as if this guy didnt have enough holes in his arguments.... he puts Ralph in the same sentence as Manute Bol and the Praying Mantis?? please. Ralph was a athletic freak who could have had a damn good career if not for the injuries. Manute Bol was a big ole stiff, and we all know about Stickboy Bradley. the argument about the fouls per game is bogus also...as we all know from watching Yao get screwed game after game by the zebras...if they called even half the fouls that Yao gets against him...he would live at the FT line.....of course...so would Shaq....but then he would miss 50% of them. and we wont even start to discuss the fact that for the forst season and a half...Yao wasnt even close to the primary option on offense...he still isnt the first option now...but he is a lot closer to being it than in past seasons... overall....I agree...I doubt seriously that this writer has seen Yao but in maybe a handful of games his entire career. Yao may not be at Shaq's level as far as dominance goes...but he aint no slouch (most of the time) either. btw....I wish some of yall wouldnt get so offended when Yao is mentioned as being Smits-like...SMits was a pretty good player....he just never lived up to his potential cause of injuries...
LOL. Yao gets bashed left and right like Steve last year. The fact Steve gets much love this year despite being virtually the same player makes me wonder if these guys ever watch games before they write articles.
man I missed that...wtf is this guy on. Ralph could cover the court in half the time it takes Manute to do his little ball between the legs pass thing. I just think yao is better than Smits...a better comparison IMO is Sabonis.
while it isn't really a rivalry, yao had played very admirably against shaq. 22 to 16 isn't so bad considering shaq usually scores more than 22 and 16 isn't that far off yao's numbers (hell that may be his career average). he doesn't get pummeled on the boards and like solid said, clearly gives shaq more problems than anyone else. if yao played this close to shaq's level against other centers, we wouldn't have all these threads that we do. you could argue yao plays better compared to expectations against shaq than against any other center in the league except declerq.
Shaq clearly outplayed Yao during his frosh year in the league. However, last year they played to a draw. In their 9 meetings, Yao outplayed Shaq in 4 games, Shaq outplayed Yao in 4 games, and they played to a draw in their first regular season meeting.
