Is playing Yao in the high post a good or bad thing?

I never listen to pre game or post game quotes. Usually they ask stupid questions like what they asked tom brady after they beat the colts today

"WHAT ARE YOUR TEAMS GOAL THIS YEAR?!"" i mean like wtf. Isnt it obvious every year? Win the superbowl?

 

tmac only says he "imposed his will" when he's ON FIRE. did he say that v. the lakers when they won? he only says that when he's just on fire like crazy.

tmac makes the right plays for the most part. so how do u criticize that? sure he takes some heat check jumpers but he generally makes the right plays for the team on both ends of the floor. also, he does 90% of the playmaking on offense.

yao tends to make the same mistakes over by turning it over or not doing certain things on defense. things that EVERY coach emphasize on: don't turn it over and put your hand up on D or don't go for those pump fakes that cause u to get into foul trouble.

 

I like your most of your postseseses doublehh. How did you rack up so much of them when you only joined feb of 2007?

 

can someone tell me if im just too stupid to find the edit button or they just dont want certain members to have them?

 

i'm taking a yr off from school and spend a lot of time doing research this yr. u won't see much of me in december hehe.

but i rack a lot o my posts in the game posts. i talk about EVERY play haha

 

So McGrady's shot selection is not in question on a night he goes 8/25? Or when he coasts on defense and lets someone have open jumpers?

JVG was just inconsistent in his comments about players. McGrady was beyond reproach. Maybe it's because he responds poorly to his coach calling him out in the media, but as a fan it's really annoying. That's about the only thing about JVG I didn't like.

 

u don't think lebron does that? why does lebron never criticized? why is wade never criticized when he turns the ball over 10x a game?

these guys has the most responsibilities on their teams. tmac MAKES THE RIGHT PLAYS. that's all JVG asks for. he gives tmac the freedom on offense so he'll tolerate those bad shooting nights. he has said that repeatedly. he will NEVER criticize tmac's shot selection b/c you always give a great player the freedom (he said that in 04-05 when we got tmac).

plus, he's a guy that handles the ball more than any other player in the L and turns it over less than most. u have wade/kobe/bron/nash turning it over pretty high at near 4 times a game and tmac is around 2.

plus, he controls the entire offense. JVG knows how much responsibilities he has put on tmac (A LOT). he knew he rides and dies with tmac in terms of offensively. w/o tmac, he's done (as you have seen by our record).

on defense, sure he coasts at times, but not at the cost of losing games.

 

It's not like this is a binary thing, with only two absolute, mutually-exclusive choices: Yao in the high post, or Yao in the low post.

At the least, some possessions Yao can setup down low, and others up high. And of course, that can be dictated by the context: exploiting mismatches, who has the hot hand, whether the perimeter shooters can punish defenders for collapsing down low, etc.

But there's flexibility at a more fine-grained level too. Even within the same possession, it's possible for Yao to setup high, keeping the lanes clear for cutters and penetrators, but then roll into the paint, or slide into the low post. Or alternately starting low and flashing high. And I'd assume if he's at the elbow, it's easier to do things like set back screens for Yao to get position on the block. As opposed to always being left on his own to grind it out and battle to get position down there.

So I don't see how anyone could argue that Yao exclusively in the low post is a good thing. Overall, the variation is a net gain for the team. And eventually it will consistently benefit Yao individually too.

 

Does it really matter? Yao did just barely shoot over 50% last year in the low post.

 

that's what i'm saying. for him to truly be dominant, he needs to shoot 55%+. but b/c he doesn't dunk very well or finish around the rim very well and shoot mostly hook shots and things like that, 50% is pretty good.

 

Defensively yeah, he was playing a little slow but he wasn't letting the guy have free jumpers. He wasn't playing the shut down D that he can, but he doesn't bring that out very often anymore (not saying that's a good thing, that's just how it is)

I don't think you can question his shot selection. He only threw up 2 BAD shots, and one was a heat check. He has been driving in a lot lately, he missed a lot of layups, but he's at least going in for layups. although, maybe you can question him laying it up and not throwing it down, but his shot selection was not bad.

For how much of the offense he creates, I can deal with 2 or 3 bad shots or heat checks. for the most part, when he cooled off, he started playing the playmaker again which helped the team whereas he could have kept chucking away and hurt the team. It's not like he went out of his way when he was cold to chuck up j's. plus, he made that 3 when it counted, erasing all hope of a Portland comeback.

But how did this get from Yao to T-Mac's shot selection?

For Yao personally, it's going to be a tough and long transition but it will probably help him in the long run to become consistent at playing the high post. Right now he's going to have to work twice as hard to get the same numbers he had last season.

For the team, it seems to help because it frees the lane for Mike James and Bonzi and T-Mac and it helps Scola and Hayes track down rebounds if the other teams center is 17 ft away from the basket.

Since we have Mike James and Bonzi, and since tmac is driving it in more, it is probably better that Yao plays a little more in the high post. if this was last season however, we would be getting killed if we kept Yao in the high post. Different coach, different personnel, different style means different game for Yao.

I think it's working pretty good, but the real test is the back to back we have soon.

 

Well he can be a quality scorer, but he can't be considered dominant if he can't play defense.

 

exactly, in the 2nd half, tmac knew his shot was not there so he started to be the playmaker. and that's good recognition on his part. but b/c everyone was off, it was pointless. and fortunately we played D.

his shot selection has improved DRASTICALLY this yr from last b/c he has more room to drive. he should have gotten to the ft line a lot in that portland game but he got a lot of no calls. that's why he was so pissed in that game cussing at the refs.

but he settled in the 2nd half like the entire team. so everyone coasted/

 

hmmm dude, Big ben is as strong as it gets.
the difference on weight is what makes a difference, Yao weights 310lbs, he is able to, or he shud be able to push any1 around except Shaq. His power post game definitely faded quite a bit post injury. do you remember the way he played pre-injury? Now you know what im talking about.

 

You missed the point. I wasn't talking about yesterday. I was talking about JVG's inconsistency in calling out players' weaknesses to the media. He was fine with calling out everyone... except McGrady. McGrady doesn't play perfect games. I remember JVG calling out Yao on games where he goes 36/12 or whatever, you'll hear "he didn't play well in pick&roll defense, he turned the ball over too much, ..." This is the one beef I have with JVG.

Yao is back in the low post already; just look at the last two games. The high post experiment is about to end, and good riddance to bad rubbish.

 

I don't think that the high post experiment is over, nor do I believe using Yao in the high post to a limited degree (<20%) is a bad thing. While Yao is having a hard time adjusting to the high post, it seems to be preserving his stamina. The big fella has been able to hit shots in the 4th quarter this year that would have been short last year due to fatigue.

However, I think the key thing we have to realize is that we are nowhere near close to seeing the full Adleman offense in whatever form it might take - this is a question that we as a BBS need to wait until around March or April and get more data and observation to get a full answer.

 

That's just how the NBA is. You rarely hear coaches criticise their superstars publicly; there are egos to massage, and they may not react well to criticism. This is a player's league, not a coach's league, after all.

Which is one reason why I like Yao and Tim Duncan: both allow their coaches to yell at them when they screw up. They're the only superstars I can think of who let that happen. (Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant don't count because Jackson pretty much has tenure and Kobe wants to get the hell out anyway.)

 

Currently, the Yao/T-Mac combination has yielded a -4 Lenovo rating over 90+ minutes played together. They won't be in the negative for the whole season, but it's interesting to see how well Yao/Head and Yao/James combos have worked so far (in a very limited sample). If I were coach A, I would try splitting up Yao and T-Mac a little more in the middle of the game, making sure that either Yao or T-Mac are on the floor at all times. That way we could really exploit the advantages of the inside/outside style while Yao is in without T-Mac, going to the motion offense when T-Mac is in without Yao. In the first quarter, when they're both in, put Yao in the high post primarily in order to a)open the lane for T-Mac and b)conserve Yao's energy. In the fourth, stick Yao in the low post give T-Mac more distributing responsibilities. Both players will have more energy to close out the game, allowing us to run the more reliable inside/outside offense when each possession matters most.

 

Yao hasn't been dominating and isn't gonna dominate 35 minutes non stop in the low post, the team can't go through 35 minutes of boring basketball without losing interest, the viewers don't like to watch 35 minutes of boring basketball, every team knows how to disrupt the predictable low post offense in the playoffs, T-Mac and teammates shouldn't shoot 35 minutes of long range jumpers,so the point is clear, no, Yao can't spend 35 minutes in the low post.

 

It's only been 3 games, don't start pulling your hairs already. Yao is human, he needs time to adjust and get some confidence in new system. It's normal for Yao to feel uncomfortable but once he plays enough games and adjusts, he'll be fine. This new system wasn't made to make it harder for Yao but to make it easier for him. I honestly think the only thing holding Yao back is himself. People saying he's not athletic enough are being ridiculous.

Also, People that say Tmac and Yao can't play well together are pissing me off. If you're basing this from Portland's game, I suggest you watch the game instead of just reading the stats from the game. The reason why Yao was doing bad at JAZZ has nothing to do with Tmac doing good. The reason why Tmac's fg% was lower at Portland had nothing to do with Yao doing good. At Portland, both Tmac and Yao were doing good until Trailblazers started playing good defense. The reason why Tmac's fg% was lower was because they started double teaming him like crazy. Then he started to dish out to others and got his assists.