According to Bill Simmons, Yao Ming is only the 2nd most untradable players in the league, just behind Tim Duncan. http://espn.go.com/page2/s/simmons/030530.html There is another thread on this article as well.
guys, the love affair is over. yao is good right now, duncan is great. yao has everything he needs to reach those heights (the ones many of you guys put on him: Hakeem, TD, Shaq, etc.), but so have many players throughout the years. the one area that you guys need to address before looking down the road is Yao's mental approach to the game. right now he plays timid, way too soft for a guy 7'5'', 300 lbs. if he develops a killer instinct and upper body strength we might be seeing greatness in the making. i just truly don't know about Yao, these forays to play in china when he should be resting and working out are alarming.
Yao is more fundamentally sound than Tim Duncan in his rookie year. I remembered those ugly looking rim-clangging bricks that TD used to shoot. As flat as EG's 3 pointers. On the other hand, Yao shoots with much better mechanics, looks like he's trained to shoot with great form. TD did not have that shooting touch in his Rookie year. I bet Yao is a better 3 point shooter than TD. Yao is a better FT shooter. TD could not get over this mental block to make some clutch free throws. Yao has better passing instinct & skills. Yao's teammates is considerably worse at getting to good position by moving & cutting. TD & Yao have the same mental toughness. They don't get rattle out there on the court. Yao is going to end up be better than TD.
If Yao's prime year is similar to TD's rookie year, I am happy. A lot of people here call TD a choker though.
I watched a lot of TD in his rookie year and I never saw what you are saying..Yao has no post up game, needs instruction on footwork and positioning, needs to become aggressive, get open, etc..Duncan had this day one. Dont get me wrong Im a serious Rocket fan who thinks Yao may exceed TDs rookie accomplishments.. hes not there yet.
Hey how about someone define fundamental? What aspects of the game are fundamentals? Boxing out? Positioning on rebounds? Ability to get offensive rebounds? Defense? Readiness on D? Positioning on D? Ability to block shots? Ability to get steals? One on one defense? Ability to defend the passing lanes? Ability to stop a guy from backing you down? Shooting ability? Shooting touch (how good the shot looks whether it goes in or not is how some of these people seem to grade that on)? Free throw shooting? 3-pt shooting? Dribbling? Ball Handling? Post moves? Ability to back down a man? Aggressiveness on D? or O? or rebounding? Passing ability? Ability to create an assist? Assist stats? Vision? Passing creativity? Ability to make smart passes? Ability to make pretty, highlight reel passes? Ability to dunk? Clutch play? I dunno... I am just throwing anything out there...but how about someone define fundamentals.
Basically, it's the stuff that ANY basketball player can achieve, regardless of size or natural skill.
i hope Yao will be close to how good duncan is. Duncan is a great pleyer, and with verry good fundamental. Yao shows great potential. But he is not even close to how good duncan was in his rookie year. i hope Yao will end up being great, but saying he wil end up being better then duncan is stupid. why do people say Yao is a better passer then duncan? Do you not remember the play offs games where duncan almost got an triple double every time. yao show potential, and he shows he can pas but yao's career high is 6 assists and duncan career high is 10 assists and duncans year high is 11assists duncan average this play offs is: 5,3assists yao average this year is: 1,7 assists i know stats do not mean everything. but i think alot of people underestamed duncan's pasing skills
But when I use the same excuse for SF, people say no he just isn't a good passer. Also, every always points out the no look over the head passes Yao did but get mad at SF for doing fancy passes. Yao is a good player right now with a chance to be great. Duncan is one of the best players of all time. He is so fluid and quick with his moves. He has excellent footwork and a ton of moves in the post. To expect Yao to ever be that quick is not realistic. To expect him to be as good of a low post player is not realistic. If we are to be honest with ourselves, Yao is a high post player. That's where he can do the most damage and there's nothing wrong with that. Yao will need to become a lot more aggressive offensively to really raise his scoring average. The guards get a lot of the blame by the talking heads because they don't watch all of the games just some highlights. And they do deserve some blame. But Yao had the ball in his hands enough to have averaged close to 20 ppg if he had been aggressive. I think Yao's rebounding will improve some, but I don't think he'll ever be as good a rebounder as TD. Lack of lateral quickness hurts him there.
I think not playing in US college hurts yao a lot. You can play soft in asian or european games if you are skilled enough, not a chance in NCAA. Stength, stagima and aggresiveness, those are the areas yao has a lot of room to improve. I woud rather say Yao is a gifted, fundamently sound player, but needs a lot of good coaching at the time. He is not better than TD now, but he has the potential to become better than TD. I just watched the tape between spurs and rox. I feel yao is not afraid of TD at all. On several occasions, he went straight on TD 1-on-1, and scored.
