[Bay Area Journalist] Yao Ming is now the Coolest Athlete on Earth

Not the most factually correct article, but it's always good to see when people can appreciate Yao's coolness.
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Seeing it, believing it: Yao Ming is now the coolest athlete on earth
By Tim Kawakami, San Jose Mercury News

I can’t come up with a better word than “cool,” which is a fatally dated and simplistic term to describe the savvy, big-hearted and passionate way that Yao is handling the attention and responsibilities of his role in these Beijing Olympics.

That’s all I’ve got, however: COOL. Graceful would be another word. Charismatic. Diplomatic. Elevated. But I keep going back to cool.

Yao leading China aganist the USA yesterday was cool; Yao hitting that three-pointer to open the game was cool; Yao exhorting his teamates on the sidelines was cool; Yao barking at Yi Jianlian for some dumb play was cool; Yao mixing it up with Dwight Howard and Carmelo Anthony was cool.

You know me: I don’t go for the flag-waving and the fireworks fakery and twisted tape delays and dumb weepy NBC reality-show everything-is-heart-stirring Al Trautwig-screech gimmickery that dominates Olympics coverage for the Olympics-impaired.

So I didn’t watch the Opening Ceremonies. I know Yao had some role in it. Don’t care. Unless he blocked Kobe Bryant’s attempt do light the cauldron at that 16-hour event, I don’t care what Yao did or didn’t do there.

But I do watch the Olympics competition on TV, here and there, and I made sure to watch Yao vs. Team USA yesterday (or two days ago? I dunno, it was a while ago), or at least the parts that were not overlapping with the good bits of the PGA Championship. (By good bits, I mean: Everything that happened that did not involve the cloying TV Jim Dandys–Jim Nantz and, in early rounds, Jim Huber.)

Yao was a tower in that game, even though he didn’t shoot the ball terrifically after the opening three. Yao is a tower of everything.

* He’s not quite an NBA superstar, and I believe the grind of his commitments to the Chinese National Team have helped keep him from his best level of play, as noted by Adrian W. at Yahoo Sports.

* He’s 27 (at least listed that way), so he should have 6 or 7 prime years left, if he hasn’t worn himself out with all this international play. But Yao is making the transition from NBA intriguing object to full-scale NBA royalty.

After some initial suspicion from established NBA stars about Yao’s place in the league, all he has done since his arrival in 2002 is play hard and get better and earn respect.

Again, he’s not an NBA superstar, and it’s interesting to note how well Houston played once he got hurt last season, but everybody sees that Yao is getting better when his body allows it to happen and everybody sees that he has become a leader.

More of a leader than his teammate Tracy McGrady will ever be. More of a leader than a lot of very talented NBA guys.

There was a little emergency when Houston traded for Ron Artest a few weeks ago and Yao was immediately quoted as saying he hopes Artest keeps it calm in Houston and doesn’t go into the stands to beat up anybody.

Of course, loopy Artest popped off about that Yao reaction–what doesn’t Artest pop off about? Yao called up Artest to apologize for whatever, though I think I’d take the side of the guy who preached calmness and chemistry over the guy who is mad because people remind him that he went into the stands to punch somebody.

That’s NBA leadership. You need outspokenness at some point. Yao wouldn’t have done that a few years ago. He did it this summer.

I love that he is displeased with Yi’s recent play. Yi is still young, but so far he doesn’t have anything close to Yao’s style or concentration. Yao sees that. We’re seeing it now, too.

* The other players see it–guys like Kobe and Baron Davis and Steve Nash… Yao has opened China up to the NBA marketplace. That’s more than a billion people–two billion eyeballs–ready to eat up NBA games and trinkets.

He could’ve come off like a stiff ambassador or a suspicious interloper. Instead, six years after his arrival, Yao is just the same cool cat he has always been.

That’s Michael Jordan level cool. Tiger Woods cool. Joe Montana cool. I doubt Yao will attain that level of championship success here, but he has the cool.

Coolest athlete in the world and proving it every day.