I bet that 18ft is a kind of warm up for the Laker game. I won't be surpprised to see 2 such shots in his next game. That will pay divident when Yao face Shaq in that game!
I think he can also put the ball on the floor and drive by people. On one play tonight he put the ball on the floor and decide to pass instead to Griffin. But on that play he show that he can drive by his opponent. When he show that he can hit (or take) those 18 footers then the defender had to came out on him. And when that happen, I think Yao can drive past them. There is so many things that Yao can do on offense that probably hadn't been tap in by the coach yet. If he ever become the focus of the offense, he can easily average in the 25-30 ppg range if he decide to shoot a little more.
Not just shoot 18 ft. But the coaches need to tap into Yao's offensive techniques. The more tricks Yao tries on the defense, the harder it will be to stop him. Shoot a few 18 ft jumpers, the defense will come out. That makes it easier for Ming to drive to the basket, or post low.
As long as Yao makes half of the 18 ft jumpers, he gets my greenlight to shoot as many of those as he wants to.
Yao will have to do a bit better than making just 50% of his long jumpshots to justify taking many of them. Right now he's averaging something like 1.5+ points per shot attempt. That will fall to about only 1 if he settles for long jumpers and only makes half of them, and he'll rarely go to the line. Unless we're talking about 3 pointers, then 50% is very good.
If he makes 50% of his jumpers, take them all game long. These days, no team shoots 50%. The one thing about Yao, he rarely shoots facing the basket. Last night is the first time Ive seen him do it from the top of the key area. In order for him to be effective down low, he will have to make people respect his jump shot, ala Karl Malone. If people think you can make the 10-15 footer, they'll challenge you more often. That's when you can fake and drive past them. The caveat is if youre too far at the top of the key, a guard will eventually come to help and draw offensive fouls so its imperative Yao is close enough where one quick move will get to the hole. Also, I agree that Yao needs to go up strong and avoid too many fakes, especially after an offensive rebound 2 feet away from the basket. When youre constantly faking, it also throws off your rhythm.
I thought I was going to post the same idea... Yao Ming was known to be a great outside shooter as a center. He has demonstrated that during his CBA years. When he was drafted, that's one of his strong points. It's very rare for a center to be also a good outside shooter. That would magnify his threat as a center and was what Rockets wanted at that time. However, he is not shooting from the outside much at all in his first two months at NBA. His offensive approaches are becoming very predictable and limited in variations. I hope that outside shots would be part of his game plan soon. With his height advantage, he may even be able to shoot sometimes without jumping from outside.
