Please get your fact right first, otherwise you lose all your credibility. Amare is 6'10, big difference from 6'8.
Someone told me Kemp has about 30 children. Anybody correct me? a little off the topic, since I never consider Amare as a center, ever.
When both are guarded one on one, Yao is better than Amare. When both are doubled, Yao is better than Amare. When Yao is doubled and Amare is guarded one on one, Amare is better than Yao. When Amare is doubled, and Yao is guarded one on one, I don't know who is better.
To me stat doesn't tell all about a player. They always said a great player will make other players around him better. So I think Yao create so much open shot for his teammates and make them better. From that aspect, I think he is a better player and certainly more valuable to his team than Amare. Also Amare is not really a Center and a you have much better chance at win championship with a great Center than with a great Power Forward.
Amare 24.8 pts Suns 108 pts PCT 22% Yao 19.4 pts Rockets 88 pts PCT 22% Like a few posters have already said it's basically due to different types of offenses. The Rox will never score much cuz they run a grind-it-out type of offense while the Suns are the Run-n-shoot version in the NBA. And they have Nash.However as us former Houston Oilers fans know, that run and gun type offense doesn't work as much in the playoffs even it's a different sport, unless you got Magic.I'd rather have a guy who can score in the halfcourt and get double and triple teams to open up things for shooters. While Yao may be not as exciting and explosive as Amare I think Yao is more fundamentally sound and would contribute to a teams success.
Interesting discussion so far. But what has been ignored is what Nash has been doing for the Suns. For those of you who consider Amare better than Yao, would you imagine how Yao would be like playing along side of Nash?
I am going to take the high road here, and put down my rose colored glasses. After watching Yao for the last 2+ years it is clear to me that he will never be the dominant player that we would like him to become. He will always be a GREAT 2nd star on a team, but should not be the primary focus. The reason is that he is just not quick enough. That will not change, as he is too big. Most of the players that dominate do so with quickness, I can not think of one player who was relatively slow who dominated. Yao will be good, and marginally great, but never as good as Shaq, or Hakeem etc. Amare, however, is amazingly quick for a big man, and is very coordinated and has excellent balance. It is very possible that Amare will have a much better career than Yao because he has all those things that Yao does not. Size can be overcome, but quickness and balance are what make the difference. IMHO. DD
Sorry but size does make a big difference, especially on defense. I don't remember Rockets was a top defensive team after Hakemm's decline. On offense, I don't think oppoent centers like to play against Yao. He's soft and inconsistent, but oppoent teams always double-team him. Sometimes even Rockets fans have a hard time to understand. In summary, if you play bball yourself, you would know its no fun to play against someone who's at least 6" taller and 50 lbs heavier than you. In fact, if Yao was only 7'2 he wouldn't have been a #1 pick. He would be just another Wang Zhi-zhi.
Yao will have much worse stats now. With Nash running like a bouncing ball, Yao will only be able to play ~20 minutes.
Hakeem was not all that tall for a center he was maybe 6'10" in reality. Size matters, but my point is that quickness, speed and balance are much more important. And Yao is not quick, not fast, and has mediocre balance at best. DD
Larry Bird I saw some clips of him in the post - not fast - just two moves ahead of his opponent, much like Yao was in the last game. I think that Yao has shown us in the last few games that if we can get him the ball, he can dominate, especially if the refs give him the calls that he deserves. He can usually get a quality shot even against a double team. The big difference I have seen in his play lately is that he is more decisive and is reading the defense better. When he makes his move quickly, he is really hard to stop.
A decent stab at it for sure, but Bird had amazing balance and was not all that slow, as evidenced by his fast break style of play. Bird was only medium speed laterally, but he had much better balance than Yao has. Not being critical of Yao, just trying to access it honestly. DD
Not really. The only thing we know for sure is that Amare is much easier to fit with different systems than Yao. If you switch Yao with Amare right now, I bet Yao'll look terrible, Amare will be about the same. Amare can probabaly put up 20/10 with any team For Yao to shine, he has to play in a right system, where all pieces fall into the right places. Yao can put much better stats if we have a couple better shooters, who can keep the defenders honest. Can you image have Yao switch the place with B. Miller? Yao will easily average 25pt+, 5+ assists.
Daoshi, Why is it always the players AROUND Yao that are the problem? Why can't Yao adjust? If they have trouble getting him the ball, he should go get it HIMSELF off the glass, or rebound. Yao himself, is the biggest obstacle to his being great. He has glimpses where he looks magnificient, but then lets far lesser players stop him cold. The great ones ADJUST and play with anyone, and still play well. Yao has not proven that he has that ability. DD
DD, that's because he's a center and required to play in the low post. We need him to stay in the low post to create opportunites for others, even if he can get plenty of touchs with a mix of high and low-post games. There's a reason we are the best 3-pt shooting team.
Larry Bird was never considered athletic and at times looked pretty slow on the court. He just outsmarts people. Also, Kevin McKale was not very fast either. These two slow men won some rings together against some fast and atheletic teams like the Lakers.
No, no, no. I didn't say "the players AROUND Yao that are the problem". What I said was Yao is the type of players who has to be put into a right system to shine due to his mobility. He cannot survive a fast paced team, say the Suns, the Mavs, or the Nets. My argument was that Yao can be great, have a better career than Amare if he is put into the right system. On the other hand, Amare could be a good player, even a great one with pretty much every team. Of course "Yao is the biggest obstacle to his being great". But as you said youself, you cannot overlook his physical limitations, e.g., he is just too slow to average 12rb, to slow to play help defense. Those are the physical limitations he cannot overcome. Can he play better by playing smarter? Of course, but there is only so much he could ever done in some department.
Right now: Amare = no rings Yao = no rings towards the end of their career, I guess we'll see...but anyways, why are we comparing apples to oranges?
As DD already said, Yao can't never be Shaq, Dream or David Robinson because he lacks athleticism and quickness. That is the their gift that he can do nothing about it. What he can to is to continue to improve his passing, rebounding, court vision, and feeling of the game. IMO, Amare and Yao both have a lot of room to develop in those areas, and Yao is only a little better right now. Talking about quickness, Sabonis wasn't particularly quick when he played in NBA, although it had been said he was a monster when he's young, and nobody cound deny he is one of the best. Deke wasn't particularly quick also, at least not as quick as Shaq in his prime, but he blocked more shots than Shaq. He just knows how to defend: when to jump, when to move and when to block shots. Yao can't learn to be quicker, to jump higner, but he can still be great if he improves other areas.
