Man I'm so SICK & TIRED of reading about how this player is like that player. Yao Ming will NOT be the next Rik Smits, he will be the first Yao Ming. It is completely unfair to pidgeon hole him into any comparison with any player that has played the game in the past because nobody and I repeat NOBODY has the same body, skill set, and came from that culture before. Do I know how it is going to turn out? No, but I'm definitely going to give him a chance to be him. Think back to 1984.... Who would you have compared Olajuwon to? Absolutely nobody he played center differently than any other center has played the game. Who would you have compared Jordan to? Obviously you would have sold him short..... I vividly remember 1992 when we had the #11 pick and was the first year we had participated in the Lottery and prior to this year was our highest pick since Olajuwon. There was this guy out there Harold Minor who was dubbed "Baby Jordan" by many people and when he was available at #11 people were pissed off that we selected one Robert Horry and Miami picked him up at #12. Horry hasn't exactly lit the league up to the fullest of his potential, but he's about to win his 5th ring and has had a very solid yet not spectacular (except for clutch postseason play) career while the next Jordan fizzled out in short order. In short player comparisons are stupid.
Excellent first post honeybone. The worst NBA player comparisons often come from nbadraft.net. They even compared Carlos Boozer's game to that of Mo Taylor's- based only on size. This is like when I started working, they compared me to a previous intern from UT, Shivang Desai- based only on our size, Indian background, and university.
How true! Even Harvey and Horace Grant (the only players between which you'd think an apt comparision could be made) played different postitions, for crissakes!
