It is very easy to slow Yao down, FRONT HIM!!! Forgot already??? Best offensive center? Yes. Best offensive player? Hell No. By the way... List of players that can't be stopped when they are "on": Kobe, Lebron, Roy, Wade, Bosh, Nowitski, Duncan, Paul, Garnett, Parker, etc
This season gives us a glimpse of what Yao is to the Rockets. With him playing they would be considered as contenders in the Western Conference. Without Yao the Rockets are considered to not even make the playoffs. Go figure.
I figured it out already. With $17M, Rockets are better. Without $17M, Rockets are not. $17M is always good.
I a Yao fan, but I'm sorry to say, we won the draft lottery 1, 2, years too early. Yao is almost 30 and is not going to get any faster, while Lebron and Dwight is only 24, 25.
The difference between truly great players and very good players is how often they can be relied upon to be "on".
What kind of idiot post is this? A big man in a marginal draft gets selected first EVERY TIME. Hell look at: Sam Bowie (over Jordan), Greg Oden (over Durant). Darko (over Melo, Wade, Bosh, etc.), Bogut (over Deron, CP3), so many examples of this... Big men will ALWAYS be picked high because you can't teach height, and at least with Yao there is no one who you'd say wow I wish we drafted him instead of Yao.
Not really. He was more of a 20-6-5 guy. I think he has more in common with Joe Johnson than either Deron or Paul. Not that that's a bad thing, mind you.
The theory of diminishing returns applies to height and athleticism as well. How many 6'7" guys are in the NBA? How many of them can't do a 360 dunk? How many 6'10" guys are in the NBA? How many of them can do a 360 dunk? 10 inches makes a huge difference. Moses Malone got beat out of the NBA. Hakeem got hacked every play and they let it slide.
Totally agree... They say Howard is the best center in the NBA yet he can't even take on the "so called" #2 best center (Yao). Howard gets spanked by Yao every time they play against one another. Truly laughable.
very funny.. i say this now bc only with time can you really see the true affect of what yao brings. We recently took over a d league franchise. We recently took a free agent for the same money that many other teams were offering, stuff that teams like the lakers and celtics usually do. Dont be so quick to flame think for a minute.
But how many players really make it into that "truly great" echelon? LBJ and Kobe, clearly. But who else? What other players really change the game the way Yao does? Yeah, it sucks the guy can't stay on the court, but it's worth the risk if he can at some point make it through a full season + post-season. At some point you have to say, "We did the best we could with the opportunities we had," and I highly doubt anybody could honestly say that drafting Yao didn't constitute the best pick to give us a shot at a championship.
Well Chinese shoe makers definitely played a big role in this as rockets players are likely to get extra cash out of all those Chinese sponsors. All because of Yao ...
Are you saying Yao is truly great just like Lebron and Kobe? Yao is good, but he isn't anywhere near the level that Lebron and Kobe are on. Has Yao's name ever come up when discussing the best player of all time? No
Of course I'm not saying that. Not even close. My point is that after those two (Kobe and Lebron) there aren't really any players who can be counted on in any situation to make their team a championship contender. Yao, despite his weak feet, is better than the vast majority of alternatives in terms of giving your team the chance to win it all.
