Yao has good passing ability, but I still say shaq is better. I say this because Yao still lacks that command and awareness of when to pass out of a double team.
I am not sure Shaq is necessarily better than Yao in that regard. In case anyone missed last night night's game, there are two supreme examples of how great a passer Yao is. In the first one, which was Yao's 2nd assist, Yao made a move in the low post, two defenders were coming at him, forcing him to shoot a fadeaway jumper. At the split of the last second, he saw a cutting Battier from left, while still in the mid air aiming to shooting the ball, Yao all of a sudden changed the direction and trajectory of his shot and delivered amid the extending arms of his defenders a perfectly timed pass to Battier, who duly made the easy deuce. Normally you have superstar guards such as Jordan or TMac make this type of pass, and people would be like ooh and ah all over it, how often do you see other 7'+ big men make such play? In the second example and his 3rd assist, on right side of post after being doubled Yao would throw a semi nolook pass to a cutting Novak, who scored the easy layup after making 1 out 6 of his previous 3-pointer shot attemps. We know this is Yao's 5th season, viewers are so used to this type of pass from Yao, but we are talking about the confidence booster for a slumping Novak all game long. If you happened to be reading the game thread last night, you could sense the pressure building up on the rookie and feel the disappointment among the fans prior to that basket by Novak. Sure enough, he would soon make back-to-back 3 pointers before the game was all over. There is no question in my mind, when Novak thinks about his own performance in this game, he will remember this pass from Yao as the turning point of his offensive output. And when people look at the boxscore, most here will likely overlook what really happened behind Novak's "4-9 FGM-A, 3-7 3PM-A, 11 PTS" scoreline, only to allow themselves to resume Novak's fancy nickname extravaganza.
It generally takes big men about four or five years to really play to their advantages. Yao has improved every year as he's gotten stronger so you can't throw him around anymore; his foot work on the offensive end is much better with his shanghai shake; his positioning and calling for the ball is better (he used to setup to high or too far away of the low block)...if you notice, he's catching the ball in Shaq's territory where he doesn't have to bring the ball down but just catch and shoot...thus he's definitely shoot 53% plus and 80% from the charity stripe. His stamina is better now with more familiarity to the NBA game...he can play 35 effective minutes now compared to a few years ago. Big men from Europe (early in their NBA careers) generally have better offensive games especially on the perimeter whereas big men from the states (early in their careers) are better defensively ala Dream, D. Robinson, Patrick Ewing, Zo, Shaq, Artis Gilmore, Jabar, etc....and then they develop the other aspect of their games (European have to develop more D and US players more Offensive). When Dream came into the league...he was incredible on D but had a lousy offensive game...it took plenty of work for him to become poetry in motion. Yao will never be as gifted as dream but he's a different kind of player. He has the offensive skill but has a long way to go on the Defensive end especially weak side D where you get most of your block shots. He doesn't have the timing to disrupt more shots and people often shoot over him... I just hope that he can finally work with Dream one summer as Dream had a big man camp a few months ago but Yao was traveling for the summer games...Dream wants to work with him too.
JVG knows the deal, the closer you are to the basket the more times your shots are going to go in. Yao is huge, he dwarfed Jackie Butler and bulled his way into the paint, if Yao can get that kind of position in all his matchups. JVG is right, keep feeding him the ball until opposing teams start sending double and triple teams at him.
I am glad someone pointed this out. On the top of my mind, please correct me if I am wrong, most of these Novac's 1-5 shoots were made when Yao was off the court.
Whether it's Yao or Tracy or Shane or Novak or (name your player), looks like the philosophy on offense this year is to attack attack attack. When a player gets the ball in scoring position, JVG is demanding they take the shot. This forces defenses to stay alert 100% of the time and makes them expend more energy. This should wear down inferior teams and hopefully manufacture more blowout wins (think Phoenix Suns). I'm not sure how well this will work starting the season, but when our offense starts clicking, it should be interesting. I'll say this again: To start the year, our defense must carry us because the offense still seems out of sync IMO. The real test will be if we can continue the attack mode against decent defensive teams.
actuall JVG's orginal quote is once yao scores 3 baskets in a row he should keep shooting instead of looking for kick out.
He also added "Yao should keep shooting because you are On Fire once you hit 3 shots in a row. Anyone who doesn't know that is either r****ded or never played NBA JAM."
If Yao can keep shoot 50%+ while not committing many TO's, he really should look for more shots. YOF or not, you got to support that until you find a more efficient way to score (if our bombers shoot 40% from 3-pt land, then yeah, but I am not counting on that).
anyway, this is a good news! Yao shows his willing to be more aggresive. Let's wait and see what happen!!
Remeber that one year where Shaq averaged 28 and Kobe averaged 30, that would be hella sick if that happened here!!
Atta boy Yao. thats what we wanna hear. Now you take that and bury that in your mind so deep that it can never escape, so that it comes out in waves by playoff time. So that no amount of defense, no amount of pressure, and no amount of injuries can hold you back from scoring that ball. Get in the low box , call for the friggin' ball, and when you get it big fella.... go 2 work.
I just wonder: how do yao and tmac get along? I've never seen any bad blood between them - is it going to stay that way? Usually the pattern is when you have two All-star type players there's a problem sharing the ball, i.e. Shaq and Kobe, KG and Starbury, and even TMac and Carter... Also, I like everyone else on the team, as they are good team players without inflated egos, except I'm worried about Bonzi. For him he needs to pad his stats this season - is he the kind of guy to grumble about PT/lack of touches etc? Is he a ball hog? I'm just worried because so of his and his manager's quotes when he signed with the Rox seemed strongly that he would figure prominently, esp. in the offense...
