Congratulations to The Great Wall. A great Rocket. Love me some Yao. http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/15098603/yao-ming-inducted-naismith-memorial-basketball-hall-fame
Serious? In his prime, was the best big man in the game. Better than Dwight, better than the aged Shaq. If he does not injure his foot in last playoffs (with Artest), then Kobe does not win his 5th ring. Yao's problem was longevity due to injuries, not production.
The former Rockets center will be among the inductees in the Class of 2016 after being elected in his first year of eligibility, per ESPN's Calvin Watkins and multiple reports.
Top 1-2 big men in the game during his tenure, ambassador for the NBA to a new burgeoning market of 1 billion people, perennial All Star, put up almost 20/10 over his career... dude was a lock to be HOF.
Hard to believe he played 7 seasons (not counting his last which was only 5 games). It was totally wasted, too, as we got jack to show for it. The Rockets are good at wasting talent. Now, we're wasting Harden and Howard because we got a bunch of non-impact inconsistent role players (I'll exclude Beasly because he's better than that) around them. Such a shame.
He deserved it. Unfortunately, he got too heavy trying to compete with Shaq and his feet crumbled under him.
I don't think it was wasted. From 2004-2007 the role players around T-Mac and Yao were pretty bad, I agree, but from then on we had some pretty high impact guys. Landry, Scola, Lowry, Brooks, Rafer was good on his hot streaks, Deke put in some work despite his age, Hayes was a defensive standout. It all came down to injury trouble imo. That's something you can't really account for.
If Daryl Morey was around starting with Yao's career, we could have gotten to a few WCF's in the mid 2000's.
I disagree. I think the main reason his career was cut short was because of his obligations to the Chinese national team. He had to devote himself to it every NBA off-season, and as a result, his body was never able to relax from the grind of the long season. Eventually this caught up to him and prematurely ended his career.
That is one of the craziest posts I have seen on this forum. Yao Ming is 100% deserving of being in the HOF.
