Should he work on his weight or his jumping? I know alot of people have talked about him adding some bulk. IMO, adding bulk is not the answer. At times, Yao did struggle to gain and/or maintain low block positioning. However, the bigger problem I saw is all the tipped rebounds he missed or the layups he attempted when all of us were thinking "DUNK". As it is, Yao has limited explosiveness and adding 20 lbs or so is not getting to help him in this area. Would he be better of laying off the weights and working more on his lower leg strength? Im not a personal trainer, so maybe someone can add some insight as to whether an athlete, at Yao's age, can really improve their vertical. You hear alot where people say "Joe put on about 20 lbs of muscle in the offseason" but you never hear anyone say "joe added 8 inches to his vertical". Is it possible? Can an athlete, especially one of Yao's size, significantly improve his leaping ability?
I agree pure bulk solves nothing. Rocks need Yao to be a warrior inside, and show some creativity when facing players with superior strength. No one matches comparably with Shaq. But Yao needs to realize that almost every team has a stronger body to compete with him. Dang, even Cato can out muscle him. Can the rocks be successful with a cream puff center? Sure! If brains overtakes the lust of brawn.
There were stories when Yao was drafted that he lost 5 or 6 inches on his vertical due to improper squats he was doing on his own while with the Sharks. They also said it was easily correctable but I haven't heard anything since.
Well duh. Both. He really just needs to get rest. How useless... Well...always good to express opinions. I hope he works on improving everything...he needs good assistants... But he really really needs to get aggressive.
He really needs to bulk up!!! BUT!!! he must work on his jump too, right now his vertical is pathetic, and with more weight will be even worse. He needs to work on his jump...for the Tip Off.
what would really be great was if the rockets played utah the first game of next season. yao walks up to ostertag in during the pregame warm-ups and slugs him in the mouth. what a way to start the season! to be like shaq... you must act like shaq. okay... that was a joke. the guy doesn't need much of a vertical with his height. he doesn't need to bulk up as much... 300 pounds isn't bad for 7'6" is it? attitude adjustment.
I beg to differ on the vertical issue. I think he does need to get a better hop. It's just not right to see him lose most of the tip offs/ jump balls.
ok. i can agree with the tip-off, but it all evens out by the time the game is over. each team gets the ball twice at the beginnings of the quarters. 1st and 4th or 2nd and 3rd. no biggie. if he only has to deal with the tip-off once during the game, then... sure you'll see a guy block his shot every once in a while, but who hasn't gotten their shot blocked. pretty much everybody in this league can jump through the roof, so yeah... it's possible for a 7'6" guy to get his shot blocked. but you know what...?... if he quits bringing the ball up over his head like a little girl shooting layups and come in instead with the "don't F with me" attitude, he's still more likely to get fouled while still contributing to the team than to get knocked to the ground fifteen hundred times a game.
That's a really good point. I think way too much is made of Yao getting blocked a lot. We should be mad that he's not going up strong and getting calls, not that people can get to his shot. I've been staring at Duncan during Spurs games just to see how he works (and what Yao should do!) and I notice that he gets blocked a lot too. Arguably even more than Yao. I think it just comes with taking a lot of shots in the paint where the defenders are right on you.
I think the main problem is not how high he jumps, but how quickly he jumps. The reason he loses so many jump balls is not because players are jumping over him, it's because they beat him to the ball. By the time Yao jumps, the other team already has control of the ball and is setting up their play. I think it's also why he gets his shots blocked so often when it seems like he should have had an easy basket. It takes so long for him to get his feet planted and ready to jump that the defense has plenty of time to recover. Instead of an easy uncontested dunk, he's forced to take a contested lay-up, that's usually blocked.
