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

I agree that Skip is the best PG Yao has had in his 3+ yrs career, but one BIGGER factor is how easily Yao got his position inside. I'm not sure if it's due to his improvement in both techinic & strength, or lack of good post defense.

One thing I remember clearly was Yao was more dominating in last years pre-season games, so let's see if this year is any different from last season.

 

Can't agree more.

 

Yao did not score more than 16 points in any of last year's preseason games. Actually he struggled mightily in those games and it carried over to the first several regular season games.

 

Actually he scored 27 or 29 against Chicago last preseason IIRC.

Edit: It was only 20 points. Got it mixed with TMac who scored 27.

 

Although I don't have any stats handy to back me up, but I think your memory is worse than mine . I remember Yao scored ~30 points in several games last year during the preseason, there was a lot noise from this board and some national media that claiming "Yao finally arrived".

I still remember one funny story happened after the Devner game, where Yao totally dominated M. Camby. After the game Camby was so frustrated, he went after Yao to dish out some additional trash talk.

 

2004-2005 preseason:

10/10 Heats 10 pts
10/14 Kings 14 pts
10/17 Kings 13 pts
10/21 Bulls 20 pts
10/23 Magics 12 pts
10/27 Spurs 13 pts
10/28 Nuggets DNP

No, Yao did not arrive in the preseason. And no 30 points games either, sorry.

His first over 30 points game was a regular season game against the Kings (33 pts) on 11/6. Then he had another one on 11/13 against the Lakers (32 pts).

 

I'm always "overly optimistic" at this time of year, but I agree with thacabbage that Alston is going to make a much larger impact than most of us had imagined when we picked him up, or when we were speculating about possible 1's as an answer to the obvious problems we've had at the spot for a long time.

As long as Rafer can "cover up" his lack of defensive skills, and size, by playing good team D, then we will be crushing teams more often than not. I can't remember when we last had depth like this on the Rockets, or an excellent pure point, which I'm optimistically beginning to think describes Rafer.

 

That was the preseason game his sophomore year. That game you mentioned was televised on ESPN. He did score 29 and made Camby laughable.

Last preseason he pretty much struggled with his shots and it carried over to the regular season, at least in the first several games.

 

You are right, I must mixed last season with his sophomore year. Anyway, my point is that we have seen Yao done better in preseason before, only came down to reality in the regular season. I hope this year is different, but at the same time, I don't want to set my expectation too high.