why is it the taller the player the worse the skills?

Question

well some can actually play like Wilt Chamberlin was really tall and he was awesome.

but then you have Shaq who can't really play that well....

why is this?

have you seen shaq try to shoot a free-throw?

Answer 1

because the bigger you are
the clumsier you are
its just the way it is
you dont see a seven footer do some fancy dribblin cuz hes got bigger legs to dribble through and bigger fingers to use

Answer 2

im not sure what you mean by can't play that well because Shaq is quite good no matter waht you think of him, he is one of the best centers of our generation. I think you may have a limited view of what skills are. you may think skills are the ability to shoot from a ways away or dribble past an opponent, which is something that big guys don't do because they aren't as good at that as the little guys. Butt he bigger guys have different skills like shot blocking, rebounding, and scoring down low without being blocked. They can back somebody down and score close to the basket which little guys have a much harder time doing. Most of the big guys you see aren't going to be outside shooting threes a lot, they're down low, that's why you have so many heights in basketball to do all those tasks. some heights are better equipped for certain skills than others.

Answer 3

This question is a sin. Shaq is awesome

But I would blame the fact that you "cannot teach height". Being a tall person, I have found skill is not as important for me to have because I'm tall

This is wrong though. If all tall basketball players tried extra hard and had good skills, we would just rock

Answer 4

actually height doesn't really matter in terms of skill in basketball. Shaq, Yao, Duncan are all great players but on the other side you have players like Jeff Foster and Kwame Brown who are not that good. you have the same with small guys too. Different players have different types of skills. Typically, guards have to make up for their lack of size by focusing on ballhandling, on ball defense and jump shooting while big men work on post skills and rebounding.

Answer 5

As you get bigger you lose coordination. This is why most taller players cannot shoot particularly well. There are exceptions however such as Dirk Nowitzki.

And Linda G what are you talking about? Michael Jordan was not one of the tallest players. He is only 6'6". The small forward, power forward, and center positions all have players that are taller than that. Michael Jordan was not known for his height.

Answer 6

Their skill is largely in their height, for what it is that they are needed to do. For most of them, you don't get to see their other skills, because utilizing their height is such an advantage, that it becomes their speciality. It's kind of like why pitchers in baseball aren't good hitters. It's because their specialty skill is more important than their hitting ability, so they don't take batting practice. But if they are better hitters than pitchers (like Babe Ruth for instance who started as a pitcher), they become specilists in hitting.

Shaq doesn't make his free throws because it's not important to him. He won't get benched for missing them, like other players would. If it was important, he would practice enough to make them.

The emergence of the big man guard, like Tracy McGrady at 6'10" is the illustration of height and other finisse skills. Also Magic Johnson at 6'9" (guard), Dirk Nowitzki at 7'0" (shooting speciality), and many others show that the taller players don't always have the worse skills. In fact there have been a lot of great 7'0" outside shooters. (Miami assistant coach Bob McAdoo for instance.)

Hakeem Olajuwon had all kinds of skills, but they needed him to play the "big man" so you never got a chance to see it.

Answer 7

Its not worst the skills...... It's how you play the game.
Shaq is dominant in the post, Yao Ming is pretty dominant too. The only difference is tall players cant really handle the ball well against shorter guys because it'll get stolen. But the bad thing for the shorter players are you can't really block the tall guys....
So, it's the same.....
Think before you ask~!!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 8

Actually when your taller your a lot better!!! Expecially when you get the ball in the post.
Shaq is really good minus his free throws so you really can't be dissing him.
And since every pro player is really tall compared to an average person, minus Iverson, Your really just dissing all the pro basketball players.

Answer 9

it's not really "worse skills". different players have different things to offer. you can say the same thing for guards. why many of them don't get as many rebounds. the best teams are the ones that utilize each and every player on the team's skill carefully and strategically. nobody's perfect right?

Answer 10

You're right. Like Shaq

Answer 11

Umm...yeah, right, Shaq, not able to play well?

Yao Ming?

Dirk Nowitzki, there you go, taller in basketball is good.