Yao or Dwight?

[TMU]

yao >>>>>russel, prime shaq and all those bigs combine, so il go for yao

I am not sure if you are being sarcastic, but this is a ridiculous comment.

[bballmaniac27]

Actually, I still think Yao is the better player. Dwight was very dissapointing the the Detroit series.

However, I would rather have Dwight for my team, because of age and health reasons.

[Iggyemu]

Actually, I still think Yao is the better player. Dwight was very dissapointing the the Detroit series.

However, I would rather have Dwight for my team, because of age and health reasons.

Oh yea Yao was just great against Utah last year.

[bballmaniac27]

Well I won't deny that Yao sucked balls vs Utah last year, but you have to understand that people were really overrating Dwight before that series with Detroit. I remember a thread where numerous magic homers stated that they would rather take Dwight to start a franchise over Shaq. Those same fans were saying how Dwight right now is better than a young Shaq.

Anyways, the Magic/Pistons series showed me something. Although, Dwight has improved his offensive skills he's still not ready or able to carry a team. When he got the ball more than a few feet out of the paint, he was constantly throwing the ball at the hoop hoping for a lucky bounce. Also, when he wasn't getting any calls he got fustrated and that in turn caused his defense and rebounding to drop. Another thing I've in his game is his tendency to be shut down in the late minutes of the fourth quarter. His teammates are often unwilling to get him the ball because of his high turnover rate and his inability to shoot freethrows.

Just a note to all the Magic fans before they stone me. I'm not hating on Dwight and I really think he has the potential to be a top 5 Center of all time. I may seem overly critical but these are all valid points that he needs to address before he can take his game to the next level. Anyways, I think Dwight's a class act, and I believe he will definitely be the better player in his prime (compared to Yao) But right now, I truly believe that Yao is still the better individual player.

[bigbreakfast]

I love Yao. He's my favorite current NBA player. But to sum it up if I were the Rox management I would not hesitate to trade Yao for Dwight right now for all of the reasons already mentioned.
BUT I do think D12's sometimes overrated by alot of the media and fans, he was consistently in the mix for MVP talk but he wasn't in the top 5 imo, nor was he head and shoulders above Yao in the MVP race (when Yao was healthy) imo. His inside footwork needs alot of work, so does his handling of double teams. His defense, both individual and help isn't great yet, but I think he'll get there because he's not physically limited (laterally challenged) like Yao is. This also goes with another one of my beliefs, is that the media and the fans tend to far overrate athletic shot blocking as great defense. To compare Dwight to Shaq at the same point of their NBA careers is off imo, because from what I've seen shaq had better footwork than dwight, but one factor to consider is that dwight never had the chance to go ot college, so the comparison isnt a slight to dwight.

edit: yea boozer killed yao offensively in that playoff series 2 years ago - but when will a talented offensive and mobile PF NOT kill a traditional type center, especially given the pick n rolls? What people fail to see is that Yao was guarded by a collapsing team defense while Yao took the job of guarding Boozer largely himself. Utah just did a great job exploiting his weakness on defense and smothered him on offense - had we had the same complement of skilled PFs we have today, the series would've been very different.

[magicfan4life05]

Well I won't deny that Yao sucked balls vs Utah last year, but you have to understand that people were really overrating Dwight before that series with Detroit. I remember a thread where numerous magic homers stated that they would rather take Dwight to start a franchise over Shaq. Those same fans were saying how Dwight right now is better than a young Shaq.

Anyways, the Magic/Pistons series showed me something. Although, Dwight has improved his offensive skills he's still not ready or able to carry a team. When he got the ball more than a few feet out of the paint, he was constantly throwing the ball at the hoop hoping for a lucky bounce. Also, when he wasn't getting any calls he got fustrated and that in turn caused his defense and rebounding to drop. Another thing I've in his game is his tendency to be shut down in the late minutes of the fourth quarter. His teammates are often unwilling to get him the ball because of his high turnover rate and his inability to shoot freethrows.

Just a note to all the Magic fans before they stone me. I'm not hating on Dwight and I really think he has the potential to be a top 5 Center of all time. I may seem overly critical but these are all valid points that he needs to address before he can take his game to the next level. Anyways, I think Dwight's a class act, and I believe he will definitely be the better player in his prime (compared to Yao) But right now, I truly believe that Yao is still the better individual player.

This is great, objective, and spot on analysis. Well said.

[Lakers_4_Life]

Yao Ming easily.

[HoustonRockets]

okay dont get me wrong... howard is a beast... but yao is not some scrub now people... he has better offensive game and skill set than howard...

and in my opinion yao is more of a concern to other teams than howard is...

Check your PM
-Vator-

[A.J.]

Thank you guys for repling to this thread, I just wanted to see what you guys thought who was better, cause I thought Yao was better and the more I thought about it, I think bother are equal, but Dwight has more potential than Yao.

[Teckon]

Yao offensively is significantly better than Dwight but Dwight is not significantly better than Yao defensively. It all depend what kind of center do you want/need for your team.

Reading this threads, most will prefer Dwight due to Yao's durability. However, people tend to forget Yao was very durable in his first 3 seasons and then a freak injury started the next sequences of injuries in the seasons followed.

Remember the Amare vs Yao argument earlier, many had argued that Amare might be better then. When Amare had to perform microsurgeries on his knees, suddenly the majority believed Yao being a better bet. Now Yao suffers some injuries, Dwight is deemed a better bet. See the trend? The truth is big men are easier prone to injuries as they get older. Dwight is still young but he is just one major freak injury from being having a question mark in term of durability like Amare and Yao.

[NothingButNet]

I prefer Dwight over Yao too bro but come on what the hell you are talking about in scoring???
Yao is a much better scroer than Dwight , not even close , Dwight gets all off his points from offensive rebounds, alleyoops and pick n rolls.
Very very few from his post game up which still stinks.

That's pretty much all our offense allows him to do. Do you expect him to completely ruin the flow of a 52-win season just to prove he can score without a pick and roll or an alley-oop?

[Baller 24]

I prefer Dwight over Yao too bro but come on what the hell you are talking about in scoring???
Yao is a much better scroer than Dwight , not even close , Dwight gets all off his points from offensive rebounds, alleyoops and pick n rolls.
Very very few from his post game up which still stinks.

That's pretty much all our offense allows him to do. Do you expect him to completely ruin the flow of a 52-win season just to prove he can score without a pick and roll or an alley-oop?

I think if Dwight uses his footwork right, and uses his body inside he can become a very good player, rather then just a dunker inside. And like Amare, if he works on that mid range jumper, it can be deadly for the Magic. Basically offensivly he should just learn from Amare, defensively he is light years ahead of him, Amare might get the blocks but man to man defense Amare is just a joke.

[awhite]

Yao's 2007 playoff performance has really been blown out of proportion. He didn't play to his potential, but he wasn't nearly as bad as people seem to remember him being. The numbers:

Yao: 25.1 PPG, .56 TS%, 10.3 RPG (3.3 OFF), 4.7 TO
Boozer: 24.6 PPG, .54 TS%, 11.0 RPG (2.4 OFF), 2.6 TO

Yao looked bad in the series because (1) he had a low FG%, though his TS% was actually better than Boozer's due to so many free throws, (2) he turned the ball over too much, and (3) Boozer couldn't miss a mid-range jump shot.

A related myth is that Deke shut down Boozer this year -- the truth is that Boozer had been in a slump for all of April before the playoffs even started (check the box scores for Utah's games) and Deke just sagged back, allowing Boozer to take the same mid-range shot that killed us in 07. He just missed this year.

Anyway, as to the topic at hand, I think Yao is a better player right now but injuries are a major concern going forward and Dwight has more potential. So if I had to pick one for my team, Dwight is the safer pick.

[moofs]

Thank you guys for repling to this thread, I just wanted to see what you guys thought who was better, cause I thought Yao was better and the more I thought about it, I think bother are equal, but Dwight has more potential than Yao.

Bigbreakfast and bballmaniac's posts on page 3 are both great.

I think I'm one of a small number of people who still think Yao isn't injury prone, but has just been very unlucky the last few years.