After the way Pau Gasol dunked right on Yao's face,retiring from International Basketball is the best thing Ming could do.
Perhaps the problem a lot of us have here is that we think Yao should lead by example, playing with fire on the court, no off the court towards his teammates (although his teamates did deserve some of the blame, so did he IMO). 12 pts and 8rebs was a lousy performance by any standard. Being destroyed inside the paint (Spain's outside shooting was way off yesterday), so how could you convince your teammates you already gave your 100%, that was all you could do, you already tried your best with 12pts 8 rebs???
I don't get why people are making such a big deal out of this. Yao was pissed off because he didn't play well and his team stank. It's not like he isn't human. And yesterday's game isn't a referendum on Yao, Steve Francis, JVG, or the Rockets. If there's anything that we can learn from the Olympics, it's that the Rockets should start practicing a zone defense. It was pathetic to see the US National Team looking like a bunch of fourth graders in church league.
Yao is playing like 1 against 3, while his teammates can't shot nothing. What really could you expect? Bateer, Yi, Moke, 3 PFs with only 8 fouis. Did they even try to stop Gasol? If they cannot guard Gasol, just foul him. Try everything to keep him from being effective. But they let Yao guard a center and a pf at the same time. And they do not know how to protect the Yao the star player, so it was Yao who fouled out. Could it be more digusting?
To be fair, the best player in the world only had 15 points yesterday against a Puerto Rico team that isn't even expected to vie for a medal. The zone that the international teams are playing will do a lot to negate the advantages that dominant big men have. IMO, 12 and 8 wasn't such a bad outing considering he fouled out.
I am not satisfied with TD's performance either, he played too passive yesterday. He missed couple easy layups which he should have dunked. Still he ended with 15pts 16 rebs. Maybe I am too hard on Yao, I just feel he can do better. I think it is because my expectation of him is too high, I should just lower it.
"I really enjoyed the slam dunk in the face of Yao, but it was nothing personal," Gasol said. "I just like to always play hard. I don't care who the opponent is."
There's gotta be a Chineses saying for this but one thing I have learned in this life is that people appear to be the maddest when they are really really mad a themselves. If they are embarrassed their first inclination is to blame others, it's just human nature. Yao has the expectations of a billion people on his shoulders. The Chinese people see a lot of their stature in the world riding on him. If it were me, I'm quite sure my head would just explode.
Yao played subpar yesterday and he also criticized his performance himself. However, Yao did not have the supporting cast Tim Duncan has and Spain is a vastly superior team to Puerto Rico. The bottom line is that neither Yao nor Duncan (7 TOs) played well yesterday and the matchup zone really had a huge effect on the performance of the big men. Both of them need to be more aggressive in the future games.
okay chill out, son. no need to get your balls in a twist. oh and what does shut up your f__k hole mean?
I only saw the last half of the game, but is that pic MemphisX showing the one that Gasol missed and fouled out Yao?
Yao needs to drink coffee and eat high glycemic foods such as candy bars before the games against the Grizzlies. Darrel Armstrong drinks coffee before games and during halftimes. As much as Gasol is making Yao look like a mediocre player, Yao has to bring it in those Grizzlies games.
In what way is that dunk different from the dunks on the big men in NBA all the time? Please elaborate.
