[ESPN Daily Dime Poll] Best center - Yao or Dwight?

I'm not sure who the better Center is at this point. I think Howard is more consistent but only Yao is capable of being the focal point of the offense on a playoff team.

I hope the Rockets keep feeding Yao and Yao continues to get more aggressive so by the end of the season there is no discussion about who is better. Plus, I would just like to see Yao drop a 24/12 season as the focal point on a 60 win team. The points might be a bit high but I think he can pull down 12 boards if Rafer and Ron keeping bricking jumpers...jk.

 

Local media also...channel 2...mentioned ron artest 2 times...tracy's triple double...brooks...and scola...not even a mention of Yao's 32.

Not even a mention.

Yao is a better skilled BB player than howard. Howard is a more gifted athlete. But who cares. It is apples to oranges.

 

Yao#1- how many times have u watched howard play? You and the other poster said yao effects the game more which is false. If yao isn't scoring, he does nothing to help the team. That's not even up for debate. Howard always rebounds and blks shots. There isn't a gm in the league that will take yao over howard right now. It has nothing to do with the dunk contest or getting dunked on. Every stat, since the op told me those are the basis for objectivity, howard is leading excepts ft%. He cancelled that out because he goes 12 times a game. If yao affected the game as much as some believe, how come the team can insert a guy that avg 4pts and 5rebs and win 67% of the games?

 

Mainly because those games were against inferior opponents, and Mcgrady is a great player who can win with less talent..

The main thing that you are failing to recognize here. Maybe Howard goes to the line more because his team needs him to. Who besides howard on that team can score down low? The Rockets have Landry and Scola as options to score in the paint so Yao doesnt have to be a guy who goes to the line 12 times a game.

Also, Yao passes out of double teams much better than Howard and when he is single covered in the post, he usually scores, when he is doubled, he usually passes out and forces the defense to rotate which usually leads to an easy basket for a team mate. There is no stat that will reward that, but it definantly helps your team win games.

 

Interestingly... Yao's statistical impact on defense over last season and this one tends to be higher on the defensive end than on the offensive end.

Dwight Howard, on the other hand, has had a negative to neutral statistical impact on defense over the same period.

Probably true, but it's due to healthy and age. The same reason why a GM would probably take Andrew Bynum over Tim Duncan (or D.Howard over Tim Duncan), doesn't mean each of them is more effective than Duncan right now.

Not when you talk about the kind of stats used by guys like Daryl Morey.

Actually, not quite.

TS%, which accounts for both FG and FT shooting: Yao: .619. Howard: .593.

Because that guy happens to be Dikembe Mutombo, who was still effective. Because there Landry, Scola and Hayes each chipped in productive minutes?

Speaking about winning 67% of the games when you are out:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/players/3983/gamelog;_ylt=Ag6vc0r3r915u9kHMivqHpg.PaB4

 

Nice......I will argue though that Howards impact on defense is at the very least even with Yao.

Yao is lucky to have great perimeter defenders like Battier, Artest, Rafer. Howard has the added pressure of having guys like Nelson and Turkoglu playing matador defense game in game out. It leads to him getting more blocks, but I'm sure his teams FGA % is alot higher because of it.

 

I still find it interesting that their opponent's scoring efficency is higher (or at least not obviously lower) with him on the floor guarding the basket. Statistically, they've done similarly well with, say, Battie, or Gortat back there.

In fact, I think when Houston played them last, Foyle did a better job on D than did Howard. There is a lot more to playing good D than swatting shots (ask Denver fans about Marcus Camby).

Howard has the tools to be a good defender, but he isn't one yet.

 

I agree 100 percent. I could be wrong about Howards defense.

I do know that Yao's defense(although underrated) is not as good as I'd like it to be. He struggles against big men that can step out and hit jumpers and he also is really bad in pick and roll situations.

 

Herrara- U can pull ts and all this other stuff. U can talk about hayes,landry, and scola raising their game when yao is out. U can also talk about the greatness of deke, but what u didn't mention is howard is putting up hakeem of the 90's number and is the undisputed best player on his team. Also he was 1st team all nba voted in by coaches,gms, and sportswriters. Now u can find other stats to back what u want to say, but if u put a gun to dreams head and made him pick 1, he'd probably pick Howard.

 

Yao for now but dwight may become better, hes still young

 

No one argues that Howard has way more upside than Yao, but to say Howard is on pace to be like Hakeem is way premature. Hakeem over his entire career averaged 22 PPG. As it is right now, Howard has a career average of 17 PPG. He is not nearly the scorer Hakeem was....yet....Talk to me 10 years later.

 

Should racism and xenophobia be factored as well? I mean the entire Dwight vs Yao debate is arguable but it's ridculous to see a 80-20 ratio instead of say, 60-40. Somebody in the States please educate me on this.

80% Americans think Dwight>Yao because in their subconscious mind,
America>China?
Black>Asian?

Think about it. In every single game, the media has the tendency to focus on whether Yao being posterized so that they can put it on the highlight reel. They never show anything that suggest Yao's dominance that lead the Rockets to the victory. Given the fact that most non-Rockets fans do not watch the games at all, they would easily think Yao=Shawn Bradley because all they see from Yao is being a poster boy.

 

Wow, wrong. Your idea of "miles ahead" is only him blocking shots into the stands, yao's defensive mind is better than dwight's. yao rather than throwing it into the stands blocks it so that he has a chance of getting the loose ball, leading to no extra possessions for the opposing team.

 

If there were a stat for "shots altered", Yao would lead the league. He is a prescense on D. When teams force Yao away from the goal, he can be a liability on defense but he usually makes up for it on the offensive end. When he is a liability on both ends, thats when we have to play small ball....Barring injury to Yao, Mutumbo should not be in our plans.

 

Not surprised, More people just like Dwight Howard more because of reputation.

All said and done, they could have the same poll of KG or Duncan, and most people would say KG because they like him more.

And that's clearly false.

 

Yep pretty much, he fails to get 20 points a game against teams over .500

Only the Blazers was the team he managed to score over 20 and that's because they let him shoot Ft's the entire time.

All said and done, Yao Ming is the better player, analysts and players have said it.

 

I would prefer Yao lost by a big big margin. That will take the pressure off from him and piss him off to play like a beast in the playoff. Up to now, he's still inconsistent. He needs to shake off his softness which still show occasionally in some games.

 

It's hard to argue with the numbers right now: so far Dwight is having a better season than Yao.

However, Yao has been better for their careers up until now. And this season, Dwight went off on a scorching start while Yao started cold. It wasn't too long ago that Yao was averaging something like 0.44 FG% and 16 ppg...now he's up to a much more characteristic 0.534 FG%. How long do you think Howard is going to maintain 4 bpg, which is twice his career average? Howard's PER has slipped by 2 from earlier this season, while Yao's has steadily gone up. I doubt Yao will catch Howard in 2009, but the two of them may end it closer than the massive gulf that people perceive right now.

You know what though? Nobody gave Yao this kind of early credit when HE was the up-and-coming young stud. Even when he was clearly better than Shaq, Shaq was still picked as the #1 center in a lot of polls. Amare had a breakout season and everyone thought he was so much better than Yao...until he missed an entire year and performed worse than Yao in the next one. Ben Wallace was picked over Yao for All-NBA 2nd Team despite averaging half the points. Amidst all this, overhyped one-season wonders who didn't even make the All-Star game, like Camby and Kaman, were proclaimed as "better than Yao."

It annoys me that Yao has never gotten the credit he deserved as the top center, but now everyone is quick to anoint Dwight as the best. Which isn't arguing that he isn't right now, just pointing out the disparity in treatment he's getting. Reading comments from a lot of fans, it really seems like Yao isn't respected.

 

Yao can only earn people's respect by constributing greatly in the playoff to help Rox win the championship.

 

He has to do more because the fanboys are against him. I don't know of a single perennial All-Star who is denigrated to the extent that Yao is. Even now, it isn't too out there for people on forums to leave Yao off of Top 20 Player lists or exclude him from their All-Star selections (starter OR reserve!). Commentators often think they're being clever or unique by saying they wouldn't pick Yao as an All-Star.

He's not even seen as the best player on his own team, despite this being the 3rd consecutive season that he's leading the Rockets in ppg, while having a massive lead in scoring efficiency. I don't want to start a Yao vs. Tracy argument, but I think T-Mac is the more respected player "type," smaller, flashier, and more athletic. Just like Howard or Amare are a more respected type than Yao.