To me picking Yao made sense, he was 7'6 with decent athleticism but skinny. I remember people saying the Chinese gov't wouldnt allow it. There were unknown factors all around. I also remember thinking we were going to get the 5th pick and I wanted Caron Butler.
It didn't make much sense to pick a 1 when we already had what I thought was a dominant 1.(I was so wrong in my opinion but just loved all Rockets...even the little rebounding dribbler.)SF3 was obviously too short to defend a 2 and we had Mobely. I thought Yao might be a stiff but was already so depressed about the Rox that I didn't care. When we won the lottary I knew we had to go that way. I am now super happy!!!
the thing is SF3 is really a SG. that wouldve been perfect to draft a pure pg and move francis to the 2 guard position... that was my POV....
They didn't demonstrate ANY athleticism. The first clips of Yao I saw were of him pulling up hitting 18 foot jumpshots. very impressive for a 7'6" guy. I am fairly certain none of the above mentioned EVER did that (please don't hit me with the occasional 3 pointer that bol would hit once every 10 games)
No, I was talking about athleticism in a relative sense. For a man of his size, Yao was / is very athletic. certainly, compared with a NBA wing-man, he's not very athletic. But for a man of his, he is quite athletic. All the others in his size range - san Sampson - just looked like they had pituitary issues. Yao, looks pretty fluid and coordinated for a guy who is 6 freakin inches taller than a 7-footer. And yes, he's pretty darn accurate too.
Wow, it seem like those star Duke point guards have had some bad luck with vehicles. First Bobby Hurley, then Jay Williams.
As with many Dukers (certainly not all), they were also very overrated in terms of what they coukld / would do in the pros.
This wasn't even close with me. We already had a super talented guard in Francis. Duke sucks. Kind of like how we need a strong, athletic, defensive minded PF now, we desperately needed a C back then. Personally, as an Asian, I thought it would be awesome to draft him. Regardless of who drafted him, he'd be a huge story all year. I like being an attention w****. Drafting Yao would lead to that for our franchise. Oh yeah, and he's a 7'6" center with definite talent. How many of those type of players come to the league every year? More like every decade? Ever? When we drafted him, the first thing that came to my mind is how ridiculously spoiled our franchise is of getting great centers.
flatout lie my earliest mention of drafting Yao http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?p=437583&highlight=draft#post437583 Your earliest mention of draftin Yao (note the ultrarude ALLCAPS posting style) http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?p=448026&highlight=draft#post448026 I dont think I have ever seen a more pompous person on here than you. I was in favor after seeing vids of him playing overseas, the combination of size and the obvious skillset was a nobrainer for me.
No kidding. Especially if you exapnd it from Center to dominate / all-star caliber post men. the list would include: Elvin Moses Sampson Hakeem Yao Equally unimpressive has been the historical durge of PGs: All-star caliber PG = John Lucas (for 2 seasons) and some clutch play from Cassell in the playoffs and, ummmmmm, no one
I was Yao all the way. I trusted Bill Walton who raved about how good a center Yao Ming would be. I never had any doubts about China and the "communists" as I viewed them as business men first.
Actually, IIRC, the decision wasn't between Yao and Williams, but Yao and trade down/Mike Dunleavy with #1 pick. The Rockets had no reason to get JWill considering their investment in Mobley and Francis. But I was a big proponent of the Lamar Odom + #8 + whatever. And the Rockets were very likely to get Amare with whatever pick they get in the trade down. Objectively speaking, it actually might've been better to trade down given hindsight considering how Amare turned out. But I'm certainly glad the Rockets snatched a future likely HOFer for the one year they sucked enough for the #1 pick. And that year was a good example of just how much of a guessing game scouting is. That year, the Rockets were high on four players, Yao, Dunleavy, Amare, and Boki. Talk about boom or bust.
Seriously? http://images.usatoday.com/sports/nba/_photos/2004-02-02-inside-williams.jpg I really wanted Yao. Didn't really know much about him, if at all.. but I'm Asian so that was pretty damn exciting to see a fellow Asian picked #1
That may have been the thing that made me think we shouldn't have taken him had I heard it! Walton is an airhead. Maybe a little too much hippie lettuce back in the day impacting the synapses.
That was a pretty weak draft, there was no other option really. I thoughtYao would be the best player, followed by Caron Butler at the time of the draft. I woul've drafted Butler #2
I was for trading the #1 pick for a high end veteran. (We already had a "Franchise" player, remember?) When it looked like the Rockets were determined to pick Yao, I searched over the internet for info about Yao. And I found Clutchcity.net. Here I saw the first Yao highlight video and immediately jumped on the bandwangon. And the rest was history.
