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

when dwight loses his athleticism, you'll be so far ahead of yao career wise that what yao will do in his twilight years with his supposed skills and size does not matter. yeah ben wallace is a joke now but yao will NEVER get a DPOY...

 

Long time no see, Jonhty. I had the feeling that you would come back from your hibernation after Yao's last night's terrible game. I was so right, LOL. "so far ahead", "twilight years", "does not matter"...LOL...either you have a crystal ball or they are pulled right out of your ass. Why you would devote your life to hate on a player is beyond me. Can't you think of better way to live your life?

For those who are new here, Jonhty is a known hater. I said the above based on his past posts, not just on that particular one in the quote.

 

In never said better centers. i said there better overall big men.

 

Why don't they just settle this in the finals!?

 

yao is the best for free throw shootin, even better than dream! besides that, yao and DH are not in the same lvl tbh, yao's offence is a bit better than average and his def is even worse tha average. hes a borderline all star lvl player w/o his chinese background. and DH no doubt the best C and top 5 big man in the league. many ppl here say that DH doesnt have skillz,i LOLed in RL since YAO cant even dunk with his height and so u call him SKILLED! ROFL!

 

It took Shaq 34 years before he is finally slowing down but even now he still is a dominant force. BTW Shaq has no FT and Offensive moves either.

Guys this is basketball, all the offensive moves that Kobe and Jordan makes that others can't, comes from their athletic abilities. And I say, as long as you can put the ball in the basket who cares how you do it. Let's not go crazy, Yao is in his prime while Dwight is dominating in his third year!

All great players dominated right off the gate, Shaq, Hakeem, Kareem etc. Yao did not (language is not an excuse after the first year). Dwight is better right now and by the end of their respective careers it won't even be close.

Don't get me wrong, Yao is a very very good player, but not great. Nothing wrong with that at all, super tall players were never meant to be all time greats because of mobility (HUGE disadvantage in this league) and durability issues. But we as Rockets fan should all be happy with the player that he has become and the person that Yao is.

 

And again, the point you're missing is that Yao's game right now doesn't rely on his athleticism. He doesn't really have any. There is zero question in my mind that there are great centers who peaked after they were 30--Hakeem springs to mind. Again, they peaked because their overall game improved despite the decline in their physical skills. If all that mattered was physical stamina, speed, etc. as you seem to believe then Hakeem would not have been possible Predicting the future is difficult but with Yao the fact is that he doesn't rely on a physical game now.

As for whether it was his body or his mind that was the biggest factor in the Celtics game I don't think there should be any question that those early fouls threw him completely off balance, considering he looked great before he had to go out in the fourth quarter.

 

No offensive moves for Shaq? Drop step? Hook in the lane? Turnaround off the glass? Common!! Shaq does have limited offensive moves but don't cut him short. And even if he was 50 he's still a legit 7 footer who weighs 350#'s!! Do you realize how hard it is to keep him off the blocks?
I don't know what your definition of dominating is but you can't really say Yao or Dwight are dominating right now. What you can say and I do believe is that outside 10ft Dwight is nonproductive where Yao can still be effective.
Injuries aside Yao is the best PIVOT man in the game today

 

well said!!!!

 

id take howard over yao because his physical dominance has more of an impact than yaos finesse game. dwight is almost unstoppable when hes deep in the paint. he can just power up and dunk on anyone. yao on the other hand often gets blocked by guys smaller than him because he has no explosiveness. no way dwight would struggle with the likes of memhet okur.

not bashing yao, hes a great player, but taking howard is a no brainer for me. hes barely in his 20s and still has so much more room for improvement. yao is about at his peak right now.

its same way i would easily choose lebron over kobe. kobe has a better skill set but give me lebrons physical dominance all day. he just wears guys down over the course of a game. hes too big and fast to stay in front of in crunch time and doesn't have to settle for as many jumpers as kobe (though kobe knocks them down)

 

He struggle vs Maxiell and he is shorter than him, and DH wasn't coming from a injury.

 

Dominating is 20pts/14 rbs every game! Which Dwight averaged last year. Shaq's hook in the lane and turnaround? haha.. If you think over powering your defender and shooting hook and turnarounds from 4 feet from the basket are actual offensive moves, OK. Anyway you think Dwight does not have any moves? Even if he dunks 50 percent of the time, how do you think he scores the other 50%?

Yao maybe the best Pivot man (now it's not center anymore?), but he is not the best center. That would imply more than just having few post moves, it is rebounding, blocking, shooting. Not to mention, Dwight ain't too shabby with his FG% either. So who cares how he gets his points, as long as it is at a very high shooting percent the way Shaq daddy scored. Now you will say Shaq is not one of the best centers of all time because he did bulk of his scoring by powering his defender and dunking? You think any one will care much less fault Shaq for his strength and now in Dwight's case strength AND athleticism?

Guys we are all Rockets fan and we are all Yao fans but cmon, lets be realistic and let's be objective here. Dwight has already caught up with Yao and he will only get much better.

 

You contradicted yourself so many times in that post I can't even begin to reply to it.
But here since you're not familiar with the term "Pivot man" read this and if you're still confused stop reading....you might get a headache.

Center.

A position in Basketball, the center of the offense, often played by the team's tallest player. The center is primarily called upon to take the tip-off and to stay close to the basket, in a post position where he can alter or block shot attempts, rebound and relay on close-range offensive moves, rather than jump shots , to score. Also referred to as the pivot man or the # 5 position.

 

Dude, Pivot is also a position taken by an offensive player usually facing away from the basket near the foul line to relay passes, attempt a shot, or set screens.Which I do agree because Yao has range and can shoot much better than Dwight. Thats what I thought you meant.

Otherwise considering that this whole thread is about who is the best center in the league, Yao or Dwight. Why would any sane guy highlight and increase the "Pivot" font to make that point? You are contradicting and backtracking my friend.

 

My first sentence: "You're right, Yao doesn't rely on athleticism." I never said or implied otherwise.

Hakeem was a superb athlete well into his 30s. Hakeem at 34 was more athletic than Yao is or ever will be. If Hakeem didn't have great quickness and agility and balance, his post game would never have progressed the way it did in his 30s. His face up game would not have progressed the way it did. His improvement in reading defenses and making passes out of the double team stemmed from a superior post and face up game which, due to various physical limitations, Yao will never obtain.

If Yao does improve, and I'm doubtful it happens for him into his 30s, it will have to be in a very different way than how Hakeem improved. They are just two very different players.

It's one game. People who think that Yao needs to "get it" and then all of a sudden he'll start dominating at an MVP level are fooling themselves. Personally, I think that's unfair to Yao. He knows what he needs to do; he works harder than anyone on preparing himself. But knowing what you need to do and actually being able to do it in real time during games are two different things. Yao will never be great at reacting to what's going on around him quickly. He's half-deaf and he's slow, and that won't change.

At best, Yao can try to offset that stuff by just doing what he does to the best of his abilities. Over time, that will be more difficult for him. History isn't kind to people of his size.

 

The question isn't Hakeem's overall fitness when he was over 30, it's how his 30 year old version compared to his 25 year old version. There shouldn't be any debate that as he got older he lost a step and yet despite that his game matured and a lot of people would argue that he played his best basketball after age 30. Physicality is part of the game but it's not the only part. I would argue that Yao is well set up to compete into his 30's assuming his joints hold up because physicality is not a big part of his game right now. Yes, there's no doubt that Hakeem was much quicker and agile than Yao is. On the other hand, Yao's a lot taller.

What's puzzling/concerning people is the inconsistency in his game. Right before the Boston fiasco he dropped 30 points on Dallas. Somebody at the Chronicle, Feigen I think, described it as a near perfect offensive game. Then along comes Boston and a couple of stupid fouls early in the game and Yao collapses. That's a mental thing, and that's fixable with maturity and experience.

So far as playing at an MVP level goes Yao has done that for stretches. Whatever his limitations in terms of quickness he has offsetting strengths in his height and his shooting touch. He has shown that he can dominate. The problem is that it's only been for stretches, rather than entire seasons. Again, the problem is consistency. The problem isn't training Yao up to play at an MVP level. He's perfectly capable of playing at that level and it should be obvious that he has. The problem is to keep him playing at that level on a consistent basis.

 

Shaq and Yao Ming both have post moves that Dwight can only dream of. You can run a team through both of these centers (Shaq, notsomuch anymore) but you can't through Dwight. Until Dwight develops a post game that merits double and triple teams on the nightly basis, Yao Ming will always be the better center.

 

Shaq does have post moves. His jump hook was unstoppable and he had a little one handed baseline turnaround jumper from about 5-10 feet away from the basket, he also had a dropstep that would allow him to get to the basket in 1 dribble, and he had excellent footwork. Dwight is very raw on offense. He isn't nowhere near as coordinated or have the footwork that Shaq had. People forget how skilled Shaq was. He was also a great passer out of the post.

 

Game 1 - 38 minutes
Game 2 - 41 minutes
Game 3 - 39 minutes

Pretty clear what the probllem vs. Boston was