Maybe we already have a lot of new threads like this before, I just put some observation here. Hope your guys has more ideas. Since NBA changed the rules, which has shifted the favor toward guards, life is tough for Center today. Even Shark is not dominant anymore, maybe he is one year old. We need a good point guard to be an elite team, Seeing Nasa to Sun, Cassel to wolf and Clipper, Davis to Warrior. Another tendency is : centers has more and more assistants than ever. Last night that 2 passes from Yao to Bowen is good example, when double or triple defenders on a center, A good cut under basket will be a key to beat the zone defense. Swift, Tmac, and Anderson can do that better if team practice a few times. When Center was doubled, and he passed the ball out, the ball needed to be swung to other side quickly, make opponents run over the ball more, they will be tired at the end of game.
The basket cut is something I've been advocating for a while now. So many times, Yao gets the ball but there's no player movement. If Yao passes out, he doesn't have a choice but to pass back out to the perimeter. If our guards happen to be off that night, then we're just clanking 3-pointer after 3-pointer. Situations like that call for basket cuts when Yao gets the ball. We saw a lot of them his rookie year, and they were pretty effective.
So you're saying Yao should play more away from the basket and then make passes to open players once he gets a double? (i.e. play more like some smaller centers do) I agree
my spider senses tell me, that if we score more points than the other team, we will win a great number of games.
The center's assists don't really have much to do with the new rules. Before the changes, Shaq, Duncan, Dream, all got tons of assists from doubles. The warriors were not taking advantage of the new rules, they were using old fashioned, conventional double-teaming. The new rules help keep the ball out of the center's hands. You need guards to make teams pay for zoning on the center, but the center's assists are probably a smaller part of the game than they used to be.
which is really too bad we cant utilize all of Yao's skills.. last night really made me realize that we dont use Yao effectively enough. Yao really made some nice passes out of the double team and makes me wonder if he could do that at the high post. Not all the time but once in awhile to mix things up and to give Yao a breather. passes to cutters / or pick and roll with other guards for easy short range shots. J