The new rules has changed a lot about the center position. No offense to Ewing/Robinson, but I dont think they can produce the same number under the new rules. There were a few centers can pull 25ppg/13rpg/3bpg in the league. You probably wont see it happen again under the new rules.
Personally i believe the right time has arrived to make yao the GO-TO-GUY . the more i see him play, the more i see that fire that was sadly lacking earlier in his career.with the combination of Mac's back and yao's rescent form, i believe he should be the number 1 option on offense.
Let us assume Numbers and stats dont mean a damn if you dont have rings to prove that. Fair Enough? Well the closest reference would be Shaq- he did not get his ring till about 7 years into the league. YAO is NOT Shaq, but he has a greater shot to get his rings faster than Shaq. True this is more into the future- but I see this happening in a year or two. First you ahve to acknowledge the the Van Gundy system does not permit 120 points a game. Then you have to consider that YAO does not get more than 15 Attempts ( in the first 3 years it was a lot less, whatever the reason were)- so to use stats alone to say Yao is not there is ridiculous. More than the hand Checking rules- the illegal defense rule had more impact on the Big Men from having dominant scores. It is a given YAO can't Jump but not many centers can claim such a high FT percent either- if you follow the stats, if the Fouls are called fairly, his score will only go up ( I think he should be at 10 FT per game average). 5 More FGA's and the extra Free Throws itself will add to the score.
