The Skip and Yao Relationship - An Early Look Inside the Numbers

Amare's natural shooting average (i.e. without Nash) is about 46%. Last year it suddenly ballooned to 56%. When Nash went down for a few games, Amare's shooting returned to mediocrity. So there is absolutely no doubt that Nash has been helping Amare enormously.

In contrast, Yao's natural shooting average is between 55 to 60 percent. Would Nash boost it by much? I don't know, I have a hard time imagining a 70% shooter.

 

There were a couple plays in the Orlando game where Yao was fronted by Kasun and Dwight Howard cheated over to help from the front side. I can't remember if Skip threw the ball up or somebody else but Howard picked it out of the air twice before it even got to the the fronting defender who was leaning on Yao.

It just doesn't make sense to me that in those situations, we don't have an answer yet. Both of those plays happened on the right block. If they happened from the top, I think the logical play is to throw the ball hard off the glass and let Yao ..c...c....c....catch it and throw it down. On second thought, maybe there's a reason they don't throw it like that. Of course, he can't seem to be able to handle the simple lob throw either though. Best bet is to lead him right to the rim with the lob so he can go up and throw it down all at the same time.

Those gimmick defenses keep working against us and Yao and we should be chewing them up, especially now with all of our quick ball movement from the perimeter.

 

As for Skip, I would like to point out one of his games last season: on January 17 against Minnesota, he put up 18/15. He's had half a dozen other games of 10 assists or more. This guy can pass.

Unlike a healthy Sura, Rafer won't be a triple double threat because his rebounding is only average for a guard. But I don't mind -- if he can average 12/8, we'll have a monster season.

 

In the hightlights of game 2, I saw one play Yao was fronted, ball is on his left.The ball was swung to the right quickly and entry to a wide open Yao was made immediately, easy buckets. I wish we could get this into habbit. If Yao's going to be effective, he is like our nuke not only will he score, help his teammates score, but also sucks opponent engergy on the defensive end. Let's slow it down.

 

Its only pre-season but....

I like the fact that they are getting Yao the ball quickly in the post.

I like the fact that Yao acts quickly once he gets the ball.

I can see some definite improvement on his positioning.

Most of the time he was keeping the ball up high and shooting the shot which we all were screaming at him to do last year.

They have been working him out with double and triple teams in practice to help him react to those situations better.

I'm pretty sure that JVG doesn't want to spill all his candy in the pre-season in terms of plays he will run so the offense has been pretty vanilla; but having said that both T-Mac and Yao have scored almost 20pts in limited minutes....

San Antonio on Saturday evening should be a good litmus test for us.

 

Tmac had over 10 shots last night, and Yao had only 7.....with that amount, how will Yao ever get over 20 points? Why post bull$@%t thread about yao will never get 20 plus when he doesn't get alot of shots!

 

Relax, man. It's only preseason games and they both ONLY played about 20 minutes in each game.

 

Some of his shots were not counted as shot attempts because he was foulded. He also only played about 20 minutes so chill out.

 

You don't like Tracy, do you?

 

Well, a double/triple teamed Yao certainly won't be a better option than a Tmac facing only one defender.

 

Watch his FT percentage this off-season it may improve dramatically, he shot 78% last year and so far in these 2 games he is 16/17. I know FT% its not one of the glamor stats but since Yao shoots so many FTs its a critical part of the Rox offense. Look for Yao to be automatic at the FT line this year.

 

I didn't mean Yao has made a dramatic step in his career. Rather, his footwork is dramatically better. When he gets the ball, he keeps it high and quickly makes one or two spin moves.

Others are saying because he is going up against scrubs. Fact is, Yao can offensively beat anybody in the league 1on1 includig Shaq. Playing against scrubs isn't important to me (since Najara previously shut down Yao). It's Yao's moves that I'm excited to see.

If Skip can get Yao the ball (and it looks like he can), I'm more confident that Yao will know what to do with it.

 

That's the point. If they put double on yao, Tmac and others will deliver it.
So if our prmeters can hit, we will score over 120 every game, do you remenber last season we beat the Sun?

 

This thread is vastly premature...and yet...I completely buy it. I've learned my lesson with preseason standout preformances, like the Cato 12-block game, but this is definately legit.

 

Ditto. their bench is as good/deep as ours so we should see how Head plays again against some veteren competition, too.

with some non-sports relatives in for the weekend I won't be able to watch it, so give me some good feedback guys.

 

Me too. I laughed for the samne reasons but I am not laughing anymore.

Rafer could surpass 8.00 APG for the season but at the minimum, I see at least 7.00 and above.

 

Ban him!

 

nmercer and rashmon made a good point about skip getting the ball to yao quickly. previously yao spent so much time fighting for position every time down the court, and then reposting and fighting some more. if skip keeps getting yao the ball early in the shot clock yao will not be spending so much time fighting for position and will be able to put up alot more minutes before becoming fatigued.