He's a selfish, me-first player with a garbage attitude. That's what's wrong with him. No team has been willing to put up with his tired act.
Like i said, BIG defensive presence is needed somewhere along with players open to follow. You need AT LEAST that. The presence doesn't have to be a player, but can be a coach like in JVG's case or TT's Boston has KG AND TT, along with a cast ope to listening and buying into a team concept. Houston has had JVG, deke, chuck, shane... Pistons were unique in that they had several very good defenders, which is rare. Denver won't have it because they have knuckleheads who think they can play d just on hustle. That team has had years of issues with players not buying into a system or the team concept. LA doesn't have a huge presence defensively. Kobe's D is overrated when it comes to season awards. He only shifts to all nba D when he needs to and not consistently and is not very good at leading defensively. After him, who left? No one really. Maybe Ariza, but he's an individual defender like ron, in that he does well within his matchup, not as a leader. Minny had some young knuckleheads as well, so KG didn't have full control of those guys, they barely had enough control of themselves. that's why they were only good with vets and guys who valued defense like cassell and spree. Yao being the common denominator is not even logical since his individual defense was not very good when JVG came in and did not become solid until late last year or even early this year. How can a guy who's can't even play good defense against his guy be considered the defensive achor of the team? The common denominator is having someone that takes defense very seriously, is consistently effective at it, AND has significant influence over the team. JVG, Deke, shane.
I don't look at defensive ratings, win share, ect......I watch the games. Yao is not a good defensive player. He has no lateral quickness, can't recover most of the time, is only average on the help side, and isn't an effective shot blocker.
It is a measure of how many points are allowed by a player per 100 possessions. I admit i'm not a 'stats guy' and this particular stat can easily be skewed by other players on the team. I just figured I would use it because much of the stat based argument for Shane Battier is based on how well the team performs when he is on the court...not his personal stats.
Go back and read what LaMarcus Aldridge said after game 1. The reason he couldn't get comfortable in the low post was because of the defensive presence of Yao Ming. Yao has his issues, and against certain matchups he can hurt your defense, but overall he's a positive defensive player. In terms of the national media, he's probably the most underrated defensive player on the team.
yea...like Wafer. Yao was 7th in shot blocking this year and last year. His size has more to do with it than anything but for whatever reason teams have a difficult time scoring on him.
The difference is that Wafer is a high energy player and a very good practice player. He's emotionally unstable, but the coaches loved his work ethic.
And Scola's def win share is the SAME as Yao's...did you bother to look at the rest? If it's based on wins, then what that tells me is that the rockets win more when Yao, scola, etc play better D, not that they consistently play good D. It also doesn't mean that just because Houston wins more than they lose, that Yao plays good defense more than he doesnt...
Do i really need a link or stat when the whole league knew Yao's defense wasn't very good back then??
just to clear it up, that's now, right? Not back when JVG first arrived. I just dont want other posters refering to this post as proof he's the common defensive presence all these years if that's not what you meant.
i'm assuming that if you want to get rid of battier you would like to see the rockets back in the lottery. he may not put up the offensive numbers that most players with a 6 mil plus salary do, but in this league an elite perimeter defender is key to having a winning team, and absolutely neccesary to teams looking to win a championship. the rockets would be one of those teams. and with a healthy yao/tracy/ron ron not slowing down the offense with bad shots and too much dribbling, battier's offensive defficiencies dont matter.
That particular comment was game 1 this year. But I know I've heard opponents say at various times through the years that Yao's size bothered them defensively.
yeah i agree with that, i think that's a given ever since he came into the league. I think his overall defense was underrated last year, has received some recognition this year by some teams/analysts, but prior to that it wasn't very good. He's been improving every year though.
You don't have to block shots, get steals, etc. to be a good defensive player. Yao's size alone stops A LOT of penetration to the baskets. He clogs the lane up. This is evident as soon as he's out of the game, people start attacking the rim. I agree he maybe an average one-on-one defender at best though, but that doesn't mean he isn't a good defender overall.
In this year's playoffs, it appears to be. Of course I did. I cited both defensive rating and defensive win share as the indicators of Yao's defense in the regular season as well as in the playoffs. I don't get what you are talking about here. Please do. The stats on basketball-reference.com show Yao's defensive rating has been very consistent throughout his NBA career up to date. What did I ignore? For all the shortcomings you and King1 could find with regard to Yao's defense, I can counter that Yao's mere presence in the middle more often than not deters opponents from attacking the rim. But perception doesn't really matter one way or the other. Numbers don't lie, unless you are telling me the folks at basketball-reference.com have a pro-Yao bias ... LOL
HUH?? Hmmm isn't that what makes you a defensive player?? How else can you be a good defensive player without Stopping your man??
I actually like Yao. Why wouldn't I? Just because I criticize a part of his game "I'm only watching what I want to watch?" That's a lame and really ignorant statement that carries no factual basis. I'm a Rockets fan first. I've criticized plenty of players I like. Yao isn't immune either.
