A lot would say Howard is better because he scores with more authority like with monster dunks and so. But a fade away shot or a hook still counts as much as a monster dunk.
There's a similar thread going on in NBA Dish Forum. Howard is the sh#$ but Yao eats sh@# like him for breakfast . I didn't know Carmichael Dave was a member of BBS.
Tell Dwight to get use to it, because he never will stand a chance against Yao. By the time he gets skill he will get caught with steroids.
The reason why Howard gets so many rebounds is because a.) He has no rebounders around him (Lewis and Hedo are horrible rebounders for being 6'10. b.) The Magic takes MUCH more 3's than any other team in the league. With a team that takes a lot of 3's, that means there are a lot of long rebounds available and since nobody else on the team is any good at rebounding, then Howard will easily get 14 rpg. The same can be said about Biedrins. The Warriors offense is jacking up 3's, and he's the only big on the court for them most of the time, so he gets a good amount of rebounds. If you wanna know who had impressive rebounding stats, it was Olajuwon, Robinson, Ewing, and Shaq. All of those guys played with great rebounders. Olajuwon would average 13 rpg, while Thorpe would average almost the same. Aslo Horry was a good rebounder his first couple of years in the league as well. Robinson would average 11-13 rpg with Rodman, who averaged 16-18 rpg. Ewing and Shaq both played with quality rebounders in Oakley and H.Grant, and they still were able to average atleast 12 rpg during that time. Yao however has a very good rebounding team around him (Scola and Landry combine to get 11-12, Artest and Battier will get you 6-7, Tmac can get 10 on any given night if needed.) Last year, the Rockets as a team was in the top 5 in rebounding. Therefore his stats won't be unbelievable compared to the inflated stats of Howard. Howard's field goal % is misleading too, because all he ever shoots are dunks, alley oops, and putbacks. Anybody could shoot 58% if thats all they had to shoot. Ask Howard to shoot that good taking jumpers and fadeaways. He wouldn't be able to, but Yao shoots 52% on fadeaways, jumpers, and a variety of post moves. Yao is also an excellent free throw shooter. He's not a liability late in games. Plus he's a true offensive option. If your team needs points, you can ALWAYS go to Yao. Howard however, is not a real offensive option. He is just a really explosive athlete. He has no real skills. He has a very hard time creating a shot for himself, he doesn't draw double teams, he's not a good passer, and offensively he is really limited. We take for granted what all Yao gives us on a nightly basis. Its amazing how skilled he is compared to other bigs. Amare Stoudamire can't create his own shot, (although his jumper is very consistent now), but if he didn't have Nash, he would have a tough time averaging 20ppg. Bynum can't create his own shot. Kobe gets him easy lay ups and dunks or Pau draws a lot of attention, to free up Bynum. Kaman is not anywhere near as consistent as Yao. AS far as skill and having the ability to create a shot for their own, Yao, Tim Duncan, Shaq, Garnett, Boozer, David West, Dirk (although he's more perimeter oriented), Al Jefferson, and Bosh are the best post players in the NBA. These players don't need anybody to get them a shot. They all have post moves, they all can take over a game, draw double teams, and besides Shaq, all of these guys can shoot a 15 ft. jumper. Howard doesn't have any of the skills of the players I just listed before, offensively. Amare has some of the skills, but he lacks shot creating ability, and he feeds off of Nash. He can shoot though when open. But he can't take over a game by himself. Defensively, Howard's 4bpg is very impressive. I'll give him that. However, I still think Yao is a better 1-on-1 post defender than Howard, and at the center spot that is very important. Blocking shots is just one aspect of defense. Yao still gets 2 bpg, so it isn't as if he doesn't block shots at all. Yao is a pretty smart defensive player as well.
Many of the above arguments are true. But bottom line, I'll bet most GMs would prefer to build around Howard than Yao.
Just now on NBA shootaround, Stu Scott asked Jon Barry and Jamal Mashburn if Howard is the best C in the NBA. Both Barry and Mashburn said nope, that title belongs to Yao right now, much to the chagrin of Stu Scott who tried to argue them out of it, to no avail. Just throwing another log into the fire.
DH is more of a PF than a center I think, but he has to play center many times b/c there's no real center at all on magic team. A PF is always under domination when he's to match up with a center, just like luther being devastated by Ak47 when he was head to head with the hatred jizzzz. I don't think luther is not as good as AK47 even though it's widely accepted that luther is a crap. It's unfair to indentify luther as a crap just by his sucking plays againest ak, similarly it's also unproper to put yao over DH just because of his bad plays againest yao. Yao does better than DH at center position, but, what if Dream came back and yao was to play PF? Yao is gonna be a crap as a PF, playing PF is gonna be an unfinsihable work for yao who is neither able to shoot 3 nor dribble. DH plays great when he faces another PF at center position. In fact, most NBA teams play 2PFs and one SF in frontcourt because the centers are not able to fit the quick paces of today's NBA. If it was 96-97 now, we would gotta win the title because yao is with us. But in today's nba games, centers are not as important as they were in the old times. DH sucks in front of yao when they both play like centers, but yao's gonna suck if they both play as PFs. Magic's coach made a terrible mistake on playing DH straightly againest yao at center, because he believed that DH is better than Yao so he's gonna dominate yao at center position. But the fact of the matter is, a shark is gonna be eaten by a wolf when it's laid on land even though it's the most powerful species in the sea. So even Harrionton is able to dominate yao if yao is involved in high paces, just like a lion being devastated by a turtle. Is harrington better than DH? It just the magic's strategetic faults that made DH seem less good than yao, not yao's personal ability. When yao is face to face againest DH or other PFs who still consider themselves as centers, he's gonna be the terminators to them When yao meets with Okur or other "centers" alike, he's gonna be dominated.
