I agree. So far, we haven't seen that Yao against Korean in asia game, also I think mentally and physically he will never be able to maintain his focus for one whole game, let alone 80 plus games. My wish that he will be great is just too high. overall he is good player, better than Bradley, that's it.
Smits was the second pick the year he was drafted... behind a "sure-shot" like Manning. 1 LAC Danny Manning Kansas 2 Ind Rik Smits Marist 3 Phil Charles Smith Pittsburgh 4 NJ Chris Morris Auburn 5 GS Mitch Richmond Kansas State 6 LAC Hersey Hawkins Bradley 7 Phoe Tim Perry Temple 8 Char Rex Chapman Kentucky 9 Mia Rony Seikaly Syracuse 10 SA Willie Anderson Georgia 11 Chi Will Perdue Vanderbilt 12 Wash Harvey Grant Oklahoma 13 Mil Jeff Grayer Iowa State 14 Phoe Dan Majerle Central Michigan 15 Sea Gary Grant Michigan 16 Hous Derrick Chievous Missouri 17 Utah Eric Leckner Wyoming 18 Sac Rick Berry San Jose State 19 NY Rod Strickland DePaul 20 Mia Kevin Edwards DePaul 21 Port Mark Bryant Seton Hall 22 Clev Randolph Keys Southern Mississippi 23 Den Jerome Lane Pittsburgh 24 Bos Brian Shaw UC Santa Barbara 25 LAL David Rivers Notre Dame
You are exactly right JayZ. The best thing that could happen to this team is if Yao would clock someone down there with an elbow to the head while jostling for position in the post. Let the refs ring him up and throw him out of the game, it won't matter. Yao has to establish that the grabbing, hooking, and holding will not be tolerated by him. It will force the refs to start making the calls the other way for Yao or either look totally stupid for letting him get beat half to death and then he gets whistled for a blocking foul when he is just standing there and the opposition runs right into him. The calls in the Seattle game were ludicrous. The refs called a lot of fouls in James, Booth, and that other fella. But they could've called about 3 times as many. Really, almost every trip down the floor, Yao is getting fouled. If the refs would call that junk early and often, it would stop all of the holding. But they waited until minutes had passed and 3 or 4 fouls had been committed on Yao to call one foul. Yao has already established that he is mild mannered, and a statesman for his country. Now he has to establish that he cannot be run over every game. He's gotta rough somebody up. The league will take notice because of Yao's reputation for not being violent and will do something at that point. Until it happens, no harm no foul is how the league will view it.
Actualy, SevereRocketsFan, a bunch of those guys ended up with some decent NBA years. Thanks for that list, giddyup. It's interesting, and I'll stand by the comparison for now.
When Seikaly, Smits, and Mitch Richmond are the best players in a draft, OUCH. Rod Strickland turned out alright for a couple of years.
I did exaggerate a little by saying 'sucks', but I meant in terms of superstars. There were none. Can you imagine wasting a number 1 pick on any of those guys on that list? Ugh. Unfortunately, it looks like we got a slightly better version of the number 2 pick that year.
Yea he seems to have bad handling of the ball. I hate to see that happend. He's just not athletic enough...can't jump. And sometimes he shows he CAN ...and sometimes he shows he can't. So, i dunno. I think he needs to be aggressive everytime instead of needing something to motivate him to play hard like Shaq! He still lack stamina. I think he needs to change the way he eat so he can gain more energy.
Or you rather just give up 3 1st round pick(Eddie), or you rather have candy(Min) or brown(Was)? I wouldn't say it is UNFORTUNATE to draft Yao. In fact, I thank God for that. Yet people like you will never satisfied which makes me sick.
Hey, people are going to be disappointed when we see such grand potential and get a Smits-like passive personality. It's just natural. We're all happy we have Yao, and we're cheering for him. It's just looking like he can't put a team on his back (at least not for a good while); in fact, it looks like he needs some very significant pieces around him, including vocal leaders. If you don't want to see people diagnosing and discussing basketball players, head for the Hangout Forum. I mean no offense, and I really like the Hangout Forum.
There is No Way an international player can take this team on his back in his second year. No way. Imagine you find a new job in an Asian company and you barely speaks Chinese yet everyone has high expectation from you. Look man, yall can blame Yao for whatever reason but I am tellin ya it aint easy for him. Just pretend you were in his shoes for once. By the way, tall doesn't mean more rebound. Rodman had consecutive rebounding title for how many years? Somebody would question Yao why not just grab the rebound instead of tipping it. It feels like people question me why not go to Yale instead of UH. Come on now, if Yao can grab the rebound do you think he rather TIP it? Don't compare him to whoever can rebound well. He still has a lot to improve in this area and it takes time to progress not merely by somebody saying "Get the damn rebound man".
First of all, I don't think anybody's wondering why you're not going to Yale ... Nobody said that Yao prefers to tip the ball when he could grab it. I just want to know why he's consistently out of position enough that he's left with tipping the ball as his best option. He didn't resort to tipping nearly as much last year. I'm comparing second year Yao to first year Yao, not "whoever can rebound well." He just doesn't explode to the ball like he did last year. Again, I don't know if it's the added bulk or the Asian Games or what, but it's frustrating to watch.
Let's see.. Last year Yao average 8.2 reb while playing about 29 mins. This year he average 9.1 while playing 33 mins. I don't see 2nd year Yao would be worse than 1st year Yao.
Nope. There is a difference between "Yao can speak English" and " Yao can speak English fluently". Language barrier will be there for a while. You rarely seen Yao speak English on interview because he doesn't feel comfortable speaking Enligsh in public.
Exactly. Less than one more board in four more minutes. That's about 8 or 9 more possessions, and he only gets one more board. I'm not impressed. Besides, I'm not talking about stats. I'm talking about what I've observed by watching games. If anything, make the argument that, with Cato starting next to him instead of Eggie, there are fewer boards to go around ...
There are a lot more rebounds to get this season than last. The Rockets are forcing teams to miss more shots and are missing shots themselves. Yao should have 10+ rebounds easily.
