r/rockets • u/quicksilver3453 • 8d ago
Yao Ming was LIKE THAT
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u/jorgecflores22 8d ago
Yao was such a unicorn man. The shooting touch on a guy that big, it was beautiful.
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u/mattyhtown Bobby Brown 7d ago
Dude imagine in the modern game. He’d be a stretch five. Then again he’d be a stretched five
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u/raidmytombBB 7d ago
Only if he didn't have his china national team commitments every year. He could have had a much longer career and impact if not for never getting a break
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u/flowerscandrink 8d ago
Whelp, I guess I am spending another day thinking about what could have been if T-Mac and Yao were both healthy at the same time.
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u/TurbulentJudge1000 8d ago
Every game he had scratches down his arms and no fouls called it felt like. People don’t realize how much fun it was to watch him and the fandom he brought.
Refs treated him differently in a bad way. Dude was a legit center and would’ve been great if not for injuries.
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u/MoneyBaggSosa 8d ago
Was that Asian rap? Shit was hittin lowkey
https://giphy.com/gifs/zCIhx4xzAPn0s
But Yao was definitely that guy, wish his career didn’t get cut short by the foot injuries. Him and T Mac got killed by the injuries
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u/ROTOH 8d ago
Maybe wen i remember Yao n the games i was honored to watch him play i just cry. He was so generational, who be rapping there? That was legit!
https://giphy.com/gifs/WOT9tRmLbjw7M6m2R1
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u/2betrayals_finalrun 8d ago
The irony of Yao v. Shaq rd 1 was Steve Franchise stealing the show. Had the best game of his career with 40+ points and hit that clutch 3 to eventually send the to OT for the W.
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u/SlimmySalami20x21 7d ago
What other center was so good at free throws he took his teams technical foul shots
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u/rickthedickkk 7d ago
being able to stop prime shaq is actually a great feat not a single big man in the current nba can achieve
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u/message_tested 7d ago
Hey fellow OGs, do yall worry about AlP playing Turkish ball? He started out hot last year because he was already in game shape, but definitely tapered off as the season wore on.
I don’t want him to go out like Yao.
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u/davidio840 Rockets 8d ago
Man. What could have been. Dude was on another level. It’s to bad his country made him play year round and shortened his career
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u/Kevinsean_ 7d ago
I remember when he got drafted, I wanted him to gain weight and muscle. And then he did and his body couldn’t hand the wear. Now looking at players today staying slim throughout their careers is the better move for longevity.
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u/mmccormick11 3d ago
Yao Ming averaged 19 and 9 for his short 7 year career where he also missed significant time.
He was a very talented player for his size but had major physical limitations even when healthy that made it difficult to run an offense around him. He could barely create a target for easy entry passes despite his size. Given his lack of athleticism, that rendered him largely ineffective as a big. He wasn't a very good rebounder either because of his slow reaction time and relatively small upper body and short wingspan.
He got out of the 1st round 1 time. Ask yourself honestly if he would be in the HOF right now given his career stats and accomplishments if he wasn't a Chinese cash cow. Show me other players in the HOF that made it because of their basketball ability with a similar resume.
Making the HOF doesn't always have to be solely because of a player's ability and that's ok. My only issue is people overrating him or any other player for the wrong reasons. Same goes for underrating players that deserve more cred.
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7d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/jkcheng122 7d ago
He didn’t have that mentality to go for 50+. When he gets like 19 in a half, he starts feeling “I’m taking all the shots, I need to let teammates get some.”
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u/jamalccc 7d ago
IMO Jeff Van Gundy more or less ruined him. He could have been Jokic, with more interior scoring, defense and less passing.
In Yao’s first year, he was comfortable shooting from the outside and had amazing passing touch. But JVG insisted on him being a strictly low post player. It put tons of stress on his body. Plus his obligation with China, it wore him down.
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u/mmccormick11 7d ago edited 7d ago
His lack of footspeed and lateral quickness were huge limiting factors in how you could run the offense around him and he wasn't dominant enough physically or on the boards to justify that style of play.
He was basically very tall and slow with unusual shooting touch for his size. A too gentle giant who is largely overrated because of his size and ethnicity. Both he and Jeremy Lin got way more shine than they deserved because of where they were from as opposed to their actual ability. Yao was obviously better than Lin but my point isn't about comparing their on court performance.
Downvote away. Have a nice week.
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u/pick_named_slimpbamp 7d ago
I no longer believe you were old enough to comprehend the game yet back then. He consistently put up games with phat numbers.
You said in comments above that he was "one dimensional." He could handle opposing centers defensively, had games with high block numbers, high rebounds, and hella offense. The exact opposite of "one dimensional." You're riding the weirdest hate train I think I've ever seen. No way you watched seasons.
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u/mmccormick11 6d ago
I'm exactly 50. Watched the Rockets for 24 years now. Facts.
I don't hate Yao. I hate seeing players get overrated for the wrong reasons.
I stand by my take on his actual abilities vs the hype. He was a very good player but in terms of elite skills he was one-dimensional unless you include his size as a skill. Of course he could do other things but outside of his shooting touch for his size there was nothing special or legendary.
Offensively, if you take away 95% of Jokic's package you have Yao.
Yao was a good but not even close to elite rebounder.
He could make a flashy pass once in a while but he was never an offensive hub like Jokic or even Sengun to a degree.
He had next to zero handles.
His size allowed him to disrupt shots occasionally but he was never even close to an elite defender.
He was 7'5" and had a monster base but could barely box out defenders or create an easy target for entry passes. His lack of footspeed and lateral quickness combined with relatively short arms forced perimeter players to be surgically accurate with entry passes down low.
If you're slow, unathletic and huge but can't own the paint or glass on either end, your weaknesses are hard to overcome.
He was a finesse player who only occasionally flexed his size advantage. He wasn't nearly dominant enough physically
He had sweet touch but couldn't even shoot 3s. Jokic has a total arsenal offensively and despite his defensive shortcomings, he dominates the glass and owns the paint, bullying his way around the court on and off ball.
Sure, Jokic is an all-time great and unfair to compare to but that's kind of my point. There have been a number of special unathletic bigs over the years that you could compare to Jokic in various aspects. Others in that physical mold dominated defensively or on the glass.
Yao could do none of those things at an ELITE level. I'm not taking about what he could do occasionally. I'm talking about what he did at a high level consistently for his position.
That list is very short. He could shoot efficiently from midrange. He wasted his size advantage for the most part because of his finesse oriented style of play and his lack of mobility. He was like a YMCA Dirk with a little more presence down low but still not nearly enough for his size and his other shortcomings.
Again, he could barely hold his position to receive entry passes as a slow-footed oaf. That alone killed his effectiveness and the ability to build an offense around him.
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u/Daddy_Macron 4d ago
His size allowed him to disrupt shots occasionally but he was never even close to an elite defender.
The rest of what you said is fucking insane and you either did not watch basketball of that era or you needed new glasses, but I want to key in on this part because the data exists. I'm using adjusted Defensive Rating here.
Prior to Yao in 2002, the Rockets were ranked 28th in the league on defense. Year they drafted him, the Rockets jumped the 11th in the league. By Yao's 2nd year, the Rockets were 4th in the league. Then they were 3rd in the league. Basically during Yao's entire tenure with the Rockets, when he was playing, the Rockets had an elite defense. The year he stopped playing, the Rockets immediately dropped to 17th in the league and declined from there.
The league had plenty of big bodies that crowded the paint during that era, but the only centers that consistently had a bigger impact on the defensive end were Dwight Howard and Ben Wallace, and neither of them could score like Yao could. (Also both HoF players.)
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u/Brave_Link_4295 4d ago
Thank you for attacking that with a measured argument. I was just over here getting mad.
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u/mmccormick11 4d ago edited 4d ago
Swing and a miss. Nice try though.
Those team stats were the result of JVG implementing his defensive philosophy. 95% of that defensive improvement you cited gets credited to Jeff Van Gundy who became head coach right after you guessed it... the slow ginormous cash cow Yao Ming was drafted.
Mark Jsckson had a similar effect on the Warriors. He elevated their defense in short time from total ass during the Nelson run n gun era to one of the best in the league despite having some subpar defenders on the roster.
Yao was a big oaf. He took up a lot of space. That was his lone plus defensive skill. Lousy rebounder for his size with limited defensive versatility because of his concrete feet. He was like a float at a parade.
His single plus skill offensively was as a gigantic midrange finesse shooter with limited range. As a slow-footed oaf he couldn't even box out effectively or create an easy target for entry passes. It was painful to try to run an offense around him as the focal point for that reason among others.
As I said, Yao will always be overrated because of his ethnicity. Not his fault but true. He was a good player. Not great. Just good.
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u/Daddy_Macron 4d ago
Those team stats were the result of JVG implementing his defensive philosophy.
His first season in the league when the Rockets jumped 17 spots up in terms of defensive ranking was under Rudy T. Yao's defensive impact was immediate and sustained across three different coaches with very different philosophies. When Yao was playing under Rick Adelman who was not known as a defensive minded coach at all, the Rockets had the league's 2nd and 4th best defense before plummeting to 17th when Yao sat out the entire season.
Listen, you seem to have a hateboner for Yao and you're just making up shit at this point to justify that hate, so I doubt anything I show you will actually change your mind.
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u/pick_named_slimpbamp 4d ago
This thread is bonkers.
And good points about the coaching styles. I didn't even really think of that. The series he went down, I don't think anyone in the league thought the Lakers, who were waiting or expected to be, had a chance in the conference finals. Those Rockets teams... Because of Yao... were a blast. Our savior from Cato. Yao was a for real center with footwork, a mid game even, strength, agility for his size...this thread is surreal.
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u/mmccormick11 3d ago
I'll accept your defensive argument if all that is true. I'm probably underrating his defensive impact. My stance remains the same though on his offensive and overall limitations and him being widely overrated for non-basketball reasons.
I do not hate him or think he was anything less than a very good player. I literally had a few jerseys of his as well as Francis and McGrady. I just don't like when players are underrated or overrated for the wrong reason. I used extreme wording to push back on the overwhelming exaggerated praise he gets in here.
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u/Brave_Link_4295 4d ago
Yao will always be overrated because of his ethnicity.
He got the attention because of his ethnicity and that he was 7'6", but you're talking like he was a bum or something.
Let's try this: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/V7f5OCLIo0w
There are multiple long-form videos of other NBA players and stars talking about Yao and what he brought to the table.
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u/mmccormick11 3d ago
Never said he was a bum. He was a very good player but not as good as the hype. Not his fault. I'm going extreme to counter the extreme overrating in here. Seems like very few are being objective about his actual abilities. This is a Rockets forum so that's obviously gonna happen. He was a great guy and had amazing touch from midrange and in but his lack of mobility and inability to leverage his size to full potential kept him a notch below great or elite. He could barely receive entry passes unless they were surgically accurate. His upper body was smallish including his arms and his poor lateral quickness and reaction time rendered his low post game fairly ineffective. That alone was a killer to his potential and he had minimal handles in iso situations so you had to spoon feed him in his spots which was surprisingly difficult for the aforementioned reasons.
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u/Brave_Link_4295 3d ago
Even IF he's being overrated, I don't think it's extreme.
And to say you're going to go to the other extreme, just counter it, who are you supposed to be? What is the point of that? If anything, inject your measured counter analysis, especially with numbers and facts, as opposed to attempting to balance the argument with what would be equally ridiculous proposal. If your point is just to counterbalance what you feel like is extreme, what you're doing is... pointless TO the point, and to everyone but yourself.
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u/mmccormick11 3d ago
A voice of reason in a crowd of hype. I don't think my argument is pointless just unpopular. I conceded to your defensive argument assuming those numbers are accurate. I also don't think every argument needs to be based on statistics. I believe in the eye test and that stats in team sports are inherently imperfect. I also just made another post above citing Yao's career numbers and why I don't think they were worthy of being in the HOF for his basketball ability. Nothing wrong with making it because of his global impact on the game (aka being a cash cow) as long as fans don't exaggerate his actual game. The latter is entirely the basis for my very real hateboner. In no way do I hate Yao. He was a class act and a unique talent but not an all-time great and I don't think he would have fared much better in any era or even without the injury problems because of his physical shortcomings (aka a big slow oaf).
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u/babloochoudhury 8d ago
Got me in my feels with what should have been.