Injuries aside … I really wish Yao / Rockets spent more time developing his outside game. He had a great midrange but barely shot it. It could have been extremely helpful when teams were fronting and doubling him. Yao was dominant but extremely one-dimensional. Deny him the ball and he’s done for. Fail to do that then it’s an automatic 2 against you. I wonder what type of career he would have had if he kept the slender more agile frame he had in his rookie season. Regardless the Rockets ****ed up bad not getting Yao/Mac help in the earlier years and then waiting too long to trade Tmac’s corpse. That Lakers series really summed up Yao’s career. Championship potential WHEN HEALTHY … but he was never healthy.
Referees had no idea what to do with him. Probably got more no-calls than any player in NBA in history. Not allowing players to crawl and scratch all over him would’ve helped. Not to mention he should have had at least been shooting 5 or 6 extra free throws per game and was something like an 85% free throw shooter. You do the math.
Carroll Dawson ruined him. He had a great pick an pop, but Dawson wanted him to bulk up and play in the post.
Yao basketball skills, and IQ wise is one of the best centers in history... The excessive bulking in the 00's era killed his career. All centers at the time was bulky and they tried matching him. Today's NBA would have been different. Guarding the likes of Jokic, Embiid, with this lazy ass defense era.... = much longer and successful career.
Shaq professionally hates on 99% of big men and CLOWNS on Dwight ... but respects Yao. That says it all really.
At Yao's peak/prime, if we were going up against a prime Shaq I would not worry about that matchup. That's how good he was. Not only could you rely on him, but you were almost certain that he could rise to any occasion and surprise you as well. He was tremendous in big moments and big games. Teams used to shift massive chunks of their offense into jumpshots just because Yao was patrolling inside. You'd constantly see players taking jumpshots they wouldn't otherwise take. His defense was very underrated. In 2006-2007, he was certainly an MVP calibre player at age 26. He was averaging 25 points (would have easily been 30+ points these days) and patrolling the 3rd best defense in the NBA. Our guard rotation was an absolute joke defensively featuring Luther Head, John Lucas III, Tracy McGrady and Rafer Alston. It was an atrocious collection of players around Yao and the inconsistent T-Mac plus JVG had 0 creativity on offense. That was a championship calibre Yao if you ask me. His jumper was fluid, post game solid and understood what it takes to win a game. It's a shame he didn't have a more winning-oriented sidekick than T-Mac and Steve Francis.
I remember everyone complaining for several seasons about us not having someone competent at the entry pass. We also never had someone maximizing his offensive skills coaching wise. Everyone was trying to make him adjust to their style, you can argue he is a pretty unique player. Also, some of our roster moved did not help as much as we planned. The Eddie Griffin trade cost a lot of draft capital, gave the Nets 1 starter and a couple of rotation players and the guy could not get out of the potential phase. We tried Maurice Taylor too. Best partners were Chuck Hayes and Luis Scola I believe.
He was great until he became injury prone. It was unfortunate that his coach coming into the NBA was JVG though whose only idea of how to use a big man was to bulk him up and had him pound the ball inside over and over. That he also had to play for China in worthless global games year after year was unfortunate as well.
