http://community.foxsports.com/blogs/Bubba_Hotep/2008/05/28/NBAs_08_AllOverrated_Team YAO at center????? How about marcus camby........Sucks so bad but almost gets DPOY again
it's just some random idiot's blog. it isn't an official article or anything. I do like when he called yao a "quality #2 option on offense". ya, okay guy.
It's one stupid blogger's take on who is overrated... it's not based on anything worth getting upset about.
Another terrible NBA beat writer who probably hasn't watched a Rockets game in 2 or 3 years....Yao is actually not that bad on defense and is better than Camby in certain areas. Oh yeah, someone also forgot to tell him that the Yao guy has been the Rockets scoring leader for the last 3 years.
I think most of posters are correcting the original blogger, anyway. Most are saying the same things we pretty much say about Yao.
Number 1: Yao is definitely not suppossed to be on that list!! But he is correct that Yao is not that good on Defense. He is usually a liability. We all know this. But his height makes up for his lack of quickness and defensive aggressiveness. 2: Every center in the league is overrated outside of Yao, and Tyson Chandler.
Take Yao off and put Dwight Howard and take Gasol and add Duncan, and we have a deal. I don't see how Lewis is overrated, he is underrated. Just Orlando was stupid enough to give him that much money. Is his contract larger than Kobe's or no?
yao's an above-average defender, how's he a liability? a common false statement. you don't become and maintain one of the top defensive teams in the league several years running with your center being a defensive liability. simple as that.
Actually, I disagree with that...Yao is a good one-on-one defender, and below average on help defense. He is better than most centers when it is one-on-one time. But when has to rotate, he becomes a little more ineffective. He is a big reason, why the Rockets are always so good in post defense. He's not much of shot blocker, like Camby, but he is much better at altering shots and making the other team shoot low percentage jumpers. They are only about 3 players (well 2 and a type of strategy) I've seen where he struggles mightly against, Boozer, Jefferson, and if he has the guard some SF playing out of position (Diaw, Harrington, Najera). Because, they are so much quicker and smaller than he is, but to be fair no one above except for maybe Jefferson is a true center and Al might be moving back to PF next season. Yao has shown that he slow (shut) down Shaq, TD, Dwight, Amare, Bynum, Curry, and etc. What other big man (esp. centers) you can name that Yao has hard time stopping. His height and effort alone is enough to slow down most centers, they can't shoot over him or back him down. And to be fair, he is actually not that bad of defender...I can think much worse....much worse. Put it this way is he as bad Gasol, Amare, Nesterovic, and etc on defense. We can go back pull out some of those old games against the Spurs, Lakers, or Magic or even look at some of the box scores. And you can see how much of impact he had on defense (playing one on one). Or even look at his defensive per rating. He's not bad defender, he probably does look like one compared to Hayes and Mutombo...but Im sure we missed him in certain aspects of defense.
Forget who is the overall better player, D Howard should definitely come before Yao in the ranking of being 'overrated'. I agree "Who is the better player" is very debatable. But D Howard wins by a mile if we are only talking about "Who is the most overrated".
I can almost agree with that, especially when people are comparing him Shaq and Dream who are probably the two of the top 4 or 5 centers of all time. Dwight might get there someday, but right now....I would say he is Shawn Kemp on steroids (no pun intended) with a greater shot blocking ability.
A year or two ago, I recall some NBA player poll that asked who was the most overrated player. If memory serves, both McGrady and Yao were near the top of the list.
They are kidding...Yao an overatted player? Damn, ok he got injured but that doesn't mean he is overrated. How about Vince Carter? Marcus Camby? Carmelo Anthony? Of course Stevenson would say: How about LeBron? Can you please give a link to this article or something like that
I remember that poll. It was taken two years ago in the first half of the season right before Yao went down. When Yao came back, he ripped through the rest of the league and averaged 27/12 for the second half of that season.
Camby should be the most overrated defensive center ever. See how bad defense Denver is. On the contrary, I think Yao's defense is consistently underestimated by media and fans. Yao's rebound/block may never look great because he's not quick enough. But his size can't be denied. His only mismatch defensively is when Rockets face two big quick men who can shoot outside efficiently like Boozer and Okur. But other than Utah, I don't think any else NBA team have such combination.
Definitely...again you can't really measure how good his defense is by stats, like Battier and many other Rockets. They're not going to block alot of shots or get alot of steals, but they do create turnovers and force players shoot lower percentage shots.
