A fan criticized Yao being soft during the Grizz game. And Yao replied with <a href="http://yaoming.newclub.sohu.com/threadMode2.jsp?club=-1&forum=1&thread=20032&message=-1&start=45&msRange=15&q=null&unlock=false&unarchive=false&tstart=-1&trange=-1"> this post on his BBS </a>. A brief translation: Just coming back home, and find this post. I want to say a few words for myself. Basketball is simple, since it follows certain rules; basketball is complicated, since every game is different. The game you watched is the worst game I have ever had in two years. Every move was limited [by their defense]. They were always one step ahead of us. But I will not change for this game. The playing style of mine has been used for 10 years, and I am familiar with it. You said I should go the basket and dunk the ball. It is not possible every time. It is like you can take the elivator but instead choosing to use the stairs. You may say the result will be the same. But what if you do it 82 times. Things are not simple as you think. [ .... ]
I think Yao's metaphor is poor. If the elevator works only 20 percent of the time, then using stairs certainly payes off the effort.
I think it makes perfect sense. He's saying the first couple times it would be easy, but after 82 times it's freaking tiring..
You mean you can communicate with Yao on this board? Cool, I wish I new Chinese. Reading Yao's post is like reading a Zen riddle. I'm not sure how to interpret it, but the truth is in there somewhere. I will agree with Yao when he says, "it's not as simple as you think". This guy plays at the highest level in the world and it would be dificult for any of us to comprehend the competition he faces every game. What I can tell is that his game has evolved to where dunking the ball is part of his regular arsenal, so if he says it was not easy for him that day, then I'll just have to believe him.
Normally, you'd prefer to lay the ball up instead of dunking it since dunk the ball desires more energy. I've read a basketball research paper on this topic before, where it did a lot of study on the various ways of basketball effeciency. According to that study, over the course of the game, the amount of energy required to dunk the ball is surprisely demanding than just lay the ball up. The problem, IMO, is once you get used to lay the ball up, then you choose to do that in the situation where you absolutely need to dunk it. This is exactly what's happening to Yao.
