The ESPN all star report card gave Yao Ming the only western F and Francais a B-. I don't think Yao played very good, but an F? While Steve only got a B-, at least it was the highest grade of all the western point guards.
Personally, I feel ESPN is a lil too much into this game. Grading all-star performances? That is just silly. Here are my favs: Giving Yao an F when Yao really didn't play much and deferred mostly to his teamates, just like a rookie all-star should. Wow. Giving Ilgauskas an F when he only played 4 mins. Unbelievable. And talk about adding insult to injury. Giving Ben Wallace and C and stating "he was not his usual productive self". Did the writer that gave out these grades even realize that Wallace buried his mother on Saturday? That is ONE DAY before his performance. Gee whiz, how about giving the guy a break. I would not have blamed him for skipping out on the All-Star game all together. The fact that he showed up tells me alot about this guy. I give Wallace an A+ considering the fact that he was probably playing based soley on heart.
I agree, what the hell are Espn thinking when grading an All-Star game. I mean, even if Wallace didn't have the incident with his mother, this is not a serious game to make you try to be your "productive self". Worst, episode, ever!
Whild it is not fair to deny those who did well last night - good for them - it is really silly to evaluate a player simply from an All-star game.
Definitely,..Is this the 3rd grade? I don't give a rat's ass about all-star grades and neither does 98.376 % of the general population!
I laughed when I saw that grades were posted. Seriously, those guys need to get a life. That is the most pointless thing I have ever seen. Grading an NBA All-Star?? They are all bad asses or they wouldnt be there in the first place. Dumb, real dumb.
all-star games are not meant for big men. how can they do well in these games when guards and small forwards don't pass them the ball? many times they grabbed defensive rebounds and threw outlet passes to those small guys, who would shoot them before big guys cross the midcourt. tired of seeing the guards doing that, shaq decided to bring the ball up himself and be the playmaker couple of times. yao didn't deserve the F's, but i would give him a c-. he wasn't comfortable and was lost during the game. he was like that when he first started to play for the rockets. all he knew was setting setting screens and moved out of the way.
This is why Shak tried to play like a guard. Watching his unique between-the-legs dribble and behind-the-fat-ass pass , so funny !
Another thing, Yao did play defense as I could see (i.e. changing shots, etc.) and it is not his nature to take over with shots and spite others as a rookie all-star...Good for Yao. He is trying to earn respect and not step on toes...In future all-star games, he will be the one demanding others to back off of him and give him room to breathe as he does his Yao-thing! doo-whop, doo-whop, doo-whop...
A slam dunker contestant gets an automatic 6 for bricking a dunk. Did they deserve a 6? No, but out of respect they get better then a 5. ESPN is pathetic to give out F's to All star players. If they shot 1-20, then I can understand giving them a D or D-, but not a F. To go even futher and pass out F's for players that receive limited minutes and shots is crazy. Even though Mings F is crazy, I think giving Ilgauskas a F for 4 minutes is just incredibly stupid!!! Francis did not desere an A, after his no-defense on Iverson. I saw the same mistake he makes with the Rockets. He would leave his man, to wait for the rebound, and Iverson would bounce out on the other side of the court for a wide open jumper.
Yeah 2 points in a game where EVERYBODY on the floor is a star and demanding shots. Yeah it's easy to give a ROOKIE an F because he only scored 2 points and grabbed 2 rebounds (while playing defense) on a team that has Shaq, Duncan, Garnett, and Dirk up front, while having other proven scorers like Nash, Payton, Kobe, Francis, Peja, Marion and Marbury. But hey lets give the rookie an F, it's pretty easy to do, you take all of that out of the equation!
At least Yao didn't turn the ball over 10 times. C'Mon. All star game is for show. Stats should go right out the window. Jordan shot poorly, but he stole the show, right? Yao had two points, but what a slam! He would have had more assists if Shaq would have converted. It's useless debating.
Why you guys care that much about this all-star game performance? It's a show meant for high-fly style players, not the fundamental sounded "boring" players, such as YAO & DUNCAN. Yao will never look good in this kind of game, but who cares?
LMAO. I didn't know that these mediots at ESPN actually took ASG seriously. Here are my grades: Pre-game hype A Pre-game ceremony F 3-point contest C Slam-dunk contest B ASG itself F
