Yao Ming Puns

Let put some career stats and accomplishments for comparison:

Yao: 8x All Star, 5x ALL NBA, 2002-2003 ALL-Rookie, 4 Playoff years (28 Playoff games)

Jokic: 3x All star (4 if you count this seasons), 3x All NBA, 2020-2021 MVP, 2015-2016 ALL- Rookie, 3 Playoff years (43 Playoff games)

Source: https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/m/mingya01.html

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/jokicni01.html

2K22 is the first 2K that I’ve decided to actually put some effort into MyTeam, but I haven’t felt inclined to grind for any of the level 40 rewards thus far. As you can probably tell by the name of this post, I’ve changed my mind. To say I NEED this Yao would be an understatement. However, I’m not entirely sure how I should go about trying to hit level 40. Is there a certain strategy I should utilize to hit level 40 or would it happen just by playing the game? Certain game modes I should play for xp? Just looking for some advice from people who’ve hit level 40 in the past.

When we getting a Yao moment?

Yao (40 years old) put in a respectable 9-year career (albeit, with one year off due to injury) with 8 all-star appearances. He retired over a decade ago. Meanwhile, Udonis Haslem, a few months older than Yao, is still on an NBA roster. Wild.

I know he made the all star game every year he played, but that included a year he played 5 games because of Chinese people voting him in so idk how trustworthy that is. His best season he averaged 25/9 on 51/0/86 shooting.

I never got to see him play, but what was his perception around the league? Was he a gimmicky player like most 7'4"+ guys, or was he considered a legit star? Was he exciting to watch?

We had a discussion a couple months ago about expanding the timeframe for this sub past 2000 (link), so we're trying this out. I'm all about us having some discussions about events, teams, and players from the first half of the 2000's (or really up through the '06 season for a few reasons discussed at the link above), but I don't want it to turn into simplistic, overly-discussed topics. Here is a list of all the early-2000's player discussions so far.

Here's a little info about the most notable early-2000's players with a birthday in early/mid-Sept:

• Ben Wallace (career stats) - Starting center on the All-Defense-No-Offense all-star team (sorry Nate Thurmond, but you scored too many points compared to Ben, lol). He was an undersized C who was 4x Defensive POTY ('02, '03, '05, '06) and made 2nd- or 3rd-team NBA for 5 consecutive seasons ('02-06). Top-5 in blocks/game from '02-05 and in rebs/game from '01-06. Obviously he was the man down low for the '04 Pistons who were great defensively.

• Yao Ming (career stats) - Huge center from China (7-foot-6, 310 pounds), drafted #1 in '02, and was 2nd- or 3rd-team NBA 5x between '04-09. Yao was consistently very good from '04-09, but also consistently injured. He was an interesting and worthy foil of sorts to Shaq throughout his career; Yao was certainly more of a shooter and a finesse player than Shaq (ex: career .833 FT%) but had the size to bang with him down low.

• Jason Terry (career stats) - "The Jet" was a combo guard best known for winning the 6MOTY Award in '09 and a title with Dallas in '11, but he also notably played forever (19 seasons) and hit the 7th-most 3's in NBA history. He had great consistency for 12 straight seasons ('01-12), averaging a consistent 17-3-5 during that stretch with the Hawks and Mavericks, even while coming off the bench for the last 4 of those seasons.

Bill Russell, Kareem, Shaq, Wilt, and Hakeem. Those are the only dudes I would definitely put over Yao's hypothetical ceiling. Some names right outside I have mixed in with this Yao ceiling is Moses Malone, David Robinson, and Patrick Ewing. I think Yao's ceiling is very competitive/even with these guys (much better defenders but even these dudes weren't up to Yao's peak offense skill...it's a 7'6 dude that was the team's designated FT shooter)

Dwight Howard was the unquestioned top center of the late aughts. General numbers, completely healthy, DPOY, and a Finals run. But even during this upswing prime, he didn't really have anything for a healthy Yao

https://www.landofbasketball.com/games_between/dwight_howard_vs_yao_ming.htm#:~:text=Yao%20Ming%20has%20a%207%2D2%20winning%20record%20over%20Dwight%20Howard.

Check the numbers. In Yao's short career, he overlapped with Dwight's upswing. Yet Yao's Rockets were 7-2 vs Dwight's Magic. And the individual numbers are a landslide. 24/10 for Yao. 12/10 for Dwight. Again, Prime Dwight. It's not a large sample, but 7-2 on 9 games with those numbers is also not just a random blip

Their timelines being a bit off negates this a bit but he's also literally the only rival of Shaq's that Shaq would give respect to in real time. That shit was earned. Right from the first game

Just a damn shame human feet on a 7'6 dude weren't really meant to withstand NBA basketball for too long and people have short memories

The youngest player ever drafted, Andrew Bynum was 2x champ, All-Star, and All-NBA by age 24.

In his breakout season in 2011, Bynum averaged 18.7 PPG, 11.8 RPG, and 1.9 BPG on 55.8 FG%. He took the next year off due to injury and could never recover.

Bynum is now only 33. To put it in perspective, 33 year-old Shaq was averaging 20 PPG, 9.2 RPG, and 1.8 BPG on 60% FG during his second season with the Miami Heat. Without his career-ending injury, we might be discussing Bynum's place amongst the greatest centers of all time as he enters the tail-end of his career.

Which brings me to my comparison - Yao Ming. At age 24, Yao average similar numbers to Bynum in just his 3rd season in the NBA - 18.3 PPG, 8.4 RPG, and 2.0 BPG on 55% FG. Yao best scoring season came two years laters in 2006, where he averaged 25 PPG, 9.4 RPG, and 2.0 BPG on 51.6% FG.

Had Yao and Bynum not been injured, who ends up with the more successful NBA career?

Does Bynum become the next dominant big man, or does he fade into a role player a la post-Magic Dwight?

Does Yao keep blossoming into an agile, Hakeem-like center, or does he start focusing primarily on his outside game, a la KAT or Aldridge?

Ultimately, where would they cement themselves within the All-Time great centers of the NBA?