So what you're telling me is yao on the heat teams in the 90's with old hardaway,dan marjle,and mashburn wouldve made it further than the conf finals? If you dont think teams doubled zo as much as they do yao, of course you werent watching basketball. If they didnt its because zo could invert to the high post and knockdown 15ft ers like he did as a rookie when he eliminated bird,parish,and mchale. I think with the health issues and seeing him as a backup to shaq and playing in the era with shaq, people forget how good zo was. He won 60 games and put the heat on the map with his toughness,tenacity,and ferocity.
This poll is definitely inconclusive. I will say this, so far they are pretty close but Yao Ming still has years left to define his legacy. Zo was a great player, imo, a hall of fame player if not for his health problems. Maybe still one in spite of health issues. Nothing wrong with being compared to Zo so far into your career. What will define Yao is the next few years.
I hope you are being sarcastic because you could not be more wrong. Yao will be in the HOF simply for spreading the NBA to China the way he has
I don't mind if you think Zo is better, knowing you have a history to downgrage Yao. But get your fact straight. I've seen Mourning since his Georgetown twin tower years. He's a Ewing wanna be. His post offense was good, but nowhere dominant enough to grant consistent double teams on him. I don't recall Zo ever played Bird, let alont beat Bird. He beat Parish and Machale when they were too old to even start as I remember.
Really??? Hind site and everything I would take a healthy prime Zo over a healthy prime Yao. There's definitely some homerism going on...
If you melted Yao Ming and Otis Thorpe into one player, you'd get Zo Mourning. Mourning had more foot speed than Yao, no need to play a slowdown half court game waiting for Mourning to lumber down the court. Mourning had about the same number of missed games due to injury than Yao. But Mourning never seemed the brittle type. Was more having warrior's wounds from battle. Its arguable that Mourning was the better contributor than Shaq in the Heat's title. Mourning by a hair. Yao is good in his own right and unstoppable in the low low blocks. Just you can do most the same things with Mourning, just a little quicker.
I don't get why people do this to a player on the Rockets. And it's not as if Yao's getting overhyped on this board either. The guy's pretty much a non-entity on this board for a while now. If you're going by peak, no way I would take Mourning over Yao. Zo just doesn't have the polished post game Yao does. As for defense, I know the perception is that any center who can walk and chew gum at the same time is a better defender than Yao. But all indications are that Rockets teams with healthy Yao has been an elite. So unless someone can prove that our elite defenses were despite of Yao, I'll continue my assertion that he is a great defender.
My bad, parish did start and avg 12pts 9 rebs, but boston was the higher seed that year. To come into the league and avg 20-10-3 was what people expected back then. Now, guys win the roy like mike miller averaging 13 ppg.I never said his offense was dominant, but he was a really good all around post player and he did get doubled alot. Look at the teams he played with in miami and tell me who was the focal point of the offense and defense. Voshon Leonard? Dan Marjle? Tim Hardaway? Not only that, he could score multiple ways within the offense. In charlotte, they pushed the tempo and he put up numbers and in miami they played at snail pace and he put up the same numbers. Even though he only shot 70% from the ft line, it never stopped his aggression. Zo Season Age Tm Lg G GS MP FG FGA FG% 3P 3PA 3P% FT FTA FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS 1992-93 22 CHH NBA 78 78 33.9 7.3 14.3 .511 0.0 0.0 .000 6.3 8.1 .781 3.4 6.9 10.3 1.0 0.3 3.5 3.0 3.7 21.0 1993-94 23 CHH NBA 60 59 33.6 7.1 14.1 .505 0.0 0.0 .000 7.2 9.5 .762 3.0 7.2 10.2 1.4 0.5 3.1 3.3 3.5 21.5 1994-95 24 CHH NBA 77 77 38.2 7.4 14.3 .519 0.1 0.4 .324 6.4 8.4 .761 2.6 7.3 9.9 1.4 0.6 2.9 3.1 3.6 21.3 1995-96 25 MIA NBA 70 70 38.2 8.0 15.4 .523 0.1 0.4 .300 7.0 10.2 .685 3.1 7.3 10.4 2.3 1.0 2.7 3.7 3.5 23.2 1996-97 26 MIA NBA 66 65 35.2 7.2 13.4 .534 0.0 0.1 .111 5.5 8.6 .642 2.9 7.1 9.9 1.6 0.8 2.9 3.4 4.1 19.8 1997-98 27 MIA NBA 58 56 33.4 6.9 12.6 .551 0.0 0.0 5.3 8.0 .665 3.3 6.3 9.6 0.9 0.7 2.2 3.1 3.6 19.2 1998-99 28 MIA NBA 46 46 38.1 7.0 13.8 .511 0.0 0.0 .000 6.0 9.2 .652 3.6 7.4 11.0 1.6 0.7 3.9 3.0 3.5 20.1 1999-00 29 MIA NBA 79 78 34.8 8.3 15.0 .551 0.0 0.1 .000 5.2 7.4 .711 2.7 6.8 9.5 1.6 0.5 3.7 2.7 3.9 21.7 Yao Season Age Tm Lg G GS MP FG FGA FG% 3P 3PA 3P% FT FTA FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS 2002-03 22 HOU NBA 82 72 29.0 4.9 9.8 .498 0.0 0.0 .500 3.7 4.5 .811 2.4 5.8 8.2 1.7 0.4 1.8 2.1 2.8 13.5 2003-04 23 HOU NBA 82 82 32.8 6.5 12.5 .522 0.0 0.0 .000 4.4 5.4 .809 2.4 6.6 9.0 1.5 0.3 1.9 2.5 3.3 17.5 2004-05 24 HOU NBA 80 80 30.6 6.7 12.2 .552 0.0 0.0 4.9 6.2 .783 2.6 5.8 8.4 0.8 0.4 2.0 2.5 3.7 18.3 2005-06 25 HOU NBA 57 57 34.2 8.2 15.8 .519 0.0 0.0 .000 5.9 6.9 .853 2.6 7.6 10.2 1.5 0.5 1.6 2.6 3.4 22.3 2006-07 26 HOU NBA 48 48 33.8 8.8 17.1 .516 0.0 0.0 .000 7.4 8.6 .862 2.1 7.3 9.4 2.0 0.4 2.0 3.5 3.3 25.0 2007-08 27 HOU NBA 55 55 37.2 7.9 15.5 .507 0.0 0.0 .000 6.3 7.4 .850 3.1 7.7 10.8 2.3 0.5 2.0 3.3 3.1 22.0 2008-09 28 HOU NBA 77 77 33.6 7.4 13.4 .548 0.0 0.0 1.000 4.9 5.7 .866 2.6 7.2 9.9 1.8 0.4 1.9 3.0 3.3 19.7
this is an interesting discussion because alonzo mourning is one of the best big men to come along in the last few decades. but i have to go with yao. he posses a unique talent that is rare in today's NBA game. he has a BACK-TO-THE-BASKET-GAME. you can orchestrate an entire offense off a center who can score even when he's not facing the basket. very few centers posses this talent, or should i say... are good at it. but it makes ALL the difference on offense. dwight howard does NOT have a back-to-the-basket game. notice how he has to turn and face the hoop to attack? we've been spoiled in houston to have seen hakeem and now yao (at least in my time). two big men with unique back-to-the-basket offensive skillsets. it's been fun to watch.
ZO, in a long distance. With the rarity of quality big man nowadays, ZO would make Dwight Howard look like Erica Dampier.
Zo was taking the Heat to the playoffs and ECF's regular in an era when great big men in there primes. ZO all the way.
