Dwight Howard is the best center in the NBA, live with it.

I guess Perkins owns Yao, then.

 

Nice try, but one game doesn't count. You're probably one of those bandwagon fans waiting for a day like this to happen.

Watch, when TMac has a bad game, everyone will start jumping on his fragile case also.

 

Today was clearly a case of Yao being a better basketball player than Dwight Howard. The problem was nobody besides Tmac could hit a shot with Yao being fronted, double-teamed, and fouled (he was being hammered all night long, but they wouldn't let him be aggressive on the other end).

Because of the attention Yao drew, the Rockets had many wide open shots. We just have to hit them. Maybe Tmac was on to something about the depth perception at Toyota center. Only 1 opponent has gone for 40 in the Toyota Center, and that was Carlos Boozer who scores mostly within the paint. Besides that, Tmac has had a few 40+ point nights there. But the overall shooting % is quite horrible there.

Its weird to see Tmac's shooting % go that far down from when he was in Orlando, or to see great spot up shooters missing such as Barry and Novak. I'm not saying thats what the problem is, but this sure aint Madison Square Garden when it comes to good shooting.

But besides that, Dwight would NEVER draw that much attention, with or without help, in the post. On rebounds he'll get 2 people boxing him out at times, but offensively there is no reason to. Yao, although he had a tough night, did his job, which was to get his teamates wide open shots.

 

I knew this thread would rear it's head.

I'm not getting into it but whichever side you take, make sure to look at the big picture when evaluating, not just one or two games.

 

I'd say Yao's got a higher basketball IQ than Shaq too

 

Yao has looked particularly listless this season. Don't know what's wrong, he's only 27.

 

Is this a joke? Yao was terrible against Boston, and he'll be the first one to admit it. "Did his job"? Give me a break.

 

Dwight Howard is a very good center, NO DOUBT.

Is he the best center in the NBA? Well,maybe he is, maybe he isn't. I don't care much about it.

 

this best center debate is boring. so what if Yao is the best center, or Howard is. They can be the greatest center of all time, but if they can lead their team to playoff wins, they are just going to be forgotten.

 

as of now, yao has shown flashes of being the best, but dwight brings it every night and throws down his dunks while we have a finesse 7'6 giant clogging up the post. it's difficult to say, but as of now, unless yao lets em hang, dwight is probably better. imagine dwight instead of yao, we would outrebound everybody, and those passes that hayes, luis, yao get for easy shots would all be dunks with authority.

 

That's easier said than done. With Dwight on the team, we wont have a main offensive force in the low post. Tonight, Yao was really dissapointing, wasted 2 hours of my life.

 

Why shouldn't it (rear it's ugly head)?

Looking at the BIG picture, Yao is 7'6" tall and he is missing dunks on a regular basis and getting his shot blocked far too often.

He has taken 58 shots in 4 games. The opposing starting center has blocked 10 shots (we'll leave backup centers out of the discussion). Let's say that half of those are against Yao (surely some of them came against Landry, etc.).So Yao, the biggest man in the NBA is getting his shot blocked ~9% of the time AND he is regularly missing dunks. ARE YOU FRIGGIN KIDDING ME?

Anyone who doesn't think Howard is a better center is fooling themselves. Howard plays around the basket, gets easy baskets off of dunks, layups and putbacks and rarely has his shot blocked. Yao is barely in the top 70 (69 actually) in blocks per game and that is only because he is tied at 1bpg with 26 other guys. And did I mention Howard rebounds at a clip of almost 40% more than Yao??

And as for the guy that said Howard isn't even the leader of his team, like Yao is the leader of the Rockets??? Quit being an idiot. The leader of the Rockets has a gimpy body and his name is T-Mac.

Hell, Andris Biedrins is a better center than Yao right now.

 

I'm not saying he had his best game, believe me, I know that. But the amount of double teams and fronting that Yao was getting, its not reasonable for him to score a lot.

The bottom line was the Rockets shot 39% as a team. That will not win games, and that will not relieve pressure on Yao. Boston decided that somebody besides Yao was going to have to beat them. Tmac and Scola decided to take on the challenge, but they came up short against a team that was clicking offensively.

There is nothing Yao can do when his teammates cannot hit WIDE OPEN jumpers.

The one area I will say Yao did struggle was with rebounding, but I believe that had more to do with fould trouble than anything else. The refs made it clear early on that they were going to call touch fouls on Yao while Perkins, Davis, and Powe were allowed to play as physical as they wanted without being called for a foul.

 

Its hard to get a shot blocked when the only shot you have is the dunk.

The only area where Dwight is better is rebounding and athleticism. Everything else, Yao is a little better than Dwight.

 

The truth ... it hurts. Although Yao is 7'6", he often plays like he's 6'0". The well known "trick" to beating Yao is to put a much shorter player but active player on him. He can't shoot over (he'll get blocked). He can't drive (he'll get stripped). All he can do is shoot his jump hook. Even then, most of the time, Yao won't be able to get the ball since he's not athletic or co-ordinated enough to use inside position to catch a ball when he is being fronted.

 

dwight howard still needs to defeat yao in a head-to-head matchup. i'm not sure he can do it this year yet. but i think he'll have yao figured out by the next season.

 

I fully agree with you that Yao has more offensive moves but thats about it. Lets put this in perspective, he has more moves than Shaq too and shoots better FT% but does that mean he is even at Shaq's level before he got old? No... because at the end of the day, it is putting the ball into the basket that counts. I don't care how you do it. Not to mention all of Yao's injuries. Guys, Dwight is already a better center than Yao and he will only get better. And lets just agree to disagree.

 

Well, basketball is an athletic sport. If Dwight's a better athlete, that means there are a number of things on the court he can do better than Yao: he can cover more ground defensively, he can finish stronger at the basket, he's quicker to loose balls, he runs the floor better in transition, etc..