Regarding his historical center ranking, you can refer to the confrontation records with O 'Neill and Howard. In his career against O 'Neill, he averaged 17.6+9.6+2+ 1.5, and O 'Neill averaged 21.1.65438+2.4+2.6. Yao Ming is the player who makes O 'Neill's defense more difficult, and Yao Ming's defense also makes O 'Neill's defense more difficult.
Yao Ming, the pinnacle of Yao Ming, suppressed Howard, the man who changed James. Yao Ming played against Howard 9 times in his career, 7 wins and 2 losses, averaging 23.6 points 10.4 rebounds 2. 1 blocked shots, while Howard only had 12.2 points, 9.8 rebounds10.7 blocked shots. Yao Ming is the best offensive center after O 'Neal.
In the historical PER ranking of NBA, Yao Ming ranked 2nd1with a PER of 23.0, which tied with Kobe Bryant. The only centers ahead of Yao Ming are Kareem Abdul Jabbar (6th), shaquille o'neal (4th), karl malone (12), wilt chamberlain (9th), david robinson (5th), tim duncan (14), charles barkley (12) and Hakim. In other words, if we simply look at the performance data, Yao Ming is the ninth center in NBA history, while Howard, Nowitzki, Garnett, Gasol and others are not as good as Yao Ming.
Of course, an objective reason for Yao Ming's high PER value is that he only played eight full seasons in the NBA and basically retired at the peak, so his personal data has not been affected by the twilight of his career, unlike other inside players who experienced a sharp decline in personal data in the last few years, which dragged down the overall PER value. Although Yao Ming only played for eight years, he failed to leave more achievements and win more honors. But in any case, Dayao was elected to the Hall of Fame on 16, and this honor is already a good affirmation for him.
But even with this objective factor, there is no denying that Yao Ming was indeed one of the best centers in the NBA at the peak. Therefore, there is no doubt that Yao Ming has entered the top 20 centers in NBA history, and he can even be said to be one of the top 10 centers in NBA history.