Why does Yao get blocked or lose the ball? Everyone mentioned 1-5. 1) Yao does not jump very high, nor quick. 2) He does not create space around himself when he goes up near the basket. 3) He does not dunk with force. 4) He makes his move very slow before goes up for the shot. 5) He brings the ball down to his waist. These are good reasons too: 6) Yao has good court vision and is a good passer when standing still but he is terrible after he's made his move, he can't see what happen around him a few seconds into his move. That is why opp leave their man to run around his weak side and strip the ball. Others (such as Kirlinko) block his shot. Until Yao learn to make them pay for the gamble, they will continue to go after him. 7) 95% of all players in this league can dunk, that means they can jump at least 9 inches (the diameter of the basketball) higher than the rim. 8) Yao and 95% of players in this league do not release their shot more than 9 inches higher than the rim. Which means anyone in this league can get blocked by everyone else if they don't dunk with force or create space for his shots.
AK should get some votes for DOY if he keeps this up. Kirilenko is on pace to finish in the top 10 in both steals and blocks. He will be on the 3rd player in the last 20 years to do so. I am guessing that everyone can easily name one of those two guys. Without cheating (google), can someone name the other???
I think Yao has a 6 in. vertical jump ... he needs more vertical than that. also needs to jump and just gorilla dunk that bad boy!!!
Sorry O/S but if you look at last lights Game in slow motion you will see that Yao Ming can Jump. My guess is that he has to work on Stamina more than anything, possibly other things will follow as his confidence improves and/or his desire to be the best he can be kicks in.
Stamina is an obvious problem, but when you don't have enough juice at the beginning of the game for the jump ball...
Yao was blocked by AK twice last night. Both blocks came from weak side/from the back. AK is an extremely athletic 6'9". I have seen him done some amazing things under the basket. Trust me, he will be a better all around player than Dirk in 2-3 years. Ostertag did not block any of Yao's shot. AK blocked some shots from Cato and Steve.
Remember the good 'ole days when the Rockets had an athletic 6'10" player similar to AK in that he would be able to do those "weakside blocks"? Get back soon Eddie Griffin!
If you could measure the height of where Yao shoots the ball, I’ll bet that it's not much higher than the height of where a 6’6 guard normally shoots the ball. He doesn’t get off the ground but an inch or two. And when he does finally shoot, he practically shoots the ball at eye level. One thing I'm sick of seeing Yao do is shooting regardless of where his defender is guarding him. He doesn’t seem to be reacting to what the defender is doing and taking what they are giving him. It’s pretty much the exact same routine every time for Yao. He backs it in a couple of times and takes the turnaround jumper even if the man guarding him is guarding him in preparation for the turnaround jumper. When you have such a tiny vertical leap, you need to find ways of getting the defender out of position first and then shooting. Not continually just shooting the same shot no matter what. He needs to either start using some more fakes, or start bumping his defender back first and then shooting. But there's no way he can keep doing what he's been doing. He doesn’t get off the ground high enough to consistently shoot over the top of players. If he continues to play offense the way he's been playing, by the end of the season there will not be a single player in the league that hasn't blocked a Yao Ming shot.
Don't forget that moster jam he threw down over Theo Ratliff last year either. I seem to remember in both instances, someone dunked on Yao, so in our offensive set, we just gave it down low to Yao so he could get his retrobution. I like the way we'd get Yao involved aggressively that way last year.
Yao was blocked by AK at least three times, and at least once by Ostertag. The block by Tag happened early in the 4th after Yao grabbed an offensive board IRC.
A question for the great basketball minds here. Do any of you know any super tall player (7'-4" and over) who has a great vertical? I've watched Yao, Bradley, Bol, Muresan and Eaton and none of them seemed to have much of a vertical leap or jumping ability in general. It seems in most cases like Bradley, Bol and Yao they get even weaker around the basket. Even Ralph Sampson who in his peak was IMO the best super tall player still didn't have a big vertical but relied on quickness to the basket rather than leaping ability or force to dunk. Perhaps physically the center of gravity on super tall players is so high already and so much pressure is exerted all the time to maintain their balance that they don't have much spring in their legs to begin with. IMO its pretty obvious that power dunkin will never be a big part of Yao's game. He should probably work on developing a consistent sky hook where he can bring the ball high up and over his head without having to jump very high or a Chamberlain finger roll where he can stretch horizontally over defenders to roll the ball into the hoop.
Sampson can't really be lumped in with Bol, Eaton, etc. Ralph Sampson's vertical was actually pretty damn good for his height. Had to be at least 30-34". But then again, Sampson was a physical freak of nature, not unlike Garnett and others.
Artis Gilmore was close to 7-4 and he could jump pretty freaking high from what I've seen on ESPN classic and read and what I barely recall. Ralph was a pretty damned good leaper too. The alley-oop to Ralph was the highest percentage play in the rockets arsenal for a while there. Also, regarding Yao, the problem isn't so much his straight "height" on his vertical, it's the fact that he's a slow leaper rather than low leaper. He takes a long time to get off the ground, which is why he doesn't ever win on the tipoffs. I think it's just a matter of reaction time & coordination. But anyway, that extra split second allows players to block him a lot. Contrast this with say, Dennis Rodman. He wasn't really the highest jumper in the world, but he was unbellieveably quick to get off the ground, land, and then jump again. He could get in two or three jumps when most players could only get in one, which is part of what made him such an incredible rebounder.
No upper body will do that for him. I guess the other players don't think of Yao Ming as intimidating as Shaq. Yao seriously needs to get aggressive fast, start dunking on people, and mowing them down in the paint. Throw some elbows and shoulders, Yao! Scream and yell, damnit!
Doc, if you are talking about AK, i think you underestimate his blocking ability. I've watched quite a few Jazz games this season... this russian fellow is the best blocking SF in this league, by far.
