The reason why the Rockets play the half-court game is because that is the way to win championships!!
I don't understand the question. Are you asking that in year 4, was Ralph better than Yao? The answer to that is obviously no, because Ralph was beginning to be hampered by injury, and Yao was just beginning to dominate. Are you asking whether Ralph in year 2 or 3 was better than Yao right now? The answer to that is a resounding yes. Ralph peaked in his second year, but man, what a peak.
Thank you. Dream was the only player who could have pushed Ralph out of the 5 spot, as young as Akeem was. You can't pull out stats saying the game was different then, and then not consider how the change of position affected Sampson. We're talking about the college player of the year, 3 straight years. Rookie of the Year, the MVP of the All Star game his second season. The man was on the cover of Sports Illustrated countless times, in college, and after entering the league. He had turnovers partly because he would attempt to play like a guard, driving us Rockets fans bananas at times, but people also forget how young he was when he got hurt. Ralph would have improved with time, had he been given the chance, just like Yao has. The fact remains that they were/are very different players. Ralph came into the NBA playing at a very high level. Yao didn't have those years in a top college program, to be fair to him, but he didn't come into the league with anything like the skills Ralph had. Basically, it's damned difficult to compare the two. We're lucky that they both became Rockets. Hell, we've been incredibly lucky with our big men as a franchise. Just freakin' amazing.
All these statistical comparisons are pretty funny. Ralph was much better through his first three years (based on my observations from sitting in my season ticket seats about six rows up from the Rockets bench), but Yao closed the gap in the last half of last year to where I would say they were roughly equivalent. Yao works much harder than Ralph ever did and I was a Ralph fan. Ralph had much more athletic talent than Yao will ever have. PER's my ass.
Its always hard to compare players of different eras but I would still say skill wise and athletically wise Sampson then was better than Yao of now. The agile big men like Garnett and Nowitzki all owe Ralph Sampson for revolutionizing how big men played. There have always been great passing big men but until Ralph there wasn't a guy that big who could handle and drive the ball like Ralph did. Yao is certainly skilled but he could never do some of the things that Ralph did.
so it was Ralph's knees? i was under the impression that a fall vs Boston injured his back & was the beginning of the end
Early in their careers Ralph Sampson was much better than Yao ~ just a better athlete all around. Yao is just coming into his own right now so he could very well be light years better than Ralph when it's all over.
Yeah, if Ralph didn't get hurt he could have been an all time great -- he was just sick in his prime.
That was my impression also. Hakeem and Ralph were destroying the mighty Celtics in that game. Ralph was quicker, was a better passer, was a better defensive player and a much better rebounder. Ralph had incredible hops for a guy his size. Yao is a much better shooter than Ralph was. What Ralph doesn't get credit for was he was an incredible defensive rebounder and was probably among 3 other big men, Chamberlain, Jabbar and Walton as the greatest outlet passer the game has ever seen. Lewis Lloyd always got the credit for his fast break baskets but it was Ralph who got him the ball on 90% of those baskets. He would 1 hand those passes and he had great technique in how after the rebound he was always in great position to get rid of the ball. In fact to me that is a lost skill that you just don't see anymore.
I would definitely rather have Yao, this seems to close to the "Yao is the Asian Smits" arguments. Smits was a very good player and Sampson was even better before those knee problems, but Yao is just superior to me.
Half of this board were not born when Ralph played. How can you ask them to vote? I like Yao as a person a lot more than Ralph. But I have to say that Ralph was a better player. Ralph was a 7'4 KG before KG was born. Other than Magic and KG, I think Ralph is the only player whom I can imagine playing all 5 positions. Can you imagine Yao playing anything other than C?
I just checked the league's stats at basketball-reference.com, and the difference in eras was even bigger than I thought. If the 2006 Suns played in 1984 and maintained the same pace as they do today, they would have been the 2nd slowest team in the league! 20 and 10 in the 80s isn't the same as 20 and 10 today. Ralph probably had well over a dozen more possessions than Yao each game with which to accumalate stats. Yao did more with the kind of games he was given.
Agree with all you said except that no one ever got to see him in his prime since he blew his knee out so young in his career. That team would be remembered as the greatest of all time if not for Ralph's knees and cocaine.
