It's not only about confidence. Ever since YAO was down last season, the team was playing a different game. A style of more spontaneous plays, and of faster pace. It's no doubt RA's style, but apparently Yao will struggle in such a system. Yao is more used to the half court set plays, knowing where the ball is coming from and what will happen next. As the biggest player in the league, and being especially non-athletic, even with a high bball IQ, Yao is not a good fit to the style the Rox is playing. To use Yao's offense, Rox must have some half court set plays called for Yao, like the double pick in the old JVG system. Otherwise, Yao's shot should be redistributed to other players. To watch him struggle with nonames of the league is really frustrating. With the current offensive system, he is going to struggle more. You can almost bet on others to outrebound him. If he lost the offensive game, then his game is plain ugly. There is no doubt that Yao is very valuable for the team to win it all. When Rox is playing San Antonio, Cleveland, and LA lakers, Yao will be money on both end of the floor. But right now, the coaching staff really need to figure out how to use Yao. It was obvious Tracy was very frustrated by Yao in the 4th; he stopped passing him the ball even when Yao was open. It would have been a turnover, as almost every pass to Yao resulted in a turnover in the 4th. It is one of the worst games Yao ever played in his NBA career.
Yao may still be a top 3 center in the league, but that ain't saying much. Centers are not what they used to be. you can be the top 3 centers in the league and barely crack the top 50 players ranking chart.
its as asimple as this: the rockets are trying to use him like he's TD or something similar, which he's not. The guy is more Ilgauskas and that's the type of game he needs to play. He's never going to jump high so he's always going to put some shots where they can be blocked. What needs to be done is give him some more face up jumpers instead of so much work in the post. This is more than reasonable because the guy CAN shoot. A lot of people say, "well if he's 7'6 why let him shoot jumpers, put him near the rim", which makes sense for a guy like Shawn bradley or Muresan, but Yao can shoot lights out from 18 feet in and i'm pretty sure he would shoot 3's at almost 40% (not that he should take a lot of those, but proves he can shoot). Yao's gonna make 50-60% of his close to the rim, but he gets pushed a lot there. He'll make AT LEAST the same percentage of jumpers because he's not being pushed and he's more unblockable shooting a J than he is inside because of the way the D is positioned. Let him shoot more jumpers, you'll get the same result (20+ points and 50% shooting or better), but he'll take less pounding, will be blocked less, will pick up less offensive fouls, won't be discuraged so easily when facing a quick andbig center, and he'll have more variety to his offense. the only downside is he won't be in position to get offensive rebounds, but i think our forwards and guards rebound well enough that it won't be a big problem. Plus, with Yao shooting, there won't be many rebounds.
Wow, please look at the numbers Yao has consistently put up before tonight's game. Yes, this was a bad game for Yao and he could've played a lot smarter but I really do believe this is just ONE game that he choked on. As much as I am disgusted with the blocks on Yao, he's carried this team more in way more moments than the times he's let down. Bad night but he'll redeem himself, so get off his ass.
adleman tried a jumpshooting yao last year at first. kind of a mixture of both post and at the elbow. if you didn't notice it was not quite as efficient . also yao was terrible on both ends, but did anyone realize how it became harder for the celtics to penetrate the paint when he was in? give me any day and i would choose to lose to a team by jump shoots (allen and perkins!?!??!) then easy layups. sorry jvg mentality there
lmaooo..how does perkins OWN you a 6'10 guy wow. Davis is what 6'7 and owned yao as well actually outscored him wtf? bring back in deke. get rid of rafer for someone who can actually make a WIDE OPEN shot
Its more complicated than just telling him to go shoot jumpers. you need spacing, it didn't work its because other factors weren't there, he shot as a last resort most of the time, with the shot clock winding down or the defense surrounding him. He needs it to be a first option so he can have the spacing to pull it off effectively. If you remember back to when francis was here, Yao was very effective shooting off the pick and roll from 15. Steve always drove and would throw him a bounce pass where yao caught and shot from the FT line. Yao would alos face up and shoot from there. Its gonna take some time, he's been doing post moves for years now so he needs to be able to do it extensively before he perfects it again.
Dunking is a EMOTION Yao is playing with no EMOTION He just trys to put the ball in the rim... that's why he got hung. Go up strong not lazy...
I can see this excuse 50 games into the season, or 30, but 4 games into the season while barely practicing, and he's exhausted already? maybe he's just not fit to play in the NBA
That's the downside of the Chinese imports. They all had excellent skills, but none of them exhibits any real emotions on the court. It might be a culture thing.
it's hard to say who truly carries this team. the team without Yao did no worse than with Yao last year. So who knows. We might eventually have to concede that Tmac and Yao are just not championship caliber players.
Yeah Yao don't play with passion. Yeah, he was lazy with screws in his knees. Yeah, Chinese just don't have passion. You gotta be kidding me.
Yao's defense looked horrible tonight. He was just standing there letting them do what they wanted and never tried to run out and defend any 25 footers-3 pointers
oh i remember when he was making those jumpers with sf3. and as i recall he was not a beast as he is now. he wasn't at all dominate compared to the he was when he worked down low. take him away from the basket and how would you think his offensive rebounds stat would look like? Again adleman tried it last year in the high pick and roll ala webber, divac, b. miller plays. it was not effective. if you didn't recall, adleman stated the reason he wanted yao to do high screen pick and roll was to relive the workload to the injury prone yao. we tried it, and yao hated it himself and hinting in the media he liked to work on the down low.
Stop the fatigue excuses. He had 2 days off. He put up 30 and 13 playing 40 minutes the day after playing 39. He had an off night, that's all.
