The REAL reason why Yao is injured - not what you think.

Yao Ming coming into the league, was an opportunistic offensive option, francis and mobley mostly had the ball, and most of his points were opportinistic postups or dishes off penetration. He was very healthy his first 3 years.

The conventional wisdom is that this only changed when JVG came in and turned him into a primary postup offensive option. The conventional wisdom is that because he is now a primary offensive player and posting up a lot more, somehow his injuries have started to mount.

I reject this.

Look at his injuries during the JVG years. osteomyelitis of the toe, kirilenko stepping on his foot, breaking his knee going for a blocked shot on tim thomas. The theme is that these were accidents, you could point to a definitive cause, and you could say that his body was brittle but you could point to the cause of the injuries. And Yao was doing things to limit his injuries, like you would never see him goingn recklessly for a blocked shot, and he rarely if ever dives on the floor for a loose ball these days.

Then JVG got fired.

His really bad injuries came during adleman's first two years, stress fractures both years, this years worse than last years.

Why?

3 factors.

1. When JVG got fired, he became a broadcaster, and he went on air and told everyone that the best way to defend Yao Ming was to front him.

2. Tracy Mcgrady's game worsed over these two years because he is not a good fit for Adleman's offense and natural wear and tear.

3. A combination of 1 and 2 meant that now teams are fronting Yao way more than before.

Basically fronting is causing the huge stresses on Yao Ming, you can see it in games, he is constantly wrestling all the time, and the contact is worse than during postups. During a postup, the level of contact is actually minimal because the refs look to protect the offensive player and the worst contacts are usually a slap on the arm or scratches on the arm or back. During fronting however, the players are pushing or pulling Yao on his feet, creating huge stresses on his foot.

That's why he has had the stress fractures over the last two years, because of the huge increase in fronting defenses. If you eliminate fronting defenses, Yao's injury problems become a thing of the past.

 

I don't think so, I think the consensus around the league is that fronting is a gimmick defense and it wasn't used that much.

I think teams clued in when the Warriors under Don Nelson used the front successfully against the rockets and many more people started to use it.

 

Err lots of things that are common knowledge now started out as unconventional, NBA teams are not as smart as you think. most tend to follow the herd.

 

I think any human's body is too brittle for fronting, at least the fronting that happens to Yao. I can't think of any other NBA player in history that has been fronted as much.

 

Let me be more clear, there is a difference between how Yao is fronted and how normal fronting works. Normal fronting is a ball denial tactic, it works when you put a stronger player on a taller player and back the taller player towards the basket.

A Yao front is different because although Yao is taller he is also stronger than any fronter, so instead the fronter will try to affect Yao's balance by basically wrestling with him to affect his balance. Basically a Yao front is much more damaging to his feet.