they won a clinching playoff game without him last year. so no, they would easily make the playoffs without him, they just won't advance. the thing with dwight is his ineptitude offensively. he's a terrible 1-on-1 player for a star player. i wonder why no teams single cover him every game and dare him to beat them by himself. i don't think he can do that more than 1 or 2 out of every 15 games
Expalin to me how Yao can be stopped without some kind of double teaming and don't say fronting cause that does not take Yao out of games. And even on the front there's a double team. So whats your solution for him to easily be stopped I want to know.
He stops himself by being injured. Anybody who needs a "if healthy" disclaimer always attached to everything good about him doesn't deserve to be called a superstar. Fact is superstars earn their keep, and Yao Ming hasn't even come close to justifying the max contract the Rockets have paid him these past few years.
I dunno Jameer Nelson, Vince Carter, Matt Barnes, Rashard Lewis, Gortat. That team would be pretty bad defensively. Nowhere close to the top 2-3 which they are with Dwight. Also even though Dwight is inept against Perkins and Yao, he's pretty damn good against over 20 centers in the league. He played pretty well against the Lakers in the NBA Finals last season as well. The whole Magic offense revolves around Dwight. I think people don't give him enough credit because his offensive game is UGLY. It's still effective though. 20+ points in the playoffs on over 60% shooting? I'll take that any day. And then he dominates the glass, and defensively he changes/blocks shots like crazy.
The only reason Orlando's crazy scheme works is because of DH. He's so good he can defend and rebound for two people, so Orlando can afford having Rashard Lewis play pf. DH reminds of Hakeem a lot-superstar surrounded by mediocre players due to crap-but-well-meaning management. Unless Otis Smith can convince Fran Vazquez to give the NBA a shot there's no way DH will win a ring in his career with that current cast around him.
defensively, they will be fine for a while (like say if DH misses 5-7 games) b/c gortat is a big guy and stan is a great defensive coach. they'll struggle if he misses a prolonged period. defensively, they will do fine. the comparison with dream is a poor one b/c dream was an elite offensive player. and that changes everything. if howard was 80% dream offensively, the magic would have won the past 2 rings. lewis, vince, hedo, nelson are all very good offensive players, and the magic are freakin' deep. hell, they're stacked moreso than our championship teams ever was. but dream is 5x the offensive player dwight is
That's not true really. You can tell which players are great and which are just good. I mean, you can't deny the difference between Kobe Bryant and Kevin Martin, or let's say a Ron Artest to a Lebron James. There's a completely different level between those types of players.
He actually had those things until he started getting injured, then he lost his fire. But he always had a good work ethic. He practiced hard and spent a lot of time in the gym. People tend to think he doesn't but that's kind of a myth. He had a bad attitude, and that was his undoing.
When you put up 27-19-10 and people think you sucked or when you avg 40-8-8 and people think you didn't do enough.
You don't get my point. People use this term to much. Elite talents will still be elite talents without the mega shoe deals and coverage. but they won't be superstars. In other words the one does not necessarily go hand in hand with one another. and Kevin Martin and Artest do not get as much coverage as Lebron and KB. Whatever. People can have their opinions. Yao is a superstar in my books regardless.
Because if you are voted into the Allstar game year and year again with the most votes for the center spot, you are merely a waterboy in this league..... why can't accept that people have different opinions
It's not about coverage, it's obvious who the better players in this league are and why other teams covet their skills physical talents and skills. I think with Yao it's half and half, you could argue either way why he's a superstar and why he isn't simply because the center position has been watered down the past decade.
lets be real, all "superstars" are marketable players, you don't see ugly players making tv commercials..other then yao i guess. but im sure yao is the cat's meow in china?
I guess it depends what "votes" are counted. 90% of Yao Ming's votes all come from China, where people vote him in largely because of his race and not because of his actual worth as a basketball player. Why else would you vote someone who injured into the All star game? I'm pretty sure most of the people in China who vote him in don't follow his game at all. They just see him play in Fiba, and read article stories about him in the paper and assume he's still tearing a hole in the league just like in years past. If you think being a "superstar" is all about popularity and 0% having to do with skills then I guess you'd have a point. I guess you also see Kournikova as the greatest tennis "superstar" ever and Beckham the GOAT football "superstar" as well.
I'm not comparing DH to Hakeem's skills in a vacuum, obviously Hakeem would own DH and DH himself wouldn't be anybody special in Hakeem/Ewing/Robinson's glory days. I'm talking about a superstar surrounded by plain old roleplayers in today's league where other teams are packing big 3s (or in the Celtic's case big 5). Orlando is indeed deep however when its playoff time DH is the only one who can face off against the best the league has to offer. Lewis wilts against every other decent PF in the league (our own Scola is 2x the player he is), Carter is a choker and Jameer is too small to be of any use. It was the same thing with Dream, there was a great disparity between his talents and his supporting cast.
