I chuckled a bit when they showed the "highlight" package of Yao in the first half and Clyde goes "He looks good right here" and it is a video of Yao falling down.
According to most fans not on this board DH still doesn't have a post game. In reality his post game is effective, but if he really had a great post game and could hit his FT at 70%, Orlando wouldn't shy away from DH during the 4th quarter. Hence why he is a 20/14 player, not a 26/14. A lot of his post game is based on power (which we still saw tonight by lowering his shoulder) and getting a ton of FT's But hey he did use a bank shot last preseason....and he may have improved consistently for 82 games. For me after watching the era where we had a few really good offensive centers....DH really has an ugly/power post game. Effective. Plus who cares, his Defense is way more valuable than his Offense.
For his first game in over a year, we expected the rust, we expected the timing being off. Well, we as in anyone who has paid attention to what the coach and GM have been saying all along. Apparently that doesn't include the OP. As for actual observations: 1. He looks surprisingly mobile out there. At least not much LESS mobile than when he was playing at an MVP level a few years ago. His game was never predicated on speed, but after so long, I guess I was expecting more limited mobility/agility. At least to the naked eye his movement looked smooth and.. uninjured. 2. Mainly from the workout videos it seems the shooting touch and skills are still there. I am not sure you can lose those due to injury. 3. He looks rusty. Reaction time is way off and balance was not there. Those were two areas he has issues with even in tip top shape, so it is exacerbated with the long layoff. But like mentioned before, as expected. As far as I am aware of, I don't think you can lose your reaction time or remain rusty permanently due to injury. 4. Still looks around 7'6. Put those things together and it offers some hope that he may one day regain his prior effectiveness. It will no doubt be a long process with ups and downs. For the people who think his ceiling now is an Ilgauskas type of game, I think that is way premature. If he can stay healthy, and obviously that is the big IF, he has a decent chance of becoming a dominant player again, IMO.
What's the difference between being effective and being good? Was Shaq a good post player or an effective post player? Yao is a good post player because he's effective. If he was ineffective then he would not be a good post player. Its the same thing with Howard.
The biggest bright spot was seeing how him just being there affected all the guards trying to penetrate.
mate, u expect too much from YAO. the guy has been away from the court for 1.5 years, yet u want him to quickly return to his own self like he used to be? Even a sprained ankle type of injury could have u rusted for a few games, not to mention guys undergoing such a major operation like Yao did. it will take sometime before he regains his elite status. at least he will turn out to be much better off than Tmac was after his injury.
Effective = doing enough to score. Good = doing more than enough If you gave DH the ball 400 times, his #1 move is lowering his shouldering and powering it in. Nothing wrong with it, however it doesn't mean he has a post game, just because he can power it in and get a ton of FT calls. Prime Shaq averaged almost 27 pts for almost 9 seasons, he had better footwork and didn't rely on 1 move. If you are truly comparing Shaq's post game to DH......isn't that overrating DH post game.
I agreed with that, before. But we didn't see the old Dwight tonight. He has made some very significant improvements to his game. Looks like Miami has got a lot of these EC teams on their toes.
Damn, one game and he looks like he hurting and heads to the locker room immediately after playing. When will you guys wake the eff up...he's not the same player and will NOT be the same player he was. We'll be extemely lucky if he can last the season. Anyone thinking Yao will ever be the old Yao is in for a shock. He's here to sell tickets and have the occasional good game...that's about it. Yeah, it's only one game, but the season is going to get tougher as it goes on. If he has to head to the locker room after 12 mins in his first game back that's NOT a good sign. I hope we trade/cut him in the offseason or better yet, by the trade deadline...the Yao Ming era needs to end...actually, it has already ended...
He was worse than I expected. I am reconsidering how dangerous our team is this season, though I should note, I pegged us to win 55 games.
I think you meant "New" Yao. He is still the same slow and injury prone center as he was before the surgery. The surgery was supposed to fix him.
As long as he didn't get injured, it was a successful first step. I'm usually the type to overreact but the dude hasn't seen real action in ages. Not much should be expected in terms of performance at this point. He did seem to be limping on the way to the tunnel so hopefully that was just a minor tweak of something. I think I saw him grab his left hip or lower back shortly before coming out so maybe he just strained a muscle or something.
Is the objective to score, or to look pretty while scoring? Yao has more post moves than Shaq did. Who is the greater post player?
He attempted one dunk in his minutes out there, and that appeared to strain his back. Yao's timing was off, and his ability to grab the ball is off. These were always weaknesses for him in the past, but its much more pronounced now.
Shaq because he doesn't rely on 1 post move and he nearly averaged 30pts for 5 seasons.... When DH Averages 27pts in a full 82 game get back to me. Till than he has an effective post game.
I didn't get to watch the game but I caught a tweet from Feigen that said Keith Jones had stopped by to tell him Yao was fine and that going into the lockeroom was part of his workout during games.
I heard that, too, but he was pretty clearly limping. I think they even showed the clip on ESPN. It sounds like it was probably his hip or back though and nothing serious. Yao may want to resist the urge to throw down his vicious, 1-inch vert dunks for a while. :grin:
