In overwhelmingly majority of times, Yao's loss of balance is due to physical contact, mostly hard push or shovel. Do you see him fall during his own workout or light skirmishes with his teammates?
Well for Amare, the pattern, by season, has been: bad, good, bad, good For Yao, it's been: good, good, bad, bad When I look at that, I think "recent history" has been worse for Yao. Sure, it's subjective. Good points.
He often loses his balance when the defender behind him steps back or reaches over to tip the entry pass away. No. If that was the case, he probably wouldn't be fit to be a professional basketball player. I'm not really interested in debating how coordinated Yao is. The main point is he falls a lot, whatever the reasons. And I think that makes him more susceptible to injury.
It still has to do with hard physical contact, which is not dissimilar from the underlying cause for Iverson to fall. You have kept talking about Yao is incoordinated, yet you are not able to come up with a scientific/medical definition. Now you are not interested when pressed? He sure falls a lot. I am not disputing it. But again you are making an unsubstantiated claim. How many of Yao's injuries are attributed to Yao's falling (on his own)? Basing on what stats pertaining to Yao can you claim he is more susceptible to injury because he falls a lot?
Because it's impossible to prove my opinion that he is uncoordinated to your satisfaction. I've gone through this game with you before, and it's a complete waste of time. I don't need a stat to draw the conclusion that a player who falls a lot will be more likely to get injured than a player who doesn't fall a lot. It's common sense.
Oct. 2 (one week from today!!) How did a thread about 2K get into a debate over how injury prone Yao and Amare are? This game is going to be great. Here is a review from someone that gets to go to all the 2K press events and has played a lot of the full retail version: http://vetzballin.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=61 "Now for the part I know everyone is waiting for, how is the game? Well, I spent a ton of time playing and I can safely say that the demo really does not do the game any justice."
Impossible to prove he is uncoordinated or unable to define incoordination? You have no facts (wrt Yao) to back up your unsubstantiated claim. No causation. Not even a correlation -- correlation coefficient equals ZERO in the case of Yao.
I meant he tends to lose his balance. You put it very well: "Yao's propensity to fall, if any, is due to his high center of gravity, which is accentuated in the midst of basketball play." That works for me. So you don't consider it common sense, or you lack that common sense. Fine.
I don't know about you guys...but I often change players ratings. Like almost the whole league sometimes. The biggest offense is that the bigs who are good outside shooters are often given no respect out there, and if a center is in anyway talented he's given a post game no matter what. You don't know how many years non-post centers who are great outside shooters (ala Brad Miller) are given ratings that are exactly the opposite. Often good passing bigs are shorted on passing numbers as well. Passing numbers are often crazy off league wide. Starting points are often passing in the 90's then everyone else in the league in 60's or below. It's as if there are no "average" (70's) passers in the league, just great and bad.
Tim Duncan has played his entire career at PF. Yet EVERY time someone suggests Yao is the best center in the game suddenly Duncan magically becomes a C, even though the SAME people saying he's a center also call him "the greatest PF of all time". It's the same with Amare. If someone says Amare is better than Yao, suddenly someone counters with "Amare is a PF though." It's that easy to see obviously. Truth is Amare is a center, Yao is a center, Duncan is a power forward, and without doubt Yao IS the best center on the planet.
http://www.nba.com/playerfile/yao_ming/career_stats.html http://www.nba.com/playerfile/amare_stoudemire/career_stats.html According to nba.com Yao has played 349 career games and Amare has played 302 career games. Both players began their careers in the same year. Both have 5 years under them. So Yao Ming has averaged 70 games per year and Amare has played an average of 60 games played per year. In my book 70 > 60. Also, anyone that thinks a broken leg from a player falling on you, or a toe nail infection is equivalent to a micro fracture surgery on a knee is well........... Yeah Amare at 60 games per year sure is durable. This reminds me of how everyone kept saying Kobe never got hurt and T-Mac was just "always injured", yet through their careers the per games played was almost the same. Fact is ALWAYS better than perception. Unfortunately, it appears that the perception that Yao is a walking injury justifies lowering his rating beneath Amare's with the injury index rating, which of course the game's makes did simply because they are Yao haters.
It's Like That. NBA 2K8. <object width="634" height="356"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.2ksports.com/media/movie/vplayer.swf?file=http://2ksports.com/itslikethat/episodes/Lakers_Big_Night_music.flv&autoStart=false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="634" height="356"></embed></object> <object width="634" height="356"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.2ksports.com/media/movie/vplayer.swf?file=http://2ksports.com/itslikethat/episodes/2008_Final_music.flv&autoStart=false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="634" height="356"></embed></object> <object width="634" height="356"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.2ksports.com/media/movie/vplayer.swf?file=http://2ksports.com/itslikethat/episodes/GSW_music.flv&autoStart=false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="634" height="356"></embed></object> <object width="634" height="356"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.2ksports.com/media/movie/vplayer.swf?file=http://2ksports.com/itslikethat/episodes/Celts_music.flv&autoStart=false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="634" height="356"></embed></object>
Let's just compare stats Yao Ming Career Season Averages 349 games, 18.5 ppg, 8.9 rpg, 1.4 apg, 1.8 bgp Amare S. Career Season Averages 302 games, 19.9 ppg, 9.0 rpg, 1.2 apg, 1.3 bpg Yao Ming Career Playoff Averages 19 games, 21.2 ppg, 8.6 rpg, 1.1 apg, 1.6 bpg Amare S. Career Playoff Averages 31 games, 25.4 ppg, 10.6 rpg, 1.0 apg, 1.9 bpg Conclusion, Amare has overall better stats than Yao. Also, more importantly, Amare has way more Playoff experience than Yao. Thus, Amare is a better player than Yao. Who cares about position, they are all bball players. BTW, NBA 2k8 looks awesome.
I tend to agree with your line of thinking. Using the position data provided by 82games, here are the percentage of minutes Duncan and Amare has played at center over the last 5 years. Also included overall percentage for the last 3 years (04-07) when Amare has played almost exclusively at center for Phoenix. Code: Duncan Amare --------------------- 02/03 43% 18% 03/04 43% 39% 04/05 52% 85% 05/06 33% 100% 06/07 72% 100% --------------------- Total 48% 63% 04-07 52% 92% To me, Duncan is a tweener. He can be considered as a center or power forward (I think he'd excel at either spot), and there's no reason to pidgeon-hole him in either category. It's important to note that at the end of close games, Duncan is typically playing center alongside two forwards.
I never said Amare was durable. But between him and Yao, I would guess that Amare would play more games. Both players have had a couple horrible seasons with their health. Yao's difficulties are more recent (last two seasons, as opposed to two and four seasons ago). Yes, Amare had microfracture surgery which wiped out one of his seasons. If there were lingering physical effects from the surgery, of course I would consider him a major injury risk. But he played 82 games last year, and he appeared to be back to his old self most of that time. I could be mistaken, but I don't think there were any complaints about leg or knee pain from him last year. Yao has missed the lion share of the last two seasons. He's battled toe infections on more than one occasion, a broken foot, and then a broken knee. The team doctors say publicly it was just bad luck, and there's no connection. But I look at Yao's size, the beating he takes night in and night out, the way he's regularly falling (hard) to the court, and I think this is a pattern. I hope I'm wrong.
And that is exactly why all the people and JVG himself that can't get why Yao needs some time in the high post are just being stubborn. There is absolutely no excuse to destroy him physically for the sake of always being in the low post.
