criticism on him, just like we do to Francis and Mobley, and less "Yao is divine" kind of thread. I wonder if our honey moon with him is over, and Rox fans will view him as a franchise player instead of a savior from heaven. BTW, I don't think Yao deserves too much criticism. He might have just hit the rookie wall recently. If that's the case, wait for him to recover soon. Plus, grabbing 17 boards while hitting the wall isn't bad at all. Look at some of the other rookies, Drew Gooden, Dajuan Wagner, and Jay Williamswho are touted as ROY along with Yao, their performances have also gone worse after their strong starts.
I never consider Yao as great, not to mention divine. And he does have weaknesses. He is a good player, but not as great as the media hype is. Even his own father said that. Rookie wall? Hmm... call it what you want, but Yao can certainly improve. To me, he has a long way to improve and reach the best he can be. He has a long way to be GREAT. With several really good games, Yao has not proved much. There shouldn't be any honeymoon. What Yao needs is hard work and not too much hype.
I think that Ming is deferring to the Rocket's "star" players, Francis and Mobley. If he felt that the team wanted him to be more aggressive and dominant, he would be. He has shown us what he "can" do; he simply does not feel comfortable doing it on a regular basis. As for me, if I were Ming, I would "steal" the ball from our guards, dare anybody to get in my way, and take it to the hole like I owned the stadium. In sports, the only thing better than smarts is fierce relentless aggression. If Ming ever gets the "back off, I am taking over now" attitude, he will be unstoppable. Remember Hakeem?
A better explanation would be cultral shock instead of playing style. He is typically educated in China not to be too aggressive - Be more conservative instead. He will adjust.
I cannot put my finger on it but I am not sure if there some sort of "jealousy" in the tone of your post. Obviously Yao is Not great yet but he will certainly become a great one soon. Of course there has been times when I say Yao you could be a bit more agressive or assertive but I try to understand that Yao was not supposed to be this good - this important this early; so he is basically ahead of schedule. His "honeymoon" season will last until the end of this season. Talking about honeymoon, I think Rudy (2 championships) and Steve are definitely enjoying an extended one. Sometimes I feel they are both over hyped.
all these talks about YAO is just seconde-guessing. He is doing everything RudyT is telling him to. This guys has not even played all the teams yet; there are always doubters who questions his ability, no matter how many times YAO proves them wrong. Do those people really think they know better than draft scout ? Do they really think they know better than Rudy T? Come on....
