So KG suddenly became a better player after he joined Boston at age of 30? Pau suddenly became a champion caliber big man after joined LA? (He could not even win one single playoff game before that). Is Manu better than Lebron James?
A case of faulty memory? How is Gasol always healthy when in fact he missed significant numbers of games in 4 of the 9 NBA seasons he played? Furthermore, by what measure did Gasol's team in Memphis have WAYYYYYYY more success than Yao's team in Houston? Regular season records or getting SWEPT 3 times in row in 1st round playoffs? Please do share with us Gasol's overall impact on the Grizzlies I have badly missed. TIA
Gasol has played 59+ games for five years straight. Yao has played 59+ games one time in the last five seasons. Trying to act like the two have similar injury histories is reaching. And I'm not the one who makes up how players are judged by history. Fair or not, "star" players are judged by their success in the playoffs. If you allowed every player who didn't succeed in the playoffs to rattle off excuses, every single one of them would have one. Fair or not, Barkley, Nash, Malone, and all the other all-time greats who didn't win a title are judged for it even though if you leave it up to them they all have excuses (Barkley and Malone went against Jordan, Nash's supporting cast/system has always been questionable, etc). Ask Vince Carter if he has excuses for his disappointing career and guess what? He will have plenty. So will Tracy McGrady and whoever else you want to ask. That's why everyone is held to the same standard. You can't be called a "great" player if you have only won one playoff series in eight years. I'll be the first person to change my view of Yao if he takes the Rockets (or another team if he leaves) far into the playoffs or wins a title. The point remains. You cannot be considered a truly great star if you never got past the second round. The Manu/LeBron comparison (the earlier poster) makes no sense because Manu is a role player, not the team's star. Tim Duncan was the star of those Spurs teams and had they never gotten past the second round, the way he is viewed would change dramatically. So if you want to compare Tim Duncan to LeBron, since that is a comparison that actually makes sense in that they are/were their team's star player, then yes, Tim Duncan has had the far greater career (so far, LeBron still has time) because he as his team's star lead them to 4 titles. Fair or not, this is how every star player is judged and it's no different for Yao. Right now, Yao Ming is basically in the Penny Hardaway/Grant Hill category as guys who might have been able to do a lot but weren't able to due to injury. Nobody is saying Yao isn't a great player, he is, but you have to look at everything about the player, not just one aspect. Everything has to be factored in, and the fact that Yao has #1 been injured in 4 of the last 5 seasons and #2 only won one playoff series does matter regardless of how many excuses you want to make. As for the KG thing, do you remember how much heat KG got when he was in Minnesota? He was shredded apart virtually every year for failing to get Minnesota over the top. How did he lose that image? By winning a title. Had he not, he would have been thrown into the Barkley pile as greats who didn't get it done. Until Yao does something similar, he will always be viewed as a guy who didn't accomplish what a #1 pick franchise player should do, which is anchor a contending team. He might still do it, so it's not like that's the final verdict, I'm just doing by what has happened so far. Dwight Howard, for all his faults, has been the best player on a contending team the last two seasons and is a back-to-back defensive player of the year. Pau Gasol averaged 19 and 9 on 56% shooting on the team that won the title last year. He and Yao had basically identical numbers last year except one guy was on a title team and played for the entire playoffs while the other guy was on a team that lost in the second round after he got injured for the fourth time in five years. Which one would you rather have?
And just to add one more note, since a lot of people seem to be pretending that Pau Gasol disappears in the playoffs or something, here is Yao and Pau's playoff stats from last year. Pau: 20 PPG, 11RB, 2 Blocks PG, 56% FG Yao: 17 PPG, 11RB, 1 Block PG, 54% FG So Pau averaged more points per game, more rebounds, more blocks, shot a higher FG %, didn't get injured halfway through, and was the second best player on the team that won the title. I'm not some guy who loves Pau Gasol or something, I am indifferent to him, and I know we are all Rockets fans, but let's try to look at these things objectively otherwise it's a pointless discussion.
I can't seem to edit my posts. The 20 PPG in the post above for Pau should be 18, 20 is what he is averaging this playoffs. Everything else remains the same.
I watched the Rockets vs. Jazz in 2007, I don't know what you were looking at. A few Game 2 highlights. Small sample size, I know. But unless someone wants to go through and count up all the Yao plays in the series, this is better than some unsubstantiated statement like "Yao was guarded by Okur one on one the whole series." Count the number of dark blue jerseys in the paint on each play, as opposed to the number of white jerseys there. Count the number of Rockets players left wide open on some of them. Like I said, often an opposing player "covers his man" up until the second the ball is passed to Yao.
Basketball 101- When an opposing player makes a basketball moves and positions for a shot and on the shot another player comes to contest, thats not a double. Its convenient you left out the other games in the series in which okur played him one on one, then when yao rolled into his shot, help came. Thats not a double my friend. How many times did okur body yao up and force yao him into fades? If a team ever waited to until dream,ewing,or shaq got into their shot before sending help, its too late. A double is when the guy gets the ball and a double comes hard to either force the ball out his hands or force a bad play. Utah was able to guard tracy like the celtics guarded lebron,play yao one on one, and stay close to shane,luther,and rafer so they could contest the 3 ball. Since neither were capable of beating their man off the dribble, then houston point totals against a avg defense went in the toilet every game.
Says who? I didn't know there was a precise dictionary definition of what exactly qualifies as a "double team." Nor do I even care if there is one, because semantics aren't as important as what actually happened on the court. When I see someone leaving a Rockets guard wide open on the perimeter to make swipes at the ball in Yao's hands, or 4 Jazz players packing the paint with just Yao and at most one other Rocket there, it's a double team to me. I didn't leave anything out. I clearly stated that I used a "small sample" of a few highlights in my post, and said that someone could go through the entire series and count up all the plays. Want to do that? Go ahead. Too lazy to do that? Then don't talk as if you have more going for you than unsubstantiated opinion.
Thats because you don't know what a double team looks like. How can the jazz double or pack it in on yao and close out on battier,head and rafer? They can't and thats why it wasn't a double. They contested the shot once yao was in shooting motion and thats not a double. They stayed home on rafer,battier,and luther and tilted toward mcgrady.
LOL what? So all of a sudden 59+ games for 5 years is your lofty standard of being "always healthy"? I never claimed Yao's injury history is equivalent to Gasol's. You are one who is reaching with you rhetorical qualifier. Fair argument. I don't have problem with that. But you are still evading the point of my contention, which is, it is friggin' ridiculous for an arguably most skilled, and highly "impactful" big man not to win a playoff game in 12 tries. Not even the glue guy could save Gasol from that eternal infamy. The fact that Gasol was able to win a ring later on only strengthens the notion that his star-impact on the team is extremely situational. It's not an exaggeration to say that without Kobe and Phil, and to somewhat lesser extent, his front court teammates Odom and Bynum, Gasol would be just another also-ran at best.
The Jazz packed 4 players on jazz? That would mean 4 OTHER ROCKET PLAYERS were wide open.The jazz rarley doubled yao in that Series. They played Okur on him on defense and at times they switched him and Okur for yao to guard. You've never played a minute of basketball by the sound of it.
F@&* me, since when does what Obama thinks about a NBA player make a difference? That aside, it could be argued that Gasol is one of the most offensively talented bigs in the NBA, but he doesn't impact the game like Yao.
gasol is overrated, always has been! if yao is healthy he is a top 15 if not a top 10 player! not gasol
Gasol impact the game way more than Yao. How can Yao impact a game when most of the time he's sitting on the sideline? Right now, Gasol is playing a big role on a team that made it to the finals. He is the Lakers second best player. Meanwhile, Yao Ming's status is still unknown. No one knows how he would come back. Whether he would come back and play at an all star level is still up in the air. Right now Gasol is a much better player overall. If Yao can come back and play at an high level, you can make an argument for that, but for now Yao Ming hasn't even step onto the court yet.
First of all, Gasol did missed some games in the regular season but he is healthy by playoff time. Being able to play in the playoffs is much more important than being healthy in the regular season. Yao Ming and Gasol both play about the same amount of time in the regular season but Gasol last through the entire playoff while by the time Yao gets to the playoffs, he breaks down. Gasol didn't have success back in Memphis because his team wasn't that great. He didn't have a good cast of players around him while Yao Ming had Tmac and still never made it out of the first round. Yao Ming only made it out of the first round once and that was because he had a great team and they beat a young unexperience Blazers. If you could remember it, back when Tmac was injured and out and Yao Ming was left to lead the team without Tracy, the Rockets were horrible. They can barely win a single game without Tracy. Gasol wins games and he is one of the biggest reason beside Kobe that they won a championship. Gasol is a better second option than Yao Ming because he can do so much more than just trying to get into position and score. A lot of people on this thread are blinded by what they want and think Yao should be. But its like saying Tmac is the top 5 player in the league if he had a heart and determination without the injuries. But everything should be taken accounted for. If Yao Ming was healthy, If Yao Ming didn't break his foot......With Yao Ming, its so many IFs. Until Yao Ming can stay healthy throughout the entire season including the playoffs, then you can make an argument of whos better. But right now, Gasol is way better. I am a Rockets fan but its hard not to point out the obvious. Yao Ming is a good player when healthy but he's never healthy when we needed him most. The worst part is that most likely he wouldn't even be the same player he once was. Even a healthy Yao Ming isn't as good as Gasol. That is just simple. Gasol can bring so much more to the table and can score just as much plus he can stay healthy on the court and help his team win games instead of getting injured when his team needs him most makes him a superior player. So Gasol wins playoff series and championship while Yao Ming is a big what if.
What are you talking about? He's already had at least 2 surgeries! This isn't Yao Ming first injury, he's been injured the last 4 years everytime playoffs comes around. Maybe I'm writing him out because he hasn't done **** in the last four years. Who's saying I'm not rooting for Yao? I think when he comes back he'll be a solid player. However to say he'll be better than the guy who put the Lakers over the hump and has been healthy the last 4 years is ridiculous. How can anyone but blind YOFs say Yao Ming is better than Gasol or DH? LOL he's accomplished less than these guys, and he's WAY MORE INJURY prone than these guys. Like you said we don't know what Yao Ming will turn out on the court. However we do know what DH and Gasol put on the court and that's health during the playoffs.
But he's not healthy. So why is he better than Gasol? What if Gasol was Chinese and not Spanish and Yao Ming was Spanish and not Chinese? I bet he would be better in your eyes than Yao Ming.
