Jordan always pushed off and Hakeem always travelled? This is silly. It's called people whined about their games because they were literally unstoppable. Hakeem had ridiculous footwork; he didn't travel on his pet moves like the jumphook, drop step, and turnaround. He honed his moves to an artform. The only times he got away with travelling were when he was bumped by defenders causing his pivot foot to slide, and putting the ref in a position to either call a foul on the defender or a walk. As for Jordan, sure he got a few calls, but to say he pushed off always is asinine. Even that infamous Bryon Russell no-call was called correctly. Jordan's juke got Russell off balance and the amount of actual contact was so minimal that no call was warranted. The only thing Jordan got away with consistently IMO was hacking on defense, which wasn't called as often as it should have been. But by in large, the problem is that anytime you have guys who dominate the league ala Hakeem, Jordan, and Shaq there are going to be haters who want to cite any reason but their individual talents and skills for their success, which your post just did.
jeff i agree with you about talking to the refs but i think there's a huge problem with referees and the league if the only way you can get the CORRECT call is by b****ing constantly to them.
92 dream team, 94 World championships and 96 dream team dont count in you're all mighty calculations? . i know you're not american, but be realistic. if the us ever tried to put a team on the court, they would tear apart anyone and anywhere.
What is wrong with you, with all those insulting? YOF left and right, what fun do you have to introduce conflict on a Rockets fan board? The guy just wished something, are you that fragile and have to jump out to claim your superiority in basketball knowledge? Nobody asked Jeff to apologize, and nobody is undermining his bball knowledge, and no one has ever questioned his hard working, effort and time to put in this great board, where people gather to talk about Rockets. What the heck is this little game you are playing, trying to drag Jeff into this? You replied to one poster who just had one line to say what he would like to see. Is he high-praising Yao or anything? What deserves your attention to jump up and down throwing your favorite YOF labels around? You are just a pathetic troll.
I'm a Chinese YOF and I've been playing and watching bball for 15+ years now. It seems that a lot of experts, including Matt Bullard, also think that Yao gets screwed by the refs. Van Gundy obviously feels the same way too. I don't think these guys are inexperienced Chinese YOFs.
If you dont think Yao is being penalised for being bigger and taller than other players, then I really have nothing to say. I guess 80% of his offensive fouls wont be called if he's 6'9 and how about grabbing and shoving of the defensive players in the post? The funny thing is 99.99% of NBA players are quicker than Yao, but you know what of course Yao's also severely penalised for being slow. Double standard? Why?
I don't get how the label "Yao Only Fan" is suppose to be a insult. Being a Yao Only Fan is just as reasonable (or unreasonable) as being a Rockets Only Fan. Sports are always fiercely tribal. If being irrationally loyal to one city's sports team is fine and commendable behavior, what's wrong with being irrationally loyal to one player from your own country.
Does it? Not in sports. Does it occure to you that sometimes problems are racial based, but people keep saying "don't play the racial card" in general. It is wrong to play that card all the time, and it is also wrong not to allow people to play that card at all.
Stern should get smarter. Shaq is fading fast..from marketing stand point, there is a dire need for another dominant center in the league and Yao has the skill to be it. There is more people know Yao Ming than there is who know what NBA is in this part of the world. However it seems like the league is doing otherwise. Those phantom calls are making Yao to be doubtful and skeptical..thus not playing to his full potential.. this is making us fans, asian fans in general, very disappointed with the way they referee. We are not even asking for MJ type of superstar treatment , just let those who has the size advantage be his advantage..just a fair game with clean calls thats what we are askng for. Can anyone tell me if that incident betweent Yao and that nobody (i even forgot his name..) was MJ instead of YAO, what will be the outcome? will the referee call a tech instead of a jumpball? will the league just keep silence like nothing has ever happend?
Leave the race card in deck? race card always exist, it just changes form ...US basketball used to discriminate blacks...now its the asians.
The world has found the solution to beat the US team by playing as a team. An all star team with players playing individually will not beat a team that plays as a unit, this is proven by Spurs vs Lakers 2 years ago, and Spurs (mostly international players), Lakers (US all stars).
i agree that with its best players, the U.S. would probably win. Probably.... the reason i say that is because of what happened in the Olympics and pre-Olympics exhibition games. The U.S. lost to Italy big time getting blown out by the Italians bombing from the 3 again and again and again.....barely beat the Germans, beat the Turkish by not that much at all, got beat by the Lithuanians, got humiliated by Puerto Rico, let the Australians give them a scare, and lost a chance for gold medal by getting spanked by Argentina. How humiliating is that..... that Olympic team had some pretty good players too..... Dwayne Wade......Amare Stoudemire........Tim Duncan, Allen Iverson... the U.S. needs to send this starting lineup: Shaquille O'Neal Tim Duncan Kevin Garnett Kobe Bryant Tracy McGrady doesn't guarantee dominance or wins though, but that starting five could wreck havoc with that talent alone.
I'm not saying that racism doesn't exist, I just believe that it's wrong to play it in this situation. There are plenty of reasons why Yao is officiated differently (height, quickness, respect, etc...) but not because he is from China. There's enough of it out there, don't create it in this situation. Yao spends 3 secs in the key a lot more than he fouls, if the refs were racists then that could be called more often too.
Jeff has some outdated theory about the refs. Today's refs doesn't have a lot of common so called "rules" to follow, they of course have their own personal bias. Who knows what cause the way the ref treated Yao? Maybe racially bias, maybe not. It just beat the hell out of me that I could not come up with one other player that getting treated as badly as Yao. (The opposing guy can beat the crap out of you, while if you so much as push off your opponent it's a foul against you. Even though in both cases, the same freaking ref is standing right next the action and must have witnessed everything. Why allow other people to kill Yao, and Yao is not even allow to fight back just a little bit?) Can this happen to another player consistently game after game? If people think they're so smart and knows the "rules" to follow to get good calls, please explain. By the way, Dream did not travel a lot, if he did it'll be too quick to be seemed or even understand by regular fan, and definitely the "blind" refs could not have saw it at all.
