In game 2 against the Cavs, Howard did get double teamed right away throughout the game and got 10 points/18 rebounds, only 8 shots attempted. In the rest of the series he's averaging 27 points, 12 boards, and shooting 65.9% from the floor. Those are Hall of Fame numbers. And if you haven't seen DH back anyone down then you must have missed the last game when he backed Verajao under the basket and dunked all over him in overtime. <object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/06KCQ2WZrv4&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/06KCQ2WZrv4&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>
dwight howard is a power type center while yao is the finesse type. u cant ask either one to play like the other.
if yao could be as althelism as howard is, i bet, he will be the shaq II, who is probably even stronger than the EX-shaq. yao is too slow that he shouldnt/cannt dunk with 2 hands, its nothing more than wasting time!!! wake up, friend, yao will never play like howard... oh, EXCEPT, yao has sth like SECRET WEAPONs that he will not show to people until he is playing the finals. for instance, dunk from downtown
should be same. blazers can't afford to let dh play against yao by himself. everyone knows yao would destroy dh as usually as they faced each other. i don't get your point.
Most importantly, as a CENTER, Dwight Howard has NO POST MOVES and cannot play with his back facing the basket, which should be the hallmark of all great centers. In all the Magic games I watched this season, Howard has always been more like a PF than a C.
And Dwight Howard can't shoot jumpers for ****. You can't really say Yao's ability to drain 20-footers labels him "softer" than Howard cuz Dwight just CANNOT shoot jumpers. As a result of his inability to do post moves and shoot jumpers, he makes it up by dunking a lot. So yeah, they are 2 entirely different playing styles and you can't expect them to play alike.
your comment proved one thing. if other team want to shut down dh, they can. it has nothing to do with that dh can seal his man better. in most games, other teams can't afford to double team dh right way due to magic offense schema so magic didn't have trouble to get the ball to dh if they want. rox is different from magic. yao is the focal point so other teams paid a huge amount of attention on him. other teams explored any way to deny the ball to yao so TOs happened very often. verajao defended dh? are you kidding me or not? cavs ran out of options. when you put a small guy behind dh, dh will soon be shaq. against dh, you don't need double team. just get a big and strong player behind dh. of coz, he should know how to defend.
Dwight Howard would instantly make the Blazers a much more potent team, because he's better on both ends of the floor than Greg Oden and won't commit nearly as many dumb fouls. A lot of the points Howard scores in Orlando comes off S/Rs with their PG or Turkoglu. Brandon Roy would be far more effective at getting him the ball on the roll than those players. Add a sweet shooting Aldridge spotting up from 18 feet, and 3-point shooters at the other positions, and Howard would be absolutely destructive in the paint. Defensively, Howard has his troubles containing Yao one on one, but he's still a better defender than any of their current bigs. The Blazers a very good offensive team and sub-par defensive team this year. Howard would make them very good on both ends. My point is simple. Adding Yao to the Cavs would tilt the CLE-ORL series in their favor because, duh, when you add better players to a team that team tends to get better. And despite Cleveland being down 1-3, the series has been very close. The same thing could be said of the HOU-POR series. Portland lost in 6 games, but it was a very close series (the Rockets won two down to the wire games in game 3 and 4 to retain home court advantage). Add a superior front-line player like Howard instead of Greg Oden, and that series could very easily tilt in Portland's favor as well.
Why would you want Yao to change up his offense NOW, of all times? Asking Yao to play like Howard, is like asking the Suns to disregard run 'n' gun offense, to completely focus on lockdown defense. It's just improbable. Yao's post game is the best in the game today. No need to change that.
with roy, it could happen. svg did excellent job to come up the best offense schema to use dh. magic brought right players, lewis and tukolu(???) to make their offense not rely on dh. unfortunately, yao is not a player of dh type. either he is the focal point or he is useless. rox has to build a team with yao as their offense focal point if rox keeps him.
Howard is more "Hakeem-like" (still not as good an all round game") than "Yao-like." Athletic seven footers are as rare as tax breaks.
The things Howard excels at are Yao's weaknesses. The things Yao does well are Howard's weaknesses. Yao will never be able to do the things that Howard does well due to physical limitations. Howard will never be as good of a shooter as Yao but he can improve to some extent. He can also improve his low post game. Basically, Howard can improve on his weaknesses and Yao can not. Yao is what he is at this point. He may be able to add a little something to his game like becoming more effective in the high post but for the most part, Yao has peaked. Howard will get better.
i really doubt dh can improve his shooting. have you ever seen shaq improved his ft and his fadeway jump?
Why does every Dwight Howard/Yao Ming thread turn into a Yao vs Howard bash fest? And why do some fans take the liberty of creating such threads just to get a rise out of people? It's as if some of us have agendas just to bash on Yao or to bash on Dwight. People, we have Yao, Orlando has Howard. Face it, they're never going to be traded for each other. We're stuck with what we have. Being a Rocket fan, I'm going to support Yao as long as he's wearing the red. How bout we give a little love to a player who has given his all for the franchise, who never talked bad about Houston or his teammates, or got into any trouble off the court. And most importantly, helped us get into the 2nd round in over 12 years! Isn't it a little selfish of us to take Yao, an awesome human being, for granted? Basketball is a just a game folks, it's not life, it shouldn't dictate the way we feel about other human beings. Yao is a very special human being, much like Mutombo, which makes me proud to be a Rockets fan. Not too often do you find great players and great human beings at the same time. I hate to use this analogy, but it's like hating on someone like Gandhi or the pilot that performed the miraculous crash landing to save all of his passengers. Let's accept who Yao is and carry on because at the end of the day he's a great player and a great human being. Enough with the Yao hate, he gave the city of Houston his all, why can't we just give him a little love in return?
Great Post! But unfortunately, some fans here never know what is appreciation and what is the true support and love to the Rockets team and players. They want to trade any player after they played a couple of bad games or got injured. They claim that they are the true Rockets fans and those whose support Yao and others as YOFs and cancer of the forum. Are they the true fans? NO! They hate every player of the team when they are in hard time. They never appreciate the effort and contribution of the Rocket Players. How can they be Rockets Fans/ These idiots are just a bunch of Rockets haters.
