How good was Yao when he actually played on the court?

Yao was nver a superstar, he was a high quality player. You can put up per vs hakeem, but hakeem was a superstar way before the mvp stuff. He was dominant when it mattered most especially late in games. Teams feared hakeem, no one feared yao. No way okur single covers dream the hold game and dream not score 40. Yao was a 2nd tier center in the patheon of centers. He's a notch below mourning to me. Not bad considering how many guys played this game.

 

Careful partner, you about to get labeled all manner of racist and Yao-hater!

We must view Yao's career through rose-colored glasses because he introduced tons of Chinese people to the NBA!

 

Yao was an all start caliber player. He was never a superstar. However I qualify superstars as players who single handily take their teams to the playoffs and take there teams far ala lebron, howard, cp3, duncan, shaq, etc.

 

Talk about milking your players...the Chinese National Team milked him like if he was their "pleasure woman".

 

You know, come to think of it, I saw several games where Yao received single coverage and was shut down. I think Okur did it, but anyway, yeah that's what he wrote. I think it was a Yahoo Sports article.

 

Yao was a superstar, and he would of gotten to showcase it more if he had the chance to.

Anyone who watched the games would know he was unstoppable.

What really put Yao over the top was his unbelievable FT shooting for a CENTER. You won't find that in Shaq, Dwight, or Bogut.

 

I'm about to be picky about your statement but couldn't find Kobe's name in your list I guess you are right, maybe next time!

 

Nobody is ever literally "unstoppable." Jordan probably comes closest, but even he wasn't taking a shot every single possession and shooting 100% against all defenders.

 

Yes. Take away the 4-5 year's stats when he was playing as a shell of himself.

 

Here's the proof:

http://www.clutchfans.net/players/yao_ming/?career

http://www.clutchfans.net/players/ralph_sampson/

Just an FYI kid. Look at the actual figures before stating something. I said his first seven years.

 

I watched the 86 series, kid. They both had incredibly similar careers. The main difference being that Sampson was once considered possibly the greatestNBA player out there. Back in '84-85 there were rumors that Chicago was willing to trade Jordan straight up for Ralph, and it was considered a laughable trade on Chicago's end by the Press!

Yao is a great ambassador for the NBA, but his game was simply what it was: a solid NBA center. Many had doubts he would even be that, while Ralph was a no-brainer #1 pick (recall the Jay Williams controversy?)

I'm guessing you're too young to recall this. I bet you don't even know who we got from the Warriors.

 

dude,

you are forgetting Sampson played in the stone ages. If Yao got injured in the 80s, they would have forced him to play and his career would have been over after the 1st injury.

However, if Sampson played in today's NBA, they would have NEVER let him play with his hip injury.

Yao would be sitting in the chair like professor X if he was in the 80s.

 

Bill Walton might have lasted longer with modern medicine, too. And who knows what Yao Ming would have done had he played 20-years from now with even better medicine. But it is what it is.

Objectively, Ralph's "prime" lasted much shorter even than Yao's.

 

It seems that his mind exploded upon realizing he is flat-out wrong.

And I mean that as a fan of Yao. But he is below Arvydis, Dikembe, etc. For the length of his duration, I don't even think I can put him in the top 25 of NBA centers.

 

But but you don't understand! He WATCHED basketball in the 80's. He's already taken into account the travel accomodations and the quality of medicine and the style of play and the quality of the talent! Don't be ridiculous!

The fantasy stats thing is pretty funny. Sampson gets docked for the number of possessions per game and that actually makes Yao better because we all know that if Yao had more possessions per game and was running up and down the floor more often that he would be just doing all that much more. I mean the slow down game actually hurt Yao, speeding the game up and having him try to guard Moe's Nuggets or the Showtime Lakers would not have hurt Yao one bit. He would have definitely thrived in that up and down game where you just run up and down the floor all game long. And seriously, the SuperSonics with all their length and quickness would have surely been fodder for Yao. I mean the Rockets just would have slown that game down to a crawl so Yao could dominate all those munchkins. That's how it worked for the rest of the league back then. LOL

 

True, but the Twin Towers lived up to the hype, they took down a legendary Lakers team and took the legendary Celtic team to 6 games.

Yao and Tmac were legend too.... like Legend of the Fall.

 

True, the old days had better big men, poor Ralph was ahead of his time, a Kevin Garnett type player.

Yao deserves every honor and adulation he gets, he's a fantastic Rocket hero.
However, I feel Ralph will always struggle to get his recognition as time goes by. We'll always remember 86.