Question isn't "is Kobe better than Yao." I would definately take Kobe over Yao if I was a lottery team. However, we already have Tmac, and putting Kobe and Tmac together is not going to bring out the best efficieny. If anything, it will lower Tmac's efficieny because he won't shoot more than Kobe even if he has a higher FG%. Say no to Kobe/Yao trade. p.s. Yao is cheaper, less selfish, and younger. p.p.s. Houston willing to lose 1 billion fans?
It doesn't matter whether Yao is all time great or not. He can dominate the weak centers of today, that's good enough for rockets.
You realize that the YOFs desperately want Yao to get traded to the Lakers, which has been their goal from day 1? The rest of your argument is complete YOH garbage.
Yao+T-Mac+rest of the role players of Rox >> Kobe+T-Mac+ rest of LA's bench plus Rox's bench. What we need is hoping Yao and T-Mac to be healthy all the time and making T-Mac a real leader. Kobe is the best player and maybe a good leader, but Kobe+ Bynum << Yao+ Shane+Scola, he may not be suitable for Rox, either.
What's your point? You are right. Centers nowadays suck. That's why we often have the biggest mismatch among the five positions. And that's exactly the reason why the guy is valuable and shouldn't be traded. Are you trying to argue with yourself? Also, why didn't you answer my question? What do you think about Tmac for Lebron? I am not saying I would do that. I am just curious about what your take is on that one. Like I said, either way of your answer will be very interesting.
if tmac can play for adelman, no i wouldn't trade tmac for lebron. but if i was building for the future, i'd trade for lebron. dude is freakin' 22. yes centers today suck and yao still can't dominate it like he should. when we have to talk about how he struggles vs white guys like okur, that's a shame. yao is not on the level where he's feared enough to demand a double team every night at a position where it's lacking. that's a shame. he has seen single coverage for 2 games in a row now. phil opted to leave him 1-on-1 even when he was 9-16 for 25 pts and instead went to double tmac. sloan just didn't care for him as the game went on. yao is dominant b/c well, what other centers can we compare him to? but is he truly dominant where teams just fear the heck out of him? no.
Really now? Who was better? Let's list them: Shaq, Dream, Robinson, Ewing, Duncan. I would even argue that eventually Yao's career path will be very similar to Ewing's. So that's 5, maybe 4 centers from the 1990's who are better than Yao. All 5 happen to be sure-fire Hall of Famers, and 4 of them are on the 50 Greatest Players of All Time list. He would have easily been top 10, probably even top 5.
Where were you when McGrady was talking about retiring and playing baseball, seriously are you that intent on kicking a man while he's down? He played ONE BAD GAME. Your boy was in a huge funk for all of November last year and for half the previous season, while Yao has steadily improved. Let's ask the teams he was dropping 35/15/5 on last year whether they thought Yao was a dominant presence.
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my bad, i meant big men overall. but even if u include, the gap b/t those guys and yao are huge. ewing played in an era of physical basketball (at least in the east) where points are hard to come by and everything had to be earned. u really think yao can really hold a candle to ewing when he can't even handle okur's physicality? don't look at stats. 25/10 for yao may look pretty, but he struggles v. fast and physical teams. ewing would just shut him down on offense. the type of defense the big men of the 90s played were hard-nosed, in your throat, type D. though hakeem won his matchup w/ ewing in 94, i still remembered it as a hard-fought matchup where hakeem had to work hard for his points. again, i don't want to trade yao either. people are jumping the gun. but i feel yao will struggle vs some teams. utah is one of those teams. the warriors are one of those teams. the suns are one of those teams. he struggles v. physical or quick teams. and he has to demand more double teams than he has been. teams are not fearing him even after a great year last yr and that tells you a lot.
like i said, tmac was fat, scared of his back... and all that. it was mental with him. he was considering retirement b/c the back was deep in his mind. if yao is going through something like that, i'd understand. but he's physically fine. he's mentally fine. and i'm not putting him down. i just said he's not as dominant as we think. like i said, single coverages so far against both the lakers and utah. that's all u need to know where yao ranks according to phil and jerry. i didn't advocate to trade yao. only for lebron i would and i trade tmac for him too. i don't want him for kobe when we have the tmac of old. again, i'm just sayin yao needs to be able to dominate vs EVERY team and force double teams 80% of the time so it will open up the floor for his team. to me, a sign of dominance is how many double teams you force. that goes beyond the stats to me. i mean, amare avg 26ppg last yr. u really think any team would double him for one bit if he had an isolation? NO
Yao gets double teamed off the ball often. How many other players see that treatment? I don't think I've ever seen a team do that for Duncan, even. You're basing your claim on 2 games, one against Phil Jackson, who never doubles post players (wonder why Yao has lit up Kwame about 5 consecutive times?), and a game where he was nursing an elbow injury (torn ligament, hyperextension, whatever), got called for bogus fouls which forced him to sit for basically the whole first half, and in general struggled. You forgot all the games last year when Yao got doubled consistently and Alston got a million jumpers which he couldn't hit. All the "omg why can't our guys hit open shots" posts. A LOT of those came because Yao was doubled.
let's face it, hayes sucks so much ANY team would leave him. it's like right now w/ shaq. he gets double teamed a lot but a lot is unwarranted. but he gets that treatment right now b/c wade is out and they have no other options. it's easy to disregard hayes and double. its the same thing dallas did when we had ryan bowen. i'm not saying yao doesn't get double teams b/c he does. but he has to DEMAND it. phil rare doubles. tmac forced him to double him. sloan rarely doubles. tmac forced him to double. but the thing was when yao scored 2 consecutive buckets down the stretch vs the lakers over brown, phil STILL didn't double him. i just feel when yao reaches a level where opposing coaches fear him like crazy (and let's be real, if against these oppositions like kwame and okur, to be considered dominant, he should get double teams every time). PS - duncan is not that great offensively anymore. that offense is more balanced b/t him, ginobili, and parker. he used to get double teams A LOT (say 2-3 yrs ago) and phil would double him A TON. however, duncan is still regarded as the best b/c he's the big men is not that good like i said. but he's still the best 2-way player. he still is a great defensive player, a dominant rebounder...
