We cant realy start to get a clear picture of where Yao Ming is at till Steve Francis is gone. When we have a playmaker point guiard then we might see Yao demanding the ball and be able to see his development. I know most fans dont see it but Steve has been a thorn in the side of the developing Yao . Both physically and mentally, physically by not involving Yao and mentally by the respect he dermanded as leader of the Rockets.
doesn't really matter where you place Yao among NBA's centers. so far, i luv what i see and i'm heartened by the huge upside of potential remaining. biggest issue, imo, is his stamina. Rockets desperately need a plan that'll get him to the second half of the season with higher energy levels.
I think most of Yao's problems can be blamed on his stamina. Movement, box-out, rebound, strength, quickness, jumping, footwork, agrressively throwing it down or even shooting the J with better accuracy ... everything can be attributed to his stamina or lack of. Stamina is a major concern for a big guy. Yao's problem is simlilar to Shaq's when Shaq played Yao. When Shaq played Yao, he had to spend too much energy defending, he lacked the stamina to dominate the offensive end as well. How close is Yao, then? I think he will be a little better but one year time will not build him into a fitness machine to domimate 82+ games. I heard 28 yr old is the peak yr of an athlete. Yao still has a few yrs to go yet.
Blaming other players for how good a player is just puts off responsibility. Yao might be helped by a different point guard, but that has little to do with holding on to the ball, boxing out, rebounding, playing defense, and most of what I think most people have been discussion. I don't want to even argue the points you made about Steve for fear of derailing this thread. Stamina might be the answer for why some games he doen't rebound as well, or hold on to the ball, and fall over etc. If that's the case hopefully there will be a solution that can be implemented fairly soon. The thing is Yao is at times already so good that he doesn't really have to raise the upper limits of what he does, just bring up the bottom end of gameplay.
How can anyone say Yao is in the same class as Illgauskas? Aside from him being better than Illgauskas in almost EVERY statistical category, he overall presence is light years ahead. Yao is averaging 18/9/2 in his second season. Most agree tha his progress will be slow but steady. So if, in a few seasons, he'll be averaging 20/10/3, will he still be an Illgauskas or Divac? Hell no. It's HIGHLY probable that Yao will average those numbers, while the same can't be said about Illgauskas. Who knwos what he could've been, but he can't be and he won't be. Aside from that, even at this point in time, he's better than both. The guy outplayed Shaq twice. Who the hell in the NBA outplays Shaq? The only other person I've seen playing Shaq better than Yao in the past few years was that ONE game where Popovich allowed Duncan to take Shaq one on one for a whole game and he outplayed him. Aside from that, no one. Don't forget that Z shot 48% this season, and 47% for his career. His best season was before this one, where he scored 17.2ppg with 7.5 rebounds and 2 blocks in 30 minutes. However, even then, he shot a horriffic 44% from the field. In 6 years, he has never eclipsed 8.8 rebounds per game. Yao shot 49.8% in his first season, and 52% in his second for a career average of 51%. Scored 17.4ppg in his SECOND season, which is better than Z has done ever in his entire career. Not to mention that Yao shot 8% better in that season. My God, that's incredible actually. Yao grabbed 8.2 reboudns in 29 minutes, then 9 rebounds in 33 minutes. Yao had 17/8/3 versus Illgauskas' 17/7/5. The difference? Illgauskas played 7 more minutes and shot poorer from the field. Houston won. In the other meeting, Yao had 12/6/3 versus Illgauskas' 19/9/1. The difference? Yao shot it 8 times and made 6. Illgauskas shot the ball 18 times (10 more than Yao) and made.... 6! Oh yeah, and Houston won. So exactly how is it that Yao isn't head and shoulders better than Illgauskas? How can argue against all of that? If that doesn't convince you, then you just don't want to be convinced.
Theres noway you can say big z is better or comparable to yao. If they are comparable then, theoretically we could swap them and we would have the same record or better. Obviously we would be a worst team overall if we had big z instead of yao. Yao creates open shots for his teamates and his presence on the court makes our defense alot better. Theres a reason why JJ and Cat had career highs on made 3 pointers. Big Z plays in the east and cant even do better statistically then yao.
Regarding Yao's rebounding ability: I've brought up this point about a half a dozen times. Nobody on the board has ever responded and I've never heard similar sentiments from anyone else. I'm going crazy thinking that I'm the only one seeing this. But here goes: I think the biggest problem with Yao's rebounding (aside from the fact that he sometimes flat out fumbles the ball away) is not that he doesn't box out, but that he puts too much emphasis on boxing out his man and not enough on actually going after the ball. When the shot goes up (I'm talking defensive rebounding here), often times Yao will not actually watch the shot, but looks at and faces his man in order to make sure he doesn't get around him. The problem is that when he finally turns around to see where the ball is, the ball has fallen down to a height that anybody can grab it. Yao waits too long and thereby negates his height advantage on rebounds. Also since he isn't looking at the shot, he doesn't get the chance to "go after" and anticipate where the shot is going which explains why Yao doesn't cover nearly as much ground as a good rebounder would. I mean it seems simple, look at the shot as it's going up, but I've seen Yao do this numerous times during the season, and I don't even get to watch that many games since I don't have league pass. It seems like an easy enough thing to correct. Just tell Yao to "body up" on his man and ACTUALLY WATCH THE SHOT GO UP. But I've never heard this mentioned as a problem, either on this board, by analysts, columnists, JVG etc. Has anyone ever noticed the same. Am I crazy or just nuts?
From my analysis of Yao's season he had a very good stretchin the middle but started and finished weak. The first 36 games + the last 10 Yao averaged 32.2 min a game , made 5.7 shots on 11 attempts for 49.9%. Made 3.9 FTA on 5 Attempts for 76.7%. 8.7 rebs, 1.9 Ast, 2.6 TO, 1.8 BLKS, 3.5 PF, 15.3 PTS For the 36 game stretch starting with the Washington game Yao averaged 33.6 mins, made 7.6 shots on 13.9 attempts for 54.6%. Made 5.1 FT on 5.9 attempts for 85.5%. 9.4 Rebs, 1.3 ast, 2.4 TO, 2.1 BLKS, 3.1 PF, 20.3 PTS. I think this 36 game stretch in the middle of the season is a good indication of what Yao can do next season. On 35 mins he could easily average 20-21 PTS, 10 REBS, 2 BLKS. What Yao needs most is to improve his endurance so he can put forth the full effort the full 82 game season & for a little longer in the game ~ 35 mins.
I notice the same thing long time ago. Long time enough that I think it might be the team's strategy otherwise it would be unreasonable for the coaches not to correct the error. Is it possible that Yao is not a good rebounder for his height NOW, and somehow our players in other positions (SF, Cato and even JJ) are relatively better rebounders than their men, then if Yao successful box out his man (usually the best rebounder), then the chance that our team gets the rebound is much higher than the opposing team. This strategy can also save Yao's energy. Of course I am not justifying Yao's weakness. He SHOULD go after the rebounds. But before he improves his rebounding skills and stamina, it might be the compromise that the team would make at the moment.
I actually think that both are true. I think there are times when he does an excellent job of boxing out, and doesn't go after the rebounds, and there are times when he doesn't put a body on anyone, and they go in and get a rebound that should have been ours. It may be that Yao isn't that used to boxing out in the NBA and that when boxes out a bit to the exclusion of going after the board, that he's trying to focus on the new step, and get more comfortable with that. But if he were going to box out too much, or not all, I'd rather it be too much. At least that way one less opponent is available to go after the ball.
This whole center vs. power forward distinction is IMO silly. A great "big man" is a great "big man" period. Who cares if Shaq is considered a center and Duncan is considered a power forward. In this vein, if Yao is going to be a great player in this league then he has to be more than just the 2nd best center in the NBA. I don't like that argument at all, that Yao is the 2nd best center. This ignores the fact that there are a number of pf that are more productive and, as of this moment, flat out better than Yao is. His goal and our expectations of his goal should not be "become the best center in the league when Shaq retires". His goal should be "Be the best player in the league!" Yes, he's just a second year player and we shouldn't expect him to be the best of the best right away. But we also shouldn't elevate him up with this "2nd best center" business as if this, in and of itself is a great accomplishment. There are at least a half a dozen big men in the NBA that were better than Yao this season and it is they (the Duncans and Garnetts and O'neals of the NBA) that we should be judging Yao's progress by. Yao is just plain better than guys like Big Z and Brad Miller just based on the attention that Yao gets from the defense. The other teams change their defenses in order to stop Yao, nobody changes anything with stopping Brad Miller in mind. Those tier two "big men" aren't in Yao's class, but frankly I don't care that Yao is better than them. Yao's supposed to be able to develop into an elite level player, and it is those elite level big men that I judge him by. He's made good progress during the past two years. He's got all the tools and he has (by all accounts) a good work ethic. But he is not a great player YET. So let's not toss around "2nd best center in the league" as if it's a big deal. Because it ultimately devalues what he CAN accomplish, "BEST PLAYER IN THE NBA!"
what about "best big man in NBA"? Yao may not be better than Kobe, T-Mac. But I wish he could be the Best big man
In the NBA, boxing out is not a priority for players that are tall and have good jumping ability. Because the defenders are in the inside by virtue of their defensive position, they simply go up and grab the rebound. They r so big such that you can't go over their back for the rebound. Their reachs are tremendous so they can sometimes cover both sides of the backboard. How often do you see Shaq, Duncan box anyone out? If u've watched Olajuwon over the years, he only occasionally boxed out people, he never does that to guys who he knew he could outjump. He only does that to guys like Shaq, Robinson, Ewing. I have lots of Rocket's tape. Yao tried to box out everytime. Sometimes you don't see him putting his body on anyone because his man was not around to box out. Yao's problem is his slow lateral movement. A lot of time, his man can go around him even if he's boxed out or even if his man starts late from the outside.
Yao is tall, but he can't outjump anyone. Yao should always put a body on someone. He should do it at least so he knows where the man is coming from and if he's not going to box out he should at seal off his angle to get to the ball. There were too many times when Yao was outrebounded by a much smaller player because he didn't box out. There were times when Yao did initially have a line on the ball but as he brought it down an opponent forced Yao to bobble the ball and sometimes lose it. Even on the game in the Playoffs where Shaq tipped it in, Yao didn't have a body on Shaq at all.
Yao can become a much better rebounder. Alot of room for improvement: 1. Stronger hands 2. More aggressive for the rebound 3. better positioning 4. Knowing the opponent He does a good job most the time boxing out, he can do this if he gets the right help from others. He does a pretty good job of not losing his man. He needs more intensity for the ball especially in critical times. He could average 9-10 boards if he improves.
Noone is disputing this. It is fundamentally correct to always box out. Yao has the fundamental and the willingness to box out but he lacks the quickness to move laterally to keep the oppponent behind his back. He has the weight, but maybe not the strength to keep from getting pushed off his position at times. Maybe it's the technique. 1) If the opponent gets around Yao the 1st few times, Yao counters by staying on his toes so he can move with his opponent. When he does this opponent can push him off because his stand is high. 2) If Yao gets pushed off his intial inside position, he counters by lowering his stand, sometimes by leaning back on his opponent. That leads to his feet gettting glued to the ground and prevents him from moving laterally to keep the opponent boxed out. Sometimes the opponent releases from the push and causes Yao to fall. Going from strong to quick or vice versa is one ability that Yao lacks. This is a different problem, his hands are not as strong as, says like Shaq, to hold on to the ball when opponent hacks him. With Shaq, it is most likely that Yao got pushed off under the basket. Shaq does that to everyone, but Yao holds his position better than most agaisnt him.
The true reason that Yao Ming is not a good rebounder for his height is he is not a good leaper. He can neither jump high or fast. This is also the reason that he will lose a lot of jump ball at the tip off. There is no positioning issue with jump ball. It is all about how fast and how high you can jump.
