Yao is 23rd in the NBA in rebounds per 48 minutes - right behind Zach Randolph. Kenny Thomas and Tractor Traylor are tied for 19th. Also, I don't think you want to compare rookie numbers between Yao and LeBron. Not to mention that LeBron is 19. Just like DavidS said. Time is in LeBron's side - not Yao's.
What's the matter Juugie. How come you started using the time issue when talking about someone other than Yao? I thought I was supposed to use your time frame in which we assumes that neither Lebron or Yao would get any better.
First, Steve is still 27. I do not know about you, that is still a young age in NBA. Second, Yao Ming's real age might be much older than 23. Chinese atheletes normally change their ages (encouraged by government). Most of chinese atheletes retire at or before "30". I do not know about Yao, but I got a laugher whenver I see Wangzhizhi's age. Wang ZhiZHi was born in 7/14/1977 according to NBA.COM. This guy was playing junior professional basketball when I started middle school in 80's. He is definitely much older than I am. Yeah, I am over 30 right now and he is still 26.
I doubt very seriously if every starting center in the league has blocked TD's shot. Also, I never said Zo sucked. Zo was a great player - a better player than Yao, and even HE couldn't win a ring with a bunch of role players. So what makes you think Yao will. And once again when presented with realistic critcism of Yao, go to the "Well Steve sux more" arguement. Instead of proving that Yao doesn't.
If neither of them got any better, one would be a 21/5.5/6 guy and the other a 17/9/1.5 guy. Like I said, you don't want to do that comparison. I know, "He's 7'5" and "Steve sux more"
What's the "right deal?" Next... I feel that Yao doesn't want to take the lead publicly because he doesn't want to hurt Francis's feeligns. This is just a personal observation. It doesn't even address the technical issues about how Francis plays with the team (any team for that matter). He's just not a good teamplayer. Not that he doesn't want to. He can't. Ok two parts. Lets be more specific about "older." Players can get faster from 21 to 27. That IS possible. Like I said, once that plateau is reached (different for each player), maintaining that speed/qucikness is the main goal after that. But you made it seem like they keep getting slower even in their twenties. That's not true. An example is Francis. He hasn't gotten slower since his rookie season. Not yet. He seems to be just as fast. But when he reaches 30, that when he'll start to decrease in speed. And that's when he'll have to start relying on the*fundamental* part of the game. Which he doesn't have. This is why he's in trouble as soon as his quickness starts to wane. He doesn't have fundamentals to fall back on. As far as strength. Well, that's a centers best asset. Yao's main problem is being pushed out of the post right? Well, we can now look forward to Yao become stronger year after year, right? Not necessarily. It's still a TEAM game. All you have to is look at Akeem's bad years from 88-91. You still need the right players around your star. Having bad teammates also has an effect one ones PPG as well. Yao's would go up if we bad bad role players. But that's deceiving. Because team is more important that just inflating ones stats.
Also, MFW, very few of those other players had "size advantage" as the main reason he would be dominant.
I can't think of an example of any player in any sport getting significantly faster at 27 than he was at 23. Can you? I think Yao is physically strong enough to be effective, but emotionally weak. Also, those were bad years for the team, but what were Akeem's personal stats during that time? He averaged 24 points 13 Rebounds and 3.58 blocks even though he had horrible teammates. The team might have been bad, but he was still great. Barkley was on some horrible teams too, but he was still great.
He's not voild of all skills. But he's lacks greatly in the most general of skills. He relies mostly on his quickness, speed and hops. But none of that matters on a team scale if he can't *make the pass*, *hit the shot* or *run the break* on any consistent manner. You have to look at the whole player, not just part of his game.
You've heard what I'm about to tell you a million times, but you seem to want to hear it again: Because after all the great years Francis had, I'm not convinced already that this is anything more than just an adjustment period and a bad year for Francis. I still think he can contribute in a major way for this team, and keeping him and Yao together could pay dividends. I'm not as fickle as many of the people on this board, and I don't think we should give up on him yet. That's all I'll say on the subject... not much point in taking it further because neither of us are going to convince anybody of anything. BTW, there are even many points that I agree with Juugie on... No, but I stand by my original statement. Whatever you think you saw out of Stevie would have been different had the team needed him to play well. That plus he's hurting right now. Inflamed elbow and a sprained wrist. Injuries that made him questionable for both of the last 2 games.
What is "significant?" How do you mesure that. At that matter is if there an over-all improvent in their game. And no noticeable "slown down" appears in their game. You seem to be implying that Yao is getting slower year afer year. You were just making a blanket statment in order to support your claim that some how Yao will just get worse as time goes on. Please...Players do improve during their "careers." You don't just judge them after two when they do show they can improve.
What I'm saying is there seems to be this expectation that Yao will eventually become a quick. explosive player. Yao is as quick as he's going to be. He'll stay at this level for 5 or 6 years, but he's not going to get faster.
I disagree. Sorry. But you need to get the "Akeem standard of quickness" out of your mind. That's your problem. He's not Akeem. And just because he's not Akeem, you should NOT use that as a tool to apologize for Francis faults. Yao's quickness can improve. But not the same level as Akeem. But that's only one asspect of his game. Look at the whole picture of improvement.
Don't know if this has been posted so I'll through it in a Francis thread. http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_y...?slug=ap-olympics-jefferson&prov=ap&type=lgns Jefferson being added to Olympic team - Kidd might not play opening a spot for 1 more point gaurd. "If I can't play, I can't go,'' said Kidd, whose withdrawal would leave Mike Bibby as the only true point guard on the roster. Asked to list the best American point guards other than himself and Bibby, Kidd said Baron Davis and Steve Francis.
Sure sure Juugie. In case you haven't noticed, this is a Francis thread. How nice to see that you are able to "contribute" without even knowing the subject of the thread. I also can't help but notice that it WASN'T me that started comparing Steve to Yao but you and amed. As far as I was concerned I wasn't even going to bring Yao into the thread until you pulled your bs. And btw, Duncan did get his shot blocked by every starting center in the league. But I'm guessing you don't watch enough games to know that.
Really? Do we want to compare how many shots Lebron takes to how many Yao takes? Do you have to pull your SPM bs to show Yao takes quite a few less or how Lebron is playing a system designed for him? I sure don't want to compare the two of them.
Hmmmmm, Shaq isn't dominant because of his size advantage indeed. Neither did Wilt or Russell right? You act as if Yao has no skill at all and your pathetic attempt to suggest that I'm saying size is everything doesn't change that. I'm saying Yao has skill and his size is just helps a bit more. You know, there's a reason they call it size "ADVANTAGE" instead of size stat.
Actually, to be fair, you have to compare rookie numbers to rookie numbers 21/5.5/6 to 13.5/8/1.7 Like I said, you do NOT want to do this... And if the JVG system isn't designed around Yao then he needs to be fired cause it sure as hell isn't designed around Steve...
That must have been the thread with wizkid83 and I debated the "highpost/lowpost" issue. Funny thing is, that was an issue that I partially agreed Wizkid on, but not on precedence/order of importance at the time.
