Charley Rosen also keeps hating on Yao...(not worth its own thread, imho)... http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/3409776 Best and worst from the All-Star horror show Charley Rosen / Special to FOXSports.com Posted: 17 hours ago The All-Star game transpired as usual despite my objections (see: Forget the Flash). My only consolation is to compile a totally subjective list of what was right and what was wrong about the proceedings. Best Shaq stiff-arming Yao as he launched (and made) a first-quarter hook shot. Kobe's left-handed jumper that angled off the glass and through the net. Shaq's shot-put free throw. Ben Wallace, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, and Jermaine O'Neal (three times) showing on the other side of screen/rolls. Vince Carter's off-the-window-wham-bam-slam. Manu Ginobili putting his body at risk in an attempt to draw a charging foul on Gilbert Arenas. Kobe's red-hot defense on Allen Iverson at the end of the game. Shaq satisfying the millions by finally unleashing (and missing) a 3-ball at the buzzer. Worst Ref Jackie Nies getting the call backward and tooting Ginobili for a blocking foul. Carter's silly spinning pass to nobody. Yao being exposed as incapable of defending any player who can face up and go. Whenever LeBron shoots a standstill 3-ball, he always shuffles his feet.
When Big Z plays 3 years in a row, and virtually every game... then let the comparisons fly. Hell... if Smits ever put together 3 healthy years, then every comparison of Yao to him is worthy. But as it is... Yao is putting up as good, if not better numbers at a younger age... and he's playing every single game. I'll take that, and his continued upside, over everything else that these supposed "experts" can throw at him.
How many teams in the NBA, given the right assets to offer, wouldn't want to acquire Yao? Miami and Phoenix. Any others? None that I can think of.
I have to say, Im getting a bit sick of people taking shot at the player thats clearly the second best center in the league, a guy who has good averages and a guy thats young and has his whole career ahead of him. Its funny but you never see writers going and picking apart Shaq's game....no outside shot, lazy up and down the court, lack of conditioning..... Im pretty sure if you look threw NBA history, most of the best players didnt start getting 30 points and 12 rebounds straight away. Im happy with where Yao is at right now. Sure it would be good if he was more aggresive, but at this stage he is giving the Rockets great service in the middle and putting up good numbers.
The smart author just forgot the definition of all star game. And it looks like Shaq is treated as God, no matter how stupid he is.
I thought you were a moron before. I know you are a moron now. 1. In order for Yao to get an assist, his teammates has to actually take a shot and make it (which we didn't do earlier in the season). Saying Yao isn't a great passer because he doesn't get many assists shows that you don't watch games, although it's true that Yao is passing less than his first season. 2. Gee, how many guys in the league can hold position for extended periods of time with two guys on him (one with both hands on his back). Go make your very short list and get back to me. 3. Slow yes, but poor defender? Poor one on one defender against quick guys when he's force to guard on the perimeter, yes. When Yao goes to the 3 pt line to defend against a PnR (as JVG doesn't like zones) and can't get back to defend his own man isn't bad defence, it's slow rotation on the part of the Rockets. 4. I wonder how many fouls Yao would get if they aren't calling anything and everything on him. I mean, the guy gets called for travel when he's taking steps WHILE dribbling the ball and not turning his palm over. Forget star calls, I wonder how foul prone he would be if he's not getting BS calls. But that once again proves that you don't watch games.
Obviously defense counts for nothing with this guy. Defense can't be measured by stats. Block shots in the stat book doesnt mean a player is a good or bad defensive player. I could of went with some of the stuff he said if he would have said 'but Yao is the anchor in the middle of one of the best defensive teams in the league'. Yao takes it to Igauskas every time they meet. Yaos impact is far greater and will only get greater and greater. This writer blows.
Exactly. How many people write articles calling out a particular player during a winning streak? What's even more bizarre is the fact a player scoring 20ppg shooting almost 65% during the streak is specifically mentioned as NOT a factor. Stan McNeal has a definite bias that goes back to the 2002 draft when he predicted Yao would be a bust and Jay Williams would average 25 ppg.
Sicked to my stomach about Charlie Rosen & McNeally garbage. Apparently, you don't want to give credit to an obvious factor in a team's success because if you do you look like a fool because you always been dogging this guy. Many of these sports writers wrote garbage about Yao when we first drafted him, calling him a bust or all sorts of thing, make it sound like Houston Rockets organization and fans don't know nothing about basketball so they drafted a 7'6 stiff while we should have drafted a guy who's going to average 25 ppg coming out of duke (Jay Williams). The only sport writer man enough to eat crow and say "we're so stupid, we make a mistake calling Yao a bust" is Sam Smith. The only other guy forced to eat his word and kiss Donkey's ass is Charles Barkley. The negative things Yao faced this season is just truly unfair to Rockets fans and organization. We're not given credit when we're on a row, we're the "most dissapointed team" when we're not playing well. Jonathan Feigen or Lopez better start defending their team hard against what I think its national biased reporting of Rockets.
atleast Mr. Kahn has it right http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/3409360 Item: Rockets entered the break as the hottest team in the Western Conference, having won eight in a row and suddenly within one game of the fifth spot and four games of fourth. What it really means: Finally, after tweaking the roster, getting Bobby Sura and David Wesley into the rotation, and allowing Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming to get accustomed to each other's faces, the Rockets are nearing where everybody expected them to be entering the season. All the hand wringing about coach Jeff Van Gundy's style and that he was a bad fit for the team was garbage. Van Gundy remains one of the best defensive coaches in the game and a superb tactician offensively. Ditto for Yao being vastly overrated and McGrady being a loser. Tracy Mcgrady and Yao Ming, along with some help from Bobby Sura and head coach Jeff Van Gundy, have the Rockets headed in the right direction. (Nathaniel S. Butler / GettyImages) Despite lacking a true power forward or point guard, this team is quietly becoming a dangerous contender and is eminently capable of beating any team in a playoff series. While they may lack the overall talent and depth to seriously compete for the title, they could play a significant role in who does.
Wow, Rosen has to be the most hate-filled person I have ever seen. Yao exposed defensively in an all-star game? No mention of Dirk and Amare playing absolutely no D whatsoever? One of the best moments was seeing Shaq get away with a blatant offensive foul on Yao, pushing off with his arm? I'm surprised Rosen hasn't written a detailed analysis about Kobe being selfish in the game.
Link?? Last I saw...there was a article saying that it was more likely he would not play in whatever silly tournament is going on this year. Much less that he might miss training camp...considering how unhappy he is with the amount of time that he has to work on getting as good as he wants to be....I find this highly unlikely. you know how it goes around here...if you are gonna state something that goes against what we have heard...at least try to provide a link.
You can tell he doesn't ever watch a Rockets game becuase he mentioned a man (Bowen) who rarely ever plays!! His remarks regarding Yao averages are just plain silly as Yao does so much to help his teammates. * One of the key reasons that the perimeter players are shooting so well is because Yao is double-teamed so they're continually getting great looks. * Many times Yao will use his big body to seal off the lane so a Rocket can get to the hoop for an easy layup * Many times Yao will block out one or more opposing players so that a Rocket gets the board. He does so many little things that people don't notice because they don't show up in the box score. Anothing thing I've always found fascinating about sports "journalists" is that when a player is on a winning team (as Yao is), but his numbers don't "measure up", they write about that person not doing enough - as though stats are the final determination of that. However, if the team is losing and the player is putting up great numbers, they write that the player is only concerned with stats. I'm ecstatic that we have a team full of ppl that are happy to forego their personal stats in order to make the *team* better. As an example, look how many times TMac has only 6 or 7 shots at halftime in order to get others involved. All in all, another piece of rubbish from someone who either doesn't understand the game or judges the Rockets by the box score.
I believe Jeff Foster or a Pacer assistant said that. How many did he drop again on them just recently? And how many has Ilgauska's averaged against them?
i would like to know which big men does this guy consider "dominant". There's Shaq, Duncan, and KG (who is so dominant that his team is 5.5 games behind us), Those are given. Who's next? J. O'neal certainly dominates the ball, taking a whopping 21 shots per game with a paltry 45% from the field. Oh yeah, his team is mediocre, in the east. Amare has been a dominant finisher, but he is mediocre in the other aspects of the game, namely rebounding, and defense. He can cherry pick with the best of em, and really fill it up when he is surrounded by great shooters and one of the best passers of this era. Webber just parks his butt on the elbow and knocks down jumpers all game long. Great passer and shooter, but lacks a defensive presence or a postup game. Pau is a nice player, but has not shown the toughness needed to play through injury. There have been whispers that his petulant oncourt persona have lost him respect from many of the league's officials. Randolph isn't even starting ahead of Joel Pryzbilla anymore. Brand is definately a gamer who gives his all every night. He has a relentless attitude, but he has still never made the playoffs or lived up to the expectations associated with the number 1 pick. HEY LOOK AT ME, I CAN PUT A NEGATIVE SPIN ON ANY PLAYER BY EMPHASIZING THEIR FLAWS, WHILE DOWNPLAYING THEIR STRENGTHS! har, har, you guys think i can get published?
I totally agree that all these bashers are focusing on a couple of the supposed negatives of YAO's game and trying to magnify them and of course you could do this to anyone but bashing YAO has become a past time for many. I bet there still will be bashing when YAO is averaging 20-10, which is not too far way. What many fail to realize though is that YAO is in only his 3rd year and it's one thing to not live up to expectations but it's another to shatter original expecations and force people to come up with new expectations within only a couple years, which is what YAO has done. Many people thought he was a stiff and going to be a bust but then everyone re-adjusted their expectations and raised the bar for him As for last night, yeah it was an All-Star game but he showed some good stuff. 11-8-5 and a block or two. He showed that he can pass when he has people that can hit shots. He showed he has a good understanding of how to play "the right way" and did better than Amare who can just dunk.
Great post. The things these writers don't understand is that the hype around Yao is over. They think they're being contrarian iconoclasts, but they're just passe and uninformed.
Yao did mention it in an interview with some Chinese reporters that he would like to attend the national games if possible. On another article, Yao said that he would love to have more time in the summer to work on his games. So that's kind of contradicting reports......
Before you ask me for a link, why don't you give us the link for the article you mentioned above? So far I can't find any English publications saying he won't attend the tournaments, two of them, during this summer. In the mean time, there were several Chinese interviews from different news agencies published recently, asking Yao if he will be ready for the national games which take place in this Oct. Yao all gave positive answer, although he also expressed that he wanted more training time during the summer. You can choose to believe or not, I didn't open a new thread for this and make a big deal of it. So take it as it is.
First read my sig. Second, I bet Yao doesnt give a damn what this guy has to say because he only reads Feign. Third, everyday there seems to be a new comparison between Yao and someone. Big Z and Yao, oh please. Yao is better than Z hands down. Had Z been healthy, he might've been much leathal than he is now, but we would never now. Z is a 7'3 Juwan Howard. Well, at least that Yao Resho comparison hasnt surfaced this year so far.
