Arguable. Personally, I think Divac had the greater footspeed and, more importantly, quicker reaction time. Yao can see the play and watch it unfold; I'm not sure if he can react fast enough. How many times did you see him dive to the floor for the loose ball? How many times did he actually come up with it? I agree however. Shaking it up will be a good thing when we need to keep the defenses guessing. When we don't, though, there's no surer shot than Yao downlow.
I think he was talking about the ch*nk word in your handle. It is a racist term if you still do not know. Anyway, IIRC you have said before that you are Chinese. So I guess what you are doing is just like some African Americans who call each other the N word in a playful manner.
I'm pretty sure that building games around Yao and T-mac was well discussed during Adelman's interview.
You may be right but anyway he did play a lot of high posts and I would argue he had much less mobility than Yao at that time.
Bingo chief. I was born in Shanghai, China. I've lived in America since I was three. If anyone has the right to use my handle, I'd say it's me.
Words vs words. I guess both Latrell Sprewell and Allan Houston played under JVG in their prime years and they couldnt have any improvement in their scorings. Instead, their scoring dropped. WTF!? T-Mac has played his best under JVG? I think we need to trade T-Mac then, another 2 1st round playoff exit in T-Mac's resume. 6 - 0 for T-Mac. JVG = no offense.
I watched those players play man. It is absolutely without a doubt that Latrell and Allan played their best under JVG. JVG got a guy that was one year removed from choking his coach to buy into the system, play lockdown D, and help lead that team to the finals and Latrell will say without question that JVG was the best coach he's ever played for. Allan may have scored more later on, but the only years he was an all star was under Van Gundy. In fact, both him and Spree were allstars in 2001, a year in which the Knicks fielded a starting lineup featuring a Camby that played 55 games, brokeback Larry Johnson, and Charlie freaking Ward. And they were a 4th seed, winning 48 games in a tough East. I'll disagree that T-mac necessarily had his best seasons under JVG, but I will definitely argue that he had his most complete years. The man was a triple double threat; his scoring wasn't as dominant but other areas of his game, especially his vision and defense, were better than ever before.
Many good NBA players did not have to be quick, b/c you can compensate by learning to take better angles. So knowledge on how to move can be more effective then the natural ability. Also in a moving offense like the Princeton, Yao will seem quicker because he will be in the flow of things and already moving. For a big man those first steps are the slowest, once they get going they can actually move.
Yeah, there's a reason why Yao gets so much attention in the low block-he's more dangerous there. Bottom line. What I look forward to, is getting some production from our other 3 players, to help take the load off of Yao and Tracy. Adelman's system may do just that. Then, Yao can spend a little less time banging in the post, by going to the high post at times, getting others involved. Yao won't use as much energy if he doesn't have to push people in the post on nearly every play.
No thanks. Yao can't handle the ball that seems to dictate who's team it is in the NBA in 2007. The team tends to be led by a perimeter player nowadays and even when it's not (see Duncan, KG) the player can have the ball 20 feet out and create. Yao is a heck of a player, but he's just going to be creating much from 20 feet out.
Completely opposite to how Yao Ming felt about the changing of coaches, his Chinese fans seemed anticipative about Rick Adelman's arrival rather than sad about Jeff Van Gundy's dparture.
