ah, treated differently by the refs. i should have known this. so yao is treated perfectly fine by the refs? is that what you're saying? and they always keep coming to the hoop, because they don't have a jump shot. yao does. if he touches the ball 10 times, i don't see anything wrong if he pulls a 10 feet fade-away for a couple of times. yes, being clutch is a mental strength thing. and i believe yao has the strength necessary to do the job. he just needs to practice how to, in your own words, "keep playing through whistles and non whistles" in real game situations.
As a Chinese,I know Yao! he is such a man who have too more responsibility because of his high salary,he thinks he must do something to help this team cause this is his team!It is yao! But he is too easy to tired for his big size!So we must know how to use this guy! this is a good coach should do,to use every player rightly!
I'm not saying he's being treated fairly, but big guys are never treated fairly. Hell i saw dream score 48 on denver and didn't attempt 1 ft. I've seen shaq, the king of contact get in foul trouble guarding sorry ass divac. I'm not saying he gets the same whistle treatment as the wings and guards, I'm just saying he hasnt shown the progress in maintaining his aggression despite the whistles. I agree with you being clutch is a mental thing to some extent, but the mind can be willing, but will the body follow? My 17 yr old daughter didnt think i could dunk anymore because i resemble a defensive end vs a guard now and i'm 37 now. My mind kept telling me i was going to reclaim some of my vertical leap from my college days and throw it down with ease. in my mind i had the thought of just dunking the hell out the ball. It took every once of energy to get this 260lbs frame off the ground to barely dunk the ball. Its more than mind over matter, the body has to be conditioned to extend past the normal limits. The great players get better and stronger as the game gets rougher because their mind and body is conditioned that way. After 6 yrs, i dont know if thats Yao's thing. I dont think he's scared of the moment, i just think its not in him like that all the time. Artest played a really good ot and it looked like he got stronger and stronger. I'm not sure he can do it every night, but physically and mentally he's probably equiped to do it. Hell we saw last yr against the kings when he took over the game.
i played 4 years of college ball and now i'm over 40 and can't do jack. i can't say for certain that yao will be a clutch player in its conventional meaning, but i believe he has a shot. he has not been given enough chances, and now he needs to be. that's all.
The way yao shoots ft's with his size, if he was aggressive enough, he could avg 25 easy. I mean shaq has had season where he played 60 games and shot more ft's than Yao. Its all about aggression with Yao. He was robbed in cleveland, but thats a classic example of when he has energy, he can make it rough on people in the 4th. Thats why if i was coach and i wanted whats best for the team, i would demand a legit backup so i could play yao 30 mins a night. If he played 30 mins a night, i think he would be more aggressive for the time he was in the game vs grabbing his shorts alot.
you may have a point there. but at least part of the problem, which yao and the team can do little about, is the officiating. that's what frustrates me to no end. yes, bigs have always whistled differently, but not to the extent yao has been. shaq got bullsh!t calls, but he also bulldozed over people and got away with it. yao can't. just one example. and i don't think it's anything like a conspiracy. i think it's just no one has ever seen a player that big yet so talented on offense, they simply don't know how to blow the whistle when he's in the game - at least for the most part.
I agree it also has alot to do with Yao getting the ball deep in a re-position and only T-Mac seems to be able to get him the ball deep in a re-position. What i have noticed with the Yao trying to close the game scenario is he is not getting the ball deep enough.
Rick Adelman: "Okay guys, we're going to dump it into Yao these last few minutes." Jerry Sloan: "Okay guys, they're going to dump it into Yao these last few minutes."
ORLY? Ever heard of hack-a-Shaq? Might that have to do with him having shot a lot more free throws, too?
i think the purpose of this thread is to convince people that we shouldn't go to yao down the stretch in a close game as many people here, yao fans in particular, suggest.
poor excuse...if unclutch plays shouldn't be critisized, by the same excuse, you'll find that clutch plays shouldn't be given credit...
The thing is that not many teams are going to look at their big man to make clutch shots in the dying stages of the game. How many buzzer beaters are done by centers in the paint? Whereas a good majority of game winners are long range shots. You cant expect Yao to step up at the three point line and hit that 3, like Tim Duncan or Rasheed have. The fact is that defenses want you the shoot the long range jumper, and usually double team the big man in the paint. I am not saying that I would rather Tmac jack up 3s compared to Yao's fadeaways, I'm just saying that jump shooters shine at the end of games, not centers. So why did Adelman keep on dumping the ball into Yao in the 4th quarter and in the first OT? Well who else do you look to? Our 20M superstar is watching the game at home, and our Warrior is hurting. Plus, Yao has hit big shots in the past. Portland? Minnesota? Yao was our best option late in the game. Whether he is "clutch" or not is one's opinion, I mean didnt Kobe just miss 1 or 2 game winning shots in the past week or two?
No one player is clutch all the time. It's a coach's decision and a team game. NOT AN INDIVIDUAL GAME.
Yao is NOT clutch. anyone who 1) has played competitive organized ball and 2) watches the NBA knows there are unquestionably 2 reasons for this 1) winning is a habit. yao simply never learned how to close out games. 2) yao does not get calls. 95% of the "clutch" highlights out there are "assisted" by refs. see lebron. see kobe. see jordan the other 4% is luck. like a miracle toss from mid court. only < 1% is actual "clutch" where the stars align... see tmac's miracle flurry versus san antonio clutch is overrated. it's a combination of luck, refs, and mentality. ideally you want your team to NOT BE CLUTCH but close out games in teh 3rd quarter like boston is doing. you cannot rely on "clutch" there's no such thing unless the refs help you a ton in the NBA
it's something you have already when you came into the L or something you develop REALLY EARLY in your career. we all know kobe was a clutch player from the start b/c he wanted to take those shots. wade we know was a clutch player from marquette. michael jordan was clutch in north carolina. i think yao just has never been the go-to guy for his team until this year and clutchness is not something you can develop mid-way through your career. if he came into the L being the go-to guy, i think his mindset and career would have been much different. but yao wasn't the problem last night. adelman should have known yao was struggling and went elsewhere (when he did, we made the jazz pay).
Exactly. You are clutch because the refs give you the clutch. This is NBA, where game happens. Jordan is clutchest because he is the untouchable, any touch is a foul on the opponent.
ask the jazz fans about mj's last shot in the final game where he won his 6th ring. even 10 years later. lol.
