For the life of me I can't figure out if Yao has great mitts or stonehands. Game to game and possession to possession he will go through a whole range of degrees of manual dexterity. Here is what I have noticed, though: * His hands are a lot better facing up than down. When he reaches for a ball waist high or lower, or brings the ball down, he experiences a lot of trouble. The latter is pretty typical of big men surrounded by smalls, but it seems to be more so for yao, particularly given how well he recieves the ball up high. * Possibly explaining this, Yao creates a very small frame for the ball when he brings it down. When he holds it high he isn;t aggressive with his elbows, but just his sheer soize and the form arms take when holding a basketball create a natural protection to some degree, but down low he often seems to hold the ball as an offering to defenders. * One manifestation of Ewing's showing Yao how to sit in the lane is that he is very awkward reaching for low balls, usually losing his balance, and rarely making the catch. Hopefully this will come with time. * Up high, however, he has velvet hands. Mark Jackson is already on record as saying Yao recieves the ball very naturally, and up high this is obviously true. He makes a lot of poor passes look on the money, and only seesm clumsy on balls thrwon so off target that it requires him to lose his base to reach for them. This is even more obvious this year given his development in establishing position ( which seems to have gone largely unnoticed by many in here). He has a nice one handed steering catch ( rounding one hand on the pass while holding off the defender with the other forearm)when forming the K for the entry pass, which many players have a really hard time learning. Yao seems to do it more or less naturally. All in all, as I said, it's an unusual mix of really hot and icecold. Obviously his teammates will learn, as has already happened to a degree, where he receives better. But it would be hoped that his weaknesses will improve over time. On a related note, has anyone noticed lately how hard the Rockets are working at establishing secondary interior passing lanes? Whereas in the past if the pass wasn't there first try, the entry pass would be abandoned, now we seem to move the ball, not with the intent of taking the J, but to try a better angle or allow Yao to reset. Seriously encouraging progress.
I agree Macbeth. The quality of Yao's hands is situational. Unlike Cato whose hands are horrible in every situation.
I have been leaning, throughout the course of the season on the manos de piedra theory, although maybe there is a hi-low dichotomy. MacB, regarding the "velvet touch" up top; one thing puzzles me, if this is true, then how come he seems to have so much trouble corraling rebounds at times...e.g. the volleyball tips to himself? Possibly are the V-ball sets a function of his low/slow leaping impairment and not his hands? That's what I can think of
Actually Cato has improved in that he has very good hands above his shoulders as well. He has made some nice catch and finishes on alley-oops, and you don't rebound like he does with stone hands.
Oh, the hands on rebounds thing is easily explained; it's not his hands, it's his aggression and arm strength. When receiving the ball he should have freedom of movement with at least one arm, but when going for a board your arms and elblows get knocked around. If you aren't either agressive with the bows, which Yao isn't yet, to clear space, or extremely strong in the upper body, but are tall like Yao, you will get to a lot of balls, but can't gather them in because your arms aren't stable. Try catching a basketball with your arms reaching straight up. Now see how relatively easy it is to move them when you're in that position. Now see how hard it is to gather in a ball with arms extended straight up and being being hit on and thus moving.
Good explanation! Another reason is when going for the rebound, you elevate your base; effectively lose your balance, which makes it hard to control the ball. --daoshi
MacBeth, Great posts.... Yao's hands remind me of Duncan's. But Duncan's technique is way advanced compared to Yao's... 1) Duncan keep the ball high most of the time; master at it. 2) Duncan doesn't have the lateral slowness that Yao has, so he's able to move laterally under the ball, rather than tip it to himself. 3) Duncan is a quick leaper, i.e. beat his opponents to the ball. So, basically, "good hands" can't do it alone. They need help. Over the last couple of months, I've seen Yao start go up and GRAB the rebound like a madman! I've loved those game when he was aggressive on the boards. That aggressiveness counter balanced his other weaknesses and he ended up raking in a great game (15-20 boards). So, I don't think that Yao has stonehands, but rather soft hands but can't quite take advantage of them YET. He needs to develop better technique, explosiveness and quickness. Basically, the same that Duncan is good at. Yao doesn't have to gain that much more vert. Because he's already "up there." As long as he's a quicker jumper, and better laterally. His height and soft-hands will take care of the rest...
Oh man! I love those plays! The cool thing about the secondary interior passing lanes is that the harder the defender FRONTS Yao, the worse off that defender is (in position) on the secondary interior pass. Of course, sometime it gets clogged up, and doesn't matter. But it's a nice offensive play that will surely get better. Especially as Yao's strength improves.
i also would like to point out that: tipping the ball to oneself is not inherently a bad thing it just seemed that Yao seemed to be doing tipping too much at one point in time, but hey, like Bill Walton said this guys learning curve is verticle, haven't seem him tip too much the past two weeks, he has been tearing the boards down with two hands... just wanted to point out also that sometimes, when a player has no business getting a rebound, a chance opens up to get one because the tip it to themselves, ie. because the could only get a finger not the whole ball... one could provide the argument that a lot of times even yao had no business to catch a rebound, but because of his length managed to get just a finger on it, and we yell at him because we misunderstood that he actually had no chance, but in fact he gave a good effort... i am more of the school of thought that thinks yao's rebounding has significantly improved the last two weeks, and although tipping is not inherently bad, Yao lessening his tips have been good
That's true. Tipping can help sometimes... The problem was that last year Yao would tip the ball flat-footed. Add the fact that he didn't get good lateral postion under the ball or even try and jump towards the ball, which made the chance of getting a over-the-back FOUL more likely; or get the ball stolen outright. So, getting good postion and jumping towards the ball actually improves the chances that those "tips" will work effectively. I'm sure we've seen some potential over-the-back "tips" (this year) that were NOT called (foul) against Yao because he was soooo quick about the rebound/tip! So, yes, "tipping the ball" is not inherently a bad thing. But tipping without doing the other things is a bad thing. Of couse, Yao couldn't do those other things last year because just didn't have the strength and stamina yet. It's great to see the improvement compared to just one year!
Except for some novice mistakes like falling for pump fakes, I think Yao was doing a pretty good job of guarding O'Neal one-on-one at the end of the game before fouling out. However, I was wondering how much Yao can improve his lateral quickness seeing as how O'Neal was able to get inside somewhat on the drive. Are lateral quickness and jumping quickness things you can significantly improve upon, or is that just something you're born with?
Some people are born with natural talent. Steve Francis is born with natural jumping ability. He doesn't work out his calves, or rather, not to the extent that others have. Baron Davis will never jump as high as Francis. But Davis did improve his over-all jumping ablity with training... But, anyone can improve. The exercises are grueling though. Strange exercises....like left to right jumping off one foot (like speed skating on carpet, with bump stops)....lunges with heavy weights across a room, one leg hops, step-ups on a chair or riser...and old-fashioned SQUATS. Some of these might sound simple, but they work!!!! All geered at working a certain type of muscle group. Also, the lateral exercises are TIMED by your trainer. You have to meet certain time limits for your hight and weight. They take all your measurements into account and know pretty much what "grade/score" you should get at the end of some of these timed exercise. Then they keep track of your progress over the year.
this is what I think the tipping thing: 1) Yao built this habbit when he played in CBA, where he didn't have to jump to get a rebound. 2) however, what causes him tip a lot of balls is not the habbit, but rather the situation. Yao has slow reflex, just like most long people. It takes him longer time to jump. Yao knows that someone would snap the ball away before him. So, the way to use his height advantage is to tip the ball flat-footed. What he is learning now is these NBA players are like springs, they can jump nonstop so it is hard to get them out of rythm. Besides, there are always 2, 3 guys fighting for the ball. Often time Yao tips the ball out of reach of player 1, but player 2 took it away. He needs help in those situations. That is also probably why Yao tips the ball to a teammate some times.
