Metta Sandiford-Artest played with some great players in his 17-year NBA career, but no one was quite as dominant as Yao Ming.
“The best team I’ve ever played on, they’re probably, Kobe’s just incredible, but I think the team with Yao Ming,” Artest said. “I just never seen nothing like it. That guy’s different. Playing with him, (it) was so easy to win… I’ve never played with anyone as dominant.”
Metta World Peace on Yao Ming:
“I just never seen nothing like it. Like that guy's different. Playing with him it was so easy to win. It is so easy to win. I've never played with anyone as dominant." https://t.co/wcOu2ROfKK
— NBA Retweet (@RTNBA) October 6, 2023
Artest, of course, played with the late great Kobe Bryant on the Los Angeles Lakers, and you’d think he’d be the obvious pick here. Bryant is widely regarded as one of the 10 greatest players in NBA history, but Artest believes the 7’6″ Yao was more dominant.
Yao Ming’s NBA Career
Ming was selected with the first pick of the 2002 NBA Draft by the Houston Rockets, but many had doubts about just how good he’d be. He showed flashes of greatness in his first season, averaging 13.5 points, 8.2 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 0.4 steals, and 1.8 blocks per game, to make the All-Rookie First Team.
He would steadily improve as the years went by and had the best season of his career in 2006-07, averaging 25.0 points, 9.4 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 0.4 steals, and 2.0 blocks per game. It was the season before this one, though, that Yao started to miss time due to injuries.
After playing 244 out of 246 games in his first three campaigns, Ming only played 160 in the next three. The 2008-09 season gave some hope that the injury bug might stay away as he featured in 77 games, but Yao suffered an injury in Game 3 of the second round of the playoffs against the Lakers.
It would sideline him for the entire 2009-10 season and then in 2010-11, he’d only play in 5 games. His contract with the Rockets expired in 2011 and not too long after, Yao retired. He finished his NBA career with averages of 19.0 points, 9.2 rebounds, 1.6 assists, 0.4 steals, and 1.9 blocks per game, and you were left wondering what might have been.
The 2008-09 Rockets Nearly Pulled Off The Impossible
Artest and Ming were teammates on the 2008-09 Rockets, and they were a special team. It might well have been the best team Artest had been on, and they nearly pulled off the impossible.
Those Rockets were led by Yao and Tracy McGrady, but the latter went down with a season-ending injury in February. Despite McGrady’s absence, the Rockets still won 53 games and made it to the Conference Semifinals, where they took on Kobe and the Lakers.
They shockingly won Game 1, but the Lakers responded by winning the next two. Game 3 saw Yao suffer the injury I mentioned earlier, and the Rockets seemed doomed at that point. What chance did they have against this dominant Lakers squad without their two superstars?
Well, while everyone had written them off, the Rockets stunned the basketball world by taking the Lakers to a deciding Game 7. They were just one win away from one of the greatest upsets in NBA history, but the Lakers ensured it wasn’t to be, winning 89-70 to advance to the Conference Finals.
You wonder how different NBA history would have been had the Rockets been healthy. They could have been the ones lifting the trophy, not the Lakers, come the end of that season, and we might have looked at Bryant’s career quite differently than we do now.
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