Rocketfat, I'm not disrespecting Hakeem (a true champ!). He was the best Houston ever had. Until now.
Yao is quickly becoming the center of the offense much like Olajuwon was, at this pace he will be the center of the offense next season. I don't recall Bird being a Center? They didn't guard each other did they? Yao is good, I am not arguing that one bit - Hakeem is great though. Please that.
The only definite all star on that list right now is Rudy T. Steve seems to be a virtual lock. Rice has had a number of good years and was fortunate enough to win a championship, but he is borderline. Mobley is too one dimensional, and, regardless of how his game chages, won't make it. Griffin has amazing ability, but right now its probably more likely he won't be a HOFer. And Yao has played, what, 5 real good NBA games. Optimisim is great, but let's add some realism. DavidS - I like your excitement, but you seriously underestimate Hakeem's talent, regardless of experience. Stats aren't everything (although Sonny's are very convincing), but Hakeem had all the same skills his rookie year as he did the year he won the MVP (a little more raw, though). What he didn't have was the trust in his teammates. When he learned to trust his teammates, the Rockets learned chemistry and won. Yao seems to have a lot of skill and some of the mental trust that Hakeem lacked, but he has nowhere near the athleticism that Hakeem had his rookie year.
Yao is a good offensive center,but Hakeem was an all round center with lateral quickness,speed,stamina and physical strength.Hakeem was even better on defense than on the offensive end.Yao has made a few shot blocks but he is no where near as good a shotblocker or rebounder as compared to the Dream.Yao gets in foul trouble quickly when players take the ball straight at him because he doesn't know how to position himself on defense and he lacks lateral quickness.There are still times where he doesn't where to place himself on the court. Although he has shown that he has skills in the low post but he needs to keep working on his footwork and moves and especially on defense.Yao needs to get physical stronger and learn how to counter various defenses that willl be thrown at him. All this will take a lot of time.He is far from being a complete center. But I'm impressed by his overall skills on the offense end and his determination to improve on his weaknesses.
saleem, i agree that hakeem was a better defensive center than yao up to this point. Most impressive about hakeem was his rebounding ability and that is the main area i think yao lacks right now. that and the physical strength of hakeem and his overall stamina. but yao's footwork is a lot quicker than people have given him credit for. he's not slower than hakeem. if he is, it's not by much. other than that, yao has gotten better at staying out of foul trouble. he didn't get a single foul until a few minutes were left in the 4th quarter last night. and as for seeming lost on the court sometimes, anybody would if they missed training camp and most of the pre-season. but it will be interesting to see how far yao can develop his potential. right now, he's only a half finished product. when he's fully developed, he could be a lot better.
Offensively, Yao has shown great things. I think he can be better than Hakeem offensively. Maybe even substantially better. Defensively, on the other hand, the jury is still out. Yao had his first good defensive game against Washington. Up until that time he had played poorly. Of course, he's been here a month. I think part of his problem is not understanding what NBA players will do and are capable of doing in a given situation. That being said, remember Hakeem was a monster defensively. Not only was he a great shot blocker and defensive rebounder, he was in the top 10 in steals many years. I haven't see anything yet from Yao that indicates he will be as good a defender as Hakeem. It may come, but I'm not so sure it will. Why am I not suprised most people forget about defense?
Great point, DavidS. Right now, Sabonis is the consensus for best-passing big man ever, but I've got a feeling Yao's going to change that over the next few years. The thing that's impressed me the most about Yao in the last few games is that he's not only a great passer (especially for a center), but he's flat out got awesome court sense. In the Washington game, especially, the Rockets started running the offense through him and Yao would calmly, patiently either pass to the open man or take it in himself. He almost never screws it up -- and he's played what, 15 NBA games altogether, counting exhibitions? That's sick. Having great court sense and passing skills like that is almost unfair in a 7'5" player. I'm just really REALLY glad he's on our side.
Is it TOO early to even discuss this topic? It is not fair to Yao Ming to write off him as a bust after 5 games. It is EQUALLY unfair to Hakeem to say Yao Ming is better than Hakeem after only 11 games!
Yao is coming along nicely, but Najera would not of come in on Dream and did what he did to Yao, not in a million years. ~kountzer~
Hakeem was an incredible player and stats really do not begin to describe what kind of a player he was. Firstly, he, together with Ralph Sampson, brought thr Rockets to the Finals thru the Lakers, the dominant team of that era. Put that into perspective. Secondly, he dominated in an era where there were certainly more dominant centers to match up with on a nightly basis (Ewing, Moses, Abdul Jabbar, Gilmore, Parish). Nowadays, the best players don't play at the center position anymore, they are the Kevin Garnetts and Chris Webbers or even the Tim Duncans. Now, I love Yao. He's the reason I'm checking the boxscores every night nowadays. Certainly his maturity and incredible shooting percentages stand out. However, it REALLY is WAY too early to compare the guy to Hakeem. It does neither of them justice.
Really liked your post, Nero, until you got to the Hakeem part. I guess DavidS is carrying your water at the moment. Welcome, fungyee77. Thanks for bringing up the '86 Lakers series... the one where Olajuwon AVERAGED 31 pts. while closing out the defending champs in 5 games. I don't have the rebounds and blocks for game 3, but here is what I DO have at the moment. Game 1: 28/16/4 Game 2: 22/13/6 Game 3: 40/?/? Game 4: 35/8/4 Game 5: 30/7/4 This without a real point guard. They were using Reid and McCray, who were forwards (Reid played some 2 as well). Hakeem was 23 and in his second year. Pat Riley's defense was keyed to stop him and couldn't. I'm as excited about Yao as anyone. I predicted that he would win ROY right after we drafted him. I still think he will, of course, and his recent play is amazing. But let's wait and see what the season brings before declaring him better than Hakeem. Hell, let's let him play some seasons and then talk about it. This is getting ridiculous.
I'm no homer, but I am coming out to get both of you for these comments. Dream an overachiever? Yao more skilled than Dream? No way. An overachiever compensates for a lack of innate talent by sheer hard work and determination. Yes, Dream was a hard worker, and developed a great shooting touch while expanding his array of moves . But that didn't make him an overachiever. His athleticism and agility was umatched by any big man at any time. If you say he exceeded the expectations for someone who was only 6'10", fine -- but that wasn't because of overachieving, that was because of skill and talent. While I'm disturbingly giddy about the emergence of Yao, it's premature to say he's more skilled than Dream. He may have a better shooting touch, and maybe a higher basketball IQ. But clearly his athleticsm doesn't match vintage Dream's. If anything, you could almost say Yao is an overachiever. But I'm not -- neither of these guys is/was an overachiever. They each have a different mix of sheer height, athleticism, and shooting skill. But the sum of their skills allows/allowed them to dominate. They both had and will have some subpar nights as other teams conceive ways to swarm, mug, and defend them. But we're damn fortunate to have such dominant big men twice within a span of less than 20 years. Only this time around we have one of the most explosive guards in the league to go with him.
That's a technique problem with Yao and his teammates (positioning and passing the ball into the post while being fronted). I bet you that Rudy wont let that happen again... We'll see if Najera does that the next time we play Dallas. By the way, for those of you that mentioned Hakeems defense. Yes, Hakeem was dominating on defense, shot blocking, and rebounding. But, that's his athletic ability talking. Yao is not as athletic as Hakeem, and probably wont ever be. But for a 7'5" guy, he's very athletic. And he'll get better. What Yao excels on is what's in his brain. He's smart, he knows the game, and really make his teammates better. That is worth much more in a rookie than athletic ability. The IQ part is always the hardest to teach. If a rookie already has that down, then the physical part is easy to train.
True, true. I didn't agree with that term either: Hakeem an overachiever? I think not. Mark "Mad Dog" Madsen for the Lakers is an overachiever! I think Nero chose the wrong word. It's safe to say that Hakeem compensated for his lack of skill (offensive: real skill, not just "out quicking" your guy), and basketball IQ, and rode his athletic ability wave as far as he could take it (1994). But that's not overachieving. It might be underachieving! Hakeems greatest gifts? Speed, jumping, power, grace, finesses, and some technique in positioning for rebounds and blocking shots. But, he was so gifted athletically that if he made a mistake on technique he was able to erase that mistake because he could depend on his athletic ability. These all can be applied to the offensive game too. If Hakeem made a bad shot, he was so fast, such a good jumper, that there was a good chance that he would get the offensive rebounding and take it back up for a shot (or get fouled doing it). His athletic gifts allowed him to overcome any other deficiencies he had. This was the mistake the Rocket did for most of the eighties. They rode his athletic ability, and didn't teach him the nuances of the game; or he refused to learn. Hakeems logic? "Why should I learn to do all that other stuff when I can score on the triple team, OR I have bad teammates!" Sounds like a good argument, right? Well, that's why we never won anything until Hakeem started giving the ball up and learning some passing "skills." Remember, if a player truly knows the game, then they are able to make their average teammates better. The Rockets have excellent talent today. That's just make's Yao/and Francis'es job that much easier.
David, understood. Guess we needed to distinguish between different types of "skills" -- those based on athletic ability, those based on shooting, those based on an understanding of the game, etc. I'm thinking though that the young Hakeem may not so much have compensated for a lack of non-athletic skills with his athleticism, but probably just relied mainly on that athleticism because it was the easy, expedient thing to do. I'm hoping that Steve can learn from that example, so he'll be motivated to go beyond his athletic talent, and we don't have to wait too long for him to take his game to the next level -- and to our next ring.
