Sorry if it already been posted. But I can't see it on the front page. Wednesday, January 29 In the end, can Yao stand above the rest? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Marc Stein ESPN.com Doorways are too low. Cars are too cramped. Beds are too small. It's the same in Salt Lake City and Dallas, Indianapolis and Houston, even Shanghai. One more truism about life at 7-foot-4 and above: Whatever you just did on the court, it's probably not enough. "There will always be people," said Mavericks assistant coach Del Harris, "who think you should have scored a few more points, with a couple extra rebounds, and blocked another shot or two." In just half a season, Yao Ming has lived up to high expectations as the No. 1 overall pick. Shawn Bradley, from Harris' Mavericks and from his 7-6 perch, is in his 10th season of chafing from supersized expectations. Wednesday night marks Bradley's third encounter with Yao Ming, who is listed alternately at 7-5 or 7-6 and who faces an undeniable obstacle once he eventually pushes through the dreaded Great Rookie Wall. History. History reveals that those supersized expectations placed on the game's tallest of giants are mostly unrealized. History thus suggests that Yao Ming will never be the franchise player he is supposed to be, as a No. 1 overall draft pick. History tells us that there have been eight players before Yao who stood 7-4 or taller, and none of them got closer to stardom than Rik Smits. If history is an applicable guide here, Yao's 90 inches of stature guarantee nothing. The obvious counter is that he has arrived from China with more varied and polished skills than any mammoth center we've seen -- fancy passing, uncommon agility and a deft shooting touch. Yet history, again, reminds us that Smits made only one All-Star game while averaging a teasing 14.8 points and just 5.2 rebounds over 12 seasons with the Pacers. To live up to what the scouts and punditry have planned for him, Yao might have to match the combined statistical outputs of Smits and Mark Eaton, another 7-4 tower who arguably had the greater impact of the two as a two-time Defensive Player of the Year with Utah. "You're certainly the most visible guy out on the floor," Eaton said, "and people do have different expectations of the biggest guy on the floor." Tall tales from the past Bradley can vouch for the height of the bar, since he, too, heard many of the same projections as the No. 2 overall pick by Philadelphia in 1993. A decade later, after countless letdowns and questions about his desire, expectations have been gradually tempered, even by Bradley's staunchest backers. Mavericks coach Don Nelson, who coveted Bradley in the 1993 draft even as he was acquiring Chris Webber, says that today's Bradley is the best he has seen yet -- at 7.6 points, 7.1 rebounds and 2.7 blocks per game. Which is another way of saying that the initial projections were unrealistic. "When I was in the third grade, I was expected to act my size rather than my age," Bradley said. "They made me play with the kids my size and the kids my size were in the sixth grade. The kids my own age, I was so much bigger that I would hurt them accidentally. "That was tough as a young kid, a third-grader, but I made the best of it. It shaped who I am today. Between that and having to carry my birth certificate to Little League baseball games to prove that I was as young as I was, I figured out a long time ago that height raises expectations." Chuck Nevitt freely admits that his 7-5 frame gave him many "more chances than the average-sized player." Specifically it gave him the opportunity to partake in a championship with the Lakers in 1985 and get within one game of another ring with the Pistons in 1988 during his nine seasons of scrounging for spot minutes. But … "You're (still) supposed to get every rebound and block every shot," Nevitt said. "If your teammates get beat out front and their man scores, they get all over you because you're supposed to come over and help. If anyone ever scored inside the paint, it was always your fault. "But when I came along, the role of the big guy was completely different. You rebounded the ball, threw the ball out, followed the offense down the floor. Now the centers are filling the lanes and finishing the breaks and Yao gets up and down the floor real well. He's real agile around the basket." Standing Tall Yao Ming is the ninth player 7-foot-4 or taller to play in the NBA. Here's how the previous eight giants fared along with Yao's numbers from his first 43 games: Ht./Player Pts Rebs Blks 7-7 Manute Bol 1,599 2,647 2,086 7-7 Gheorge Muresan 3,020 1,957 455 7-6 Shawn Bradley 5,846 4,470 1,831 7-5 Yao Ming 521 331 81 7-5 Chuck Nevitt 251 239 111 7-4 Mark Eaton 5,216 6,939 3,064 7-4 Rik Smits 12,871 5,277 1,111 7-4 Ralph Sampson 7,039 4,011 752 7-4 Priest Lauderdale 255 143 26 That's the biggest difference. No one in this fraternity, save Ralph Sampson, could move like Yao does, and Sampson was not a back-to-the-basket player. Beyond the skills and footwork, Yao also has a thick lower base that makes Bill Fitch -- Sampson's first coach when the Rockets landed Ralph with the No. 1 overall pick -- openly drool. It's because Yao carries nearly 300 pounds on his frame. Nevitt, by comparison, weighed 175 pounds as a 7-1 college freshman at North Carolina State before growing four inches and bulking up moderately. Nevitt, Bradley and the unforgettable Manute Bol all were slender. Eaton had the bulk but had to be talked into playing college basketball after being spotted as an auto mechanic in Southern California who played water polo in high school. Eaton learned the game as he played, in complete contrast to the well-schooled Yao, whose fundamental base makes Pete Newell drool. That's the same Newell known as the foremost tutor of big men in history. Add Yao's background to his talents, Newell argues, and you can't compare him to predecessors. "With him, the (added) height is certainly not a disadvantage -- it's a tremendous advantage," Newell said, insisting that there's no technical reason why the tallest of centers can't flourish in the league, even if the extra inches result in a higher center of gravity. "Maybe I'm a little prejudiced on a player like this, because I'm pro-post players, but he's such a good passer," Newell continued. "If you're 6-10, 6-11, 7 feet, you're eyeball-to-eyeball with your defender. When you're 7-6, you're many inches taller and you have a great visual scan. You're looking over people, not by them. And a player of that size doesn't have any worry of a guard double-teaming him, as long as he keeps (the ball) at chest level. "Yao's a product of what (the international community) has been doing with players when they're 10 and 12 years old. They're teaching them the fundamentals, which we don't do any more. As a result he executes a lot of things in a fundamental way that really gets your attention, because he's only 21. His game seems to fit into the NBA game, and his lateral movement is unusually good for a fellow that size. He's such an athletic guy, and he's been taught a lot of foot skills in the paint area." A solid foundation Fitch, on his first visit to Compaq Center this season, was smitten. Drawn immediately to Yao's thick legs, he observed that Sampson would "probably still be playing" had he been built the same way. Sampson wasn't, though, and used up much of his good health earning three NCAA Player of the Year awards at Virginia. Sampson's knees didn't cooperate in the pros beyond season No. 3, accounting for Smits' standing as the most accomplished of Yao's forbearers. Sampson averaged 21.0 points and 11.1 rebounds as 1984's Rookie of the Year, enjoyed two more top-shelf seasons as Hakeem Olajuwon's front-line sidekick, then steadily broke down. Gheorghe Muresan, the lovable Romanian giant, was limited by physical ailments even more than Sampson. Muresan sprouted to 7-7 because of a pituitary gland condition and couldn't overcome back and ankle trouble. He didn't start playing until he was 14 and will be remembered as the anti-Yao in terms of mobility, but Muresan managed to earn Most Improved Player honors for Washington in 1995-96 by averaging 14.5 points and 9.6 rebounds in an all-too-brief career. “ He's got a great future in this league. He's a decent player now and he's going to be a great player. Not because we're the same height, but I'd like to see him do well. He'll have success whether we cheer for him or not. ” — Shawn Bradley "Some of the guys you've mentioned contributed a lot," Fitch said. "Mark Eaton was a really valuable cog in that Utah defense. We tried to beat Utah for a lot of years with Olajuwon, and Eaton was as important to them as Karl (Malone). "Ralph was every bit as good as any basketball player that came down the pike, but he just didn't have any stability in the legs after the first couple years. He got a lot of criticism because he was the first big man to think he was a forward, but a lot of those things he was doing because he didn't have the health. "How did a guy like (Charles) Barkley get as many rebounds as he did? He got them with the hips and legs. He moved people out, and he had that going for him from Day 1. Yao is the same way. But first of all you have to appreciate the fact that he's over here doing this, at his age. That part just boggles my mind. "To me, the biggest thing about having a guy that size is not the offense they're going to give you. It's the defense they're going to give you, how many fast breaks they're going to start. The first time I saw him, (Yao) was back there talking and (being) vocal on defense. (Robert) Parish was the Chief with that booming voice, but it took a while for him to learn how to do that for me in Boston. Yao's talking right from the start." The game that launched Yao to national acceptance came two nights after Fitch saw him, in Dallas no less. Bradley got in foul trouble early in the Nov. 21 showdown and Yao wound up rampaging for 30 points and 16 rebounds. He has started for the Rockets ever since. No need then, Bradley figures, to share advice or experience. They share a state and their teams' growing rivalry and an edge over all the predecessors -- even Eaton -- because of the legalization of zone defense. Bradley thinks that's plenty, along with the knowledge of exactly how it feels to fold 90 inches of limbs into a hotel shower. "He's got a great future in this league," Bradley said. "He's a decent player now and he's going to be a great player. Not because we're the same height, but I'd like to see him do well. He'll have success whether we cheer for him or not." Marc Stein is the senior NBA writer for ESPN.com. To e-mail him, click here. Also, send Stein a question for possible use on ESPNEWS.
