i'm sure when they're saying durability they're talking about the number of games missed. Plus 3FGM is basically there for shooting centers like okur and miller. If they took that out then theres no reason for them to even mention okur or miller in the original article. I do agree that thats a ridiculous way to rank centers though. It seems like an excuse to not put Yao at the top.
yao is the best center in the league period. you don't need to read a list to verify that, just a pair of working eyes.
in reality, those stats confirm that yao is EASILY the best offensive center. overall, maybe not yet w/ his rebounding, passing, steals not there. so i give it to duncan as the best overall center b/c across the board, he's like top 5 in most of them. but yao's just too good offensively to be #5.
These rankings are a joke... how can Yao seriously be considered anything less than the 1st or 2nd best Center in the league?
Why does DuPree keep putting out stupid rankings like these? He's been doing them for years! When are all the bad sportswriters going to go away?
I bet if there was a draft by the coaches for with those players on that list right now.. there is no way in hell Yao isn't picked #1 by most of them.
we can't take this stupid list seriously... I mean.. who reads USAToday for their sports? hell.. who reads USAToday for their news?
I know he doesn't like the Rockets. He is one of those notorious writers who doesn't give Yao any credit. Amare is not a true center, and his numbers are nowhere near Yao's and given the fact opposing coaches don't even cover him the same way as #11 shows you that he is not a dominate as player as our center. Tim Duncan is pf, I thought Dwight Howard better than Yao, the same Yao who has put up career numbers against Orlando. Marcus Camby better than Yao Ming, who the hell is this guy?
with this type of ranking system, David Robinson's total score during any of his first 8 complete years in the league (except '92 when he missed 14 games and the Spurs won only 47 games and he shot only 70% from the line) would have been less than 50 as he was no less than top 10 in any category. the Spurs were always a top 10 team which Robinson shouldn't get too much credit for, he would get less than 10 points for just trying a few threes and making at least 10% of them, and he always shot better than 73% from the line except for '92. he was top 5 in at least 7 categories (points, steals, rebounds, blocks, assists, field goal percentage, and durability except for '92 and '98). so his score always ends up better than any of Shaq's years (he gets at least 50 points for FT percentage, 3 point percentage, and steals). of course Olajuwon had a 15 year stretch where he was top 10 in every category except FT shooting, win percentage and durability which he was still well above average. but even he had only a few under 50 point totals (only '93, '94 and '97). in '95 and '96 he barely missed out as he missed 10 games both seasons and the Rockets only won 47 and 48 games. in '90 he barely missed out as well because the Rockets only won 41 games and his FT, FG, and 3 point percentages were lower than usual. all in all a bogus ranking system.
If this does not call for an uprising and an overthrow of USA Today ,then I don't know what does. I'm surprised that Anna nicole was not on the list!! Marcus Camby ahead of Yao,ridiculous!!
screw the list duncan is a PF... plz he doesnt even start at C for spurs. WTF is with camby, he is not durable at all check is past few seasons and dwight howard and amare stoudemire ROFL
Yes Duncan is a center, and has spent most of his playing time at that position, same with Amare. Im not even going to bother looking at the list because the only thing I care about is performance. And since the best statistical barometer of production is PER, Id rather give that my time of day. According to PER Top Centers in the league 1) Yao - 26.58 2) Duncan - 25.62 3) Bosh 23.5 (Plays over 50% of his playing time at C) 4) Gasol - 23.53 5) Amare - 23.41 6) Shaq 23.3 PER > THOSE RANKINGS
Guys, USA Today has just about the most r****ded basketball metric out there. John Hollinger even takes a shot at it on his personal website, saying that he can't believe they even publish it. I agree with him. As mentioned, it counts a bunch of factors that really don't have much relevance towards the center position, and all of them are stupidly weighed the same. It also has Team Winning % as one of the factors, even though that's hardly the result of one player. A few years ago, they actually picked Brad Miller over Shaq. I wonder if it occurs to the guys at USA Today that if their system is completely laughable, then maybe it ought to be changed.
Exactly, and the same goes for Jermaine O'Neal. It's funny, this kind of threads actually do a very good job of exposing people who are boxscore watchers.
