Yao is tall and good

Last night ESPN had a special Sunday NBA broadcast, in celebration of the big game between Shaq’s Heat and Yao’s (aka “not T-Mac’s”) Rockets.

What 2-3 years ago was an epic battle between the league’s last great center and it’s potential next great center is now, unfortunately, a one-sided slap-fight attended by the league’s only great center.

(We have a feeling that last sentence is a mess, but we’re having trouble typing, and aren’t gonna fix it. For example, here’s all the different ways we spelled “center” before getting it right: cneter, centre, entcre, ccentr, & beef.)

Yeah – so like the Rockets won and crap. By a lot.

Plus, Yao dominated Shaq. By a lot.

34/17 vs Shaq’s 15/10. Let’s move on before this post gets any longer. By a bunch.

“Every time I score against him, I’m happy like a kid,” Yao said of O’Neal. “I feel like a kid getting candy on Halloween because it’s really too hard to score against him. Too hard. He’s just great.

“He is the dominant center in this league, even at his age. He’s not the same in the regular season as he is in the playoffs. Like last year. If it was the playoffs, I would have seen a totally different Shaq. I would say the regular season doesn’t matter. Maybe one day I could meet him in the Finals.”

Okay, it’s time to quit dancing around this “Shaq kinda isn’t all that great anymore” talk. Look at Yao – he’s all like “If it had been the playoffs blah blah balkman.”

Yeah if it’d been the playoffs, Shaq would’ve been worse, based on last year’s postseason. Let’s move on the Ira Winderman’s take on the game. More dancing.

The game’s most dominant big man? After this, and perhaps one or two more, could there be any debate?

Clearly, he’s giving himself a buffer period, so that Shaq doesn’t yell at him in the locker room. Furthermore, he names no names, which means he can recalibrate that sentence to mean whatever he wants later.

This is a clever and popular new strategy. Check Dwyane Wade himself out.

Miami’s Dwyane Wade, who made eight of 22 shots for his customary 24 points, said, “We know who the best center in the league is.”

We do? Oh yeah – it’s Yao.

Look, we love Shaq. One of the all-time greats both on the court and off. Facts is facts though, and there’s no shame in saying it at this point:

Antoine Walker is still fat and we all know about dominate centers. The center is the center. Good, bad, the other way. Up, down, up down, left right, l eft right, ab start. That’s it – we said it.