Gasol is a big sized PF in my eyes so is Duncan. I would say it is key to have an elite to very good big man...no matter PF/C or pure PF or pure C
I agree.. let me put it this way.. If you don't have a talented roster. i think it makes sense to keep t-mac if you have some good talent that can capitalize on scoring opportunities .. it makes sense to pick Yao over T-mac i think we might just agree there.. but again. .. either ways.. it makes no sense to depend on those two guys. we need to move on .. i frankly like the way OKC are going about their rebuilding process.. they have all the pieces to become a nice team in the future.. KD FTW !
Talk about selective bias, indeed. Yao is God reincarnate? I don't see any Yao fan has ever claimed so. The opposite is true, Yao-only-haters like you did it for the sole purpose of bashing. Pitiful performance against Dallas? Yao sure didn't dominate the Mavs in that series, but his performance was far cry from being pitiful. In fact, against Dallas, Yao had the best offensive rating among all Rockets, and the best defensive rating among Rocket starters. Moreover, Yao contributed the same offensive and defensive win shares as McGrady did, despite playing fewer minutes (however, that's not saying he could not stay on the court, because his mpg in the playoffs was more than that in the regular season) and not being the No. 1 go-to guy on the team. If Yao got his lunch money stolen by Okur in the 06-07 Utah playoff series, so did Boozer by Yao. Worse yet, Okur himself was reduced to be a homeless man. The proof in the pudding: http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=4582399&postcount=902 Never let the facts get in the way. But I guess I can agree one thing with you, though. This board has been degenerated by pseudo-intelligent guys (like yourself, no less).
The difference is also tangible. Kobe pushed himself to remain as one of the best players in the world. He added range. He's worked on an incredible number of one-on-one moves. His defense is much improved. While he has lost some athleticism, he has improved his overall basketball ability because he *continually* works on his game. TSlack, one the other hand, well ....
I don't know, Tracy would still probably be having 1st round exits if he didn't have a talented roster. Yao hasn't proved anything with an un-talented roster. Either way It's like comparing James Worthy to Dominique or Paul Pierce. Both Nique and Pierce has been leaders, but they haven't done too much as leaders. In my opinion, Worthy is better than both of them and I'm not penalizing him for playing with Magic and Kareem. He never proved what he could do as a leader, but I'd still take him over Nique and Pierce anyday of the week.
If he plays with the same hungry players as last year and we get the 4/5 seed. We are getting out of the first round.
The 80's pistons had Laimbeer and Edwards who were decent Centers. In fact Salley was also playing center. He did a decent job in the playoffs against the Lakers and the Blazers.
It is also about the drive the players have. if they will it then possibly with a few breaks then a team can prosper.
Here comes wnes, the king of obfuscatory statistics, back at yao's rescue once more. Overlooking a player's faults and trumpeting a series win in oblivion of other relevant factors to prove his superiority over another player is enough evidence for a God-like 'do no wrong' sentiment. Your over-emphasis on misleading statistics is appalling. That defensive rating comparison doesn't quite take into account the fact that he was guarding far and away the worst players on the court (Bradley, Dampier) and the times Nelson went small forcing Yao onto Howard, the former was promptly rendered completely useless and sent to the bench. Thus, the majority of his actual court time was guarding offensive zeroes while the mere adjustment of forcing him onto an actual threat took him out of the game. Anyone who watched the series with their eyes open remembers this. Also, hilarious that you somehow try to turn "despite playing fewer minutes" into a positive in his favor, when that was one of his biggest downfalls - he couldn't stay on the court in critical stretches due to foul trouble. Yet, as you tried in the Pau thread, you've once again obfuscated and attempted to turn that around in your favor. No luck. LOL! How dumb do you think I am? This is even more dishonest than what you tried above. In revealing Okur and Boozer's depleted statistics, you've somehow deduced the complete causal connection that this was only due to having to guard Yao, completely neglecting the greatest factor in their reduced effectiveness: Chuck Hayes was taking turns guarding either of them. But of course, Chuck Hayes is the little inconvenient fact that most Chinese fans hate to acknowledge because it makes their guy look bad. I know, we've been through this a million times. It was only because Yao didn't have a prayer against Okur that Hayes was switched off onto him (though the Chinese fans disingenuously like to paint the opposite narrative.) Okur was completely shut down while Boozer exploded the latter half of the series. That you would somehow push the assertion that Okur's reduced production was solely due to guarding Yao is intellectual dishonesty at its finest (without the intellectual.) And you probably don't want to be touting Boozer's stats either - his monster performance in Game 7 where he made Yao his personal play toy is still fresh in the memories of those of us who actually watch all 5 players on the team, not just #11. I don't know what's more amusing. That you somehow are pushing misleading statistics to imply the claim that Yao was more productive than McGrady in '05 against Dallas or that he somehow contributed to the reduced production of Okur/Boozer in '07. LOL. Let's at least be honest.
Were they that decent to be considered dominate post presence centers? No... that's just pushing it.. Just because they were good rebounders and hustlers doesn't make them that presence that the other poster was talking about.
yes, and those teams did not have a great wing player also right? wade, bryant, parker, and pierce more or less played just a key role (maybe not parker except for the last championship). the ONLY center i've seen that won it all basically by himself was our very own hakeem. he did not have an all-star wing/perimeter player with him in the first championship and still won. basically, you win if you have a BALANCED team. that could be with a great wing, or a great center. it's not a coincidence the top 4 players in this league today are ALL PERIMETER PLAYERS. with the game nowadays, perimeter players are more prominent.
i'm not. i'm saying the competition at their position. the SG has greater competition and tracy was an all-world player for a 3-4 year period at that position. basically, if you're the best at that perimeter position (SG/SF), you're the best player in the league (kobe/wade/lebron). the C position has howard and yao and that's basically it.
you can say the same thing about "without an elite wing player," only the best big man (dream) or balanced teams are going to make it. to win, you need a balanced team on both ends and capable at every position from top to bottom.
You must not realize how absolutely weak the SF position was in 2002 and 2003. There was VC, Kobe, T-Mac and Pierce. Not a very good competition. Kobe was not as good as he is now, Vince and Pierce were nothing special back then either. So You are incorrect. And if you are going to add the small forward as wings. I'm going to add power forwards as bigs. So now for the Bigs, there's Kevin Garnett, Dirk Nowitzki, Tim Duncan, Yao Ming and Dwight Howard.
It looks more like you are fighting a strawman that wasn't there. Where is the God-like, "do no wrong" argument? There are plenty of "Yao did nothing right" stuff from your posts, though. If advanced stats are not for you, then admit it and move on. These stats are not created by me to trump up Yao. They exist for a reason, that is, how to evaluate a player in more comprehensive manner, or at the very least, from a different angle, say, from superficial ppg. Yao had his shares of success and failure, just like anybody else. You can focus all day on stretches where Yao was mismatched or didn't perform his best, but at the end of the day, stats that evaluate a player's overall performance matter the most. Your assessment that Yao did pitifully only reveals your strong anti-Yao bias. The point at discussion was win shares, in which Yao and McGrady contributed equally. Yao as a center of course gets more foul calls against him than his wing teammate. I can't believe this needs to be said. It's neither a positive nor a negative, simply a fact of matter. BTW, you were thoroughly debunked in the Yao-vs-Pau thread, to point of no return. BTW2, Nelson wasn't Mavs' head coach in the '05 playoffs. What games were you watching? Yes, you are indeed dumb and obtuse. Nowhere in my linked post did I ever deny Chuck Hayes's contribution in defending these two Jazz players. On the other hand, where is your acknowledgment that both heavily expended their energy playing against Yao on at least one end of the floor, so much so their true shootings took a hit? Speaking of being dishonest, since Hayes was such a defensive juggernaut and Yao a complete liability, where was Hayes's defense when Game 7 was on the line, if you are so into specific moments? Once again, the amusing part is the stats were not computed with Yao-vs-McGrady in mind. Not to mention both Okur and Boozer had to play defense and offense, unlike some specialist on the Rockets team. BTW, what is this "Chinese fans" thingy? Should I refer to you as some religious fanatic?
