Yao: Wow!

About a year ago, I seem to recall that the CW had sort of settled on the idea that Yao Ming was "overrated." Not that he was actually overrated as such, but he was super-famous and people felt his game didn't live up to that hype or to his high draft status. In fact, at the time he was already a very good player. But since then he has, without a lot of attention, become, well, totally awesome. In the 25 games he played after the All-Star break last season he averaged 25.7 points (on 53.7 field goal shooting), 11.6 rebounds, and 1.8 blocks. So far this year, he's averaging 27.3 points, 10 rebounds, 2 blocks, and 1.9 assists on 59 percent field goal shooting with a 88 percent free throw shooting. And unlike a lot of guys who've been great out-of-the-gate this year, based on his performance in the second half of last season there's very good reason to think he can sustain it season-long.

Thanks to the way he dominated Shaq (who, to be fair, has been a shadow of his former self for some time now) last night, I don't think this is going to be going unnoticed much longer.

Comments

Shaq (who, to be fair, has been a shadow of his former self for some time now)

It's difficult to sustain excellence in general. When the main source of your excellence is enormity, you have an additional problem, because you wear down faster if you're big. Yao won't be great for very long, either.

Posted by dj moonbat | November 13, 2006 12:50 PM

What I can't understand is why everyone, but everyone, doesn't refer to Mr. Ming as "Chairman Yao" and/or "The Chairman" almost exclusively. It seems so obvious. So what happened? Did SportsCenter drop the ball or is someone else to blame?

Posted by sp | November 13, 2006 12:51 PM

What I can't understand is why everyone, but everyone, doesn't refer to Mr. Ming as "Chairman Yao" and/or "The Chairman" almost exclusively. It seems so obvious.

Especially in a sport where "Great Leap Forward" jokes should be so plentiful.

Posted by dj moonbat | November 13, 2006 12:54 PM

Might there be some sensitivity over the whole communism thing? Would we nickname a Russian player Stalin?

Posted by Al | November 13, 2006 12:59 PM

Might there be some sensitivity over the whole communism thing? Would we nickname a Russian player Stalin?

China is still nominally Communist. It's tough to imagine Yao taking offense.

Posted by dj moonbat | November 13, 2006 1:01 PM

On Matthew's post, what stands out to me is just how efficient Yao is. His FG% is great for a guy who shoots a lot farther away than Shaq ever did. And his FT% is awesome. I'm duly impressed. Now if McGrady can get on track, the Rockets should have a dangerous team.

(OT - but I mentioned on one of the pre-season threads that I underrated Agent Zero because he always plays bad against NJ. Last night, case in point: 6-23 shooting? Yeck. Nonetheless, as a newly-minted fantasy owner of him, I am more impressed by his daily racking up of stats.)

Posted by Al | November 13, 2006 1:06 PM

It's tough to imagine Yao taking offense

I don't think he'd take offense. I think some of us would take offense.

Posted by Al | November 13, 2006 1:07 PM

Because there are uses of "Chairman" as a part of nicknames that are unrelated to China, I suspect. "Chairman of the boards," etc.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | November 13, 2006 1:15 PM

A lot of people noticed last year that Yao was starting to look dangerously good. I remember some people claiming that it was because he was developing a mean streak. But I think at the end of the year most of the pundits want to talk about players on title-threat teams. You know, b/c Dwayne Wade is obviously the best player in the league b/c his team won the title.

I expect as this season wears on, Yao's emergence will not go overlooked.

Also, I expect Shaq will see a big drop off this year even from last. The guy has always had trouble staying in shape- and now he has is post Kobe title. Without that motivation I see this as the year his contribution really plummets.

Posted by mpowell | November 13, 2006 1:17 PM

i haven't followed coach van gundy that closely in houston, but as the knicks coach, he was one of the very few in the business who actually improved his players. Generally, i divide coaches into two main categories - leaders and strategists, with some overlapping both - but van gundy is one of the few in pro sports who actually develops talent....

Posted by howard | November 13, 2006 2:04 PM

Also, I expect Shaq will see a big drop off this year even from last. The guy has always had trouble staying in shape- and now he has is post Kobe title.

I do not know WTF is up with all the Shaq haters. I never much liked the guy (although I loved that he seemed invariably stoned to the bone during interviews), but Holy Shit! people:

- Orlando Magic finals (and really--do we ever hear about how good Penny Hardaway is anymore?)

- 3 Laker rings

- 1 Heat ring

In a 14 year career, he's won 4 championships, and come close with an otherwise crappy team. Sure, the man is slowing down, but that's not unexpected after draggin 300 pounds of carcass up and down a hardwood floor for 14 years.

Posted by dj moonbat | November 13, 2006 2:07 PM

turnovers and fouls are his weaknesses, but yeah, the rockets even use him to shoot free throws for illegal defense.

Posted by paperpusher | November 13, 2006 2:12 PM

Yao's a mere 7'6". I heard some disgruntled Celtics fans the other day saying the Cs should target some prospect out of China who's 7'9". Nobody seemed to have a name, however.

Posted by Jasper | November 13, 2006 2:27 PM

Yao seems to be in better cardiovascular shape this year. that will allow him to extend his previous flashes of excellence into consitent excellence.

another interesting aspect of his emergence is that while other teams are going small ball and the league is trending small and fast, teams have let go of their big stiffs in favor of more hybrid players. the spurs traded nesterovich and let nazr mohhamed walk in order to match up better with the mavs and suns. now the the spurs are like nearly every other teams without a big dummy to guard (foul) yao.

Posted by MP | November 13, 2006 2:29 PM

"and really--do we ever hear about how good Penny Hardaway is anymore?"

No, because injuries limited his career. At the time, though, he was really, really good. All NBA first team good. A 21 point, 7 rebound, 5 assist guy who shot above 50% from the field. Shaq was better, certainly, but had he stayed healthy, Hardaway was on the way to a hall of fame career. Shaq was better, for sure, but Hardaway was awfully good himself.

Posted by Doug T | November 13, 2006 2:39 PM

and really--do we ever hear about how good Penny Hardaway is anymore?

Is that a joke? Go back and look at tape of pre-injury Penny. Or, hell, the pre-Jordan '96 Magic.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | November 13, 2006 2:41 PM

Is that a joke? Go back and look at tape of pre-injury Penny. Or, hell, the pre-Jordan '96 Magic.

No, that's not a joke. When you look at tape of post-Shaq Penny, he's just not that great. There's this magical coincidence where Shaq just happens to end up on a team with some kickass hybrid of a point guard and shooting guard--except it's not a coincidence at all. Defenses collapse around Shaq, leaving whoever is the best athlete on the team to look like a world-beater.

Posted by dj moonbat | November 13, 2006 2:55 PM

Every guard that's ever played with Shaq has looked awesome whether that is Penny, Kobe, or Dwayne Wade. Shaq is that good.

Posted by Chad | November 13, 2006 3:04 PM

Post-Shaq, pre-injury is the '96-'97 season. Statistics can be found here. His assists decreased by a little more than one a game, but he was playing without Shaq and with a suddenly useless Nick Anderson. Other than that, no appreciable change from prior to Shaq's exit.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | November 13, 2006 3:16 PM

Yao finally got a break from the Chinese national team this summer. They had been working quite hard to shorten his career as much as possible up to now by beating the hell out of him every summer. Considering all the problems he's had in his career with fatigue, his hot start may be the result of him finally getting some rest.

Posted by owenz | November 13, 2006 3:20 PM

The problem with the "Shaq makes any old guard look great" argument is that Penny post-Shaq, Kobe post-Shaq, and Wade pre-Shaq all looked nearly as good as they did with Shaq. There's some drop-off, to be sure, since without Shaq they get more defensive attention and are/were forced to take more shots. But it's not like they suddenly went from great players to mediocre or even just very good players.

Posted by Doug T | November 13, 2006 3:35 PM

The point is not that Shaq makes "any old guard" look great. After all, nobody thinks Nick Anderson or Scott Skiles was good. The thing is that Shaq draws, say, 25% more attention from a defense than the average center, because if they don't, well... In that environment, a very good perimeter/slashing scorer is going to turn into an All Pro.

People used to talk about Penny like he was the next Jordan. If you want, you can attribute the lack of such talk nowadays to injury. I think it might have something to do with lack-o'-Shaq.

Posted by dj moonbat | November 13, 2006 4:06 PM

Every guard that's ever played with Shaq has looked awesome whether that is Penny, Kobe, or Dwayne Wade. Shaq is that good.

Yeah, Kobe's game really fell apart last season in Post-Shaq Year 1 (rolls eyes).

Posted by Jimmm | November 13, 2006 4:09 PM

Yao has really come on strong so far this year.

But his restaurant is overpriced for so so food.

Posted by Davebo | November 13, 2006 4:42 PM

This is the 7-foot-9 guy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Ming_Ming

Apparently he's pretty skilled but very, very slow.

Posted by too many steves | November 13, 2006 5:41 PM

dj moonbat, for the record, i thought, even when anfernee was healthy, that caling him the next jordan was insane.

what he was was the next pippen, and had it not been for injuries, i think he would be recognized as same....

Posted by howard | November 13, 2006 6:17 PM

He wasn't Pippen: better on offense and much worse on defense. But he was probably one of the top five to ten players in the league. Put it this way: people keep predicting that Sean Livingston will be a big star, and what they are hoping is that he'll turn into Penny.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | November 13, 2006 6:54 PM

Actually, I'm not a Shaq hater at all. In his prime, he was a force of nature. I'm actually a big Laker fan. I've been watching Shaq play for the last 10 years. And I have to tell you, even in his last year as a Laker, he wasn't even close to the same player he was 4 years earlier. Its not just in his numbers, which did decline. You could just see it in the way he pushed around other players. Let me tell you something: nobody stopped Shaq in the 200-2002 era around the hoop. To see him get blocked or pushed around or boxed out later on... it was unsettling. I appreciate the problems associated w/ carrying 300 lbs around the floor for 14 years. And I saw where he was at last year, more motivated than he had been in years. And I've seen what happens to the man when he loses motivation. And I'm telling you, at this stage of his career, lacking motivation, there's no telling how far his effectiveness will drop off.

Posted by mpowell | November 13, 2006 7:06 PM

Penny Hardaway, for all his faults mental and physical, had elements of real greatness in his game. They were last on display when he led a Jason Kidd-less Suns team past the first round and into a well-fought match-up against a Kobe-led Lakers team a few playoff years ago. This was after disastrous micro-fracture surgery and debilitating foot ailments. The guy was amazing. What could have been.....

Posted by prosthesis | November 13, 2006 7:43 PM

i think yao stays great for a long time. he's tall enough he doesn't need to jump, should be able to pull a kareem or arvidas b/c he's got skills, not just bulk (ahem). and he made a turnaround jumper from about 15 feet out that was just scary for a guy his size. (how long did rick smits stick around?)

(as for the spurs comments, um, they got another 7 footer back for rasho, one who's way faster, fabricio's about same as nazzy, there's the guy from the knicks, etc. so i can't see how they haven't improved their ability to defend someone like yao (as opposed to someone like shaq, where you need a kevin willis-type). and duncan can guard yao as well as anyone might.)

Posted by dj superflat | November 13, 2006 7:55 PM

Yao has the same thing going for him this year that Duncan does: For the first time in several years, he took the summer off. (Missing 25 games due to injury last year probably helped Yao too. The guy was simply worn down.)

Posted by dix hill | November 13, 2006 10:50 PM

Matt, I don't know what you've been reading, but most intelligent basketball writers that I have read over the past few years have said that Yao is underrated, not the opposite. It's been generally acknowledged that he had huge expectations placed on him coming to the league, and while he did not set the league on fire like some may have (irrationally) expected, he gives you 18-9-2 while shooting ~52% from the field, and you can count on one hand that's missing three fingers the centers who you can count on for those type of numbers night in and night out.

Posted by Aaron | November 13, 2006 11:00 PM

Oh, and the people suggesting that Penny Hardaway's talent was overstated because he played with Shaq are insane. The pre-injury Penny was a skinny Grant Hill with PG handles. He had unrealistic expectations heaped upon him as well, but that does not change the fact that he was an immensely talented basketball player.

Posted by Aaron | November 13, 2006 11:07 PM

Penny could not have carried a basketball team without Shaq. Everywhere Shaq goes, the team goes to the NBA finals.

Posted by dj moonbat | November 13, 2006 11:27 PM

you're mistaking correlation and causation. shaq gets to go where he wants, he wisely picked somewhere (miami) with a young star who pretty much singlehandedly got his team to the second round w/o shaq. d wade is all that, shaq was smart enough to go work for him. (as for the laker situation, shaq lucked into playing with the second coming of jordan.) not that shaq isn't great, but it's far from all him (w/o some awesome shooting guard, shaq's teams would all lost down the stretch where he becomes fairly worthless.

Posted by dj superflat | November 14, 2006 10:57 AM

What I can't understand is why everyone, but everyone, doesn't refer to Mr. Ming as "Chairman Yao" and/or "The Chairman" almost exclusively. It seems so obvious. So what happened? Did SportsCenter drop the ball or is someone else to blame?

BOW NOW TO CHAIRMAN YAO!!

My friend has a new nickname for him: The Panda Express.

When Yao throws a sick pass to T-Mac -- "T-Mac ordered a dish from The Panda Express"

Posted by James | November 27, 2006 4:17 AM