Indy Star gives Yao love

A very objective look at Yao...and this was after the GERMANY game and BEFORE the Algeria game. Props to Mr Kravitz:

Bob Kravitz
Indianapolis Star

Yao will have many nights like this; hey, he's a rookie

August 30, 2002


There will be nights like this. There will be lots of nights like this, nights when Yao Ming will wish he could trade all the money for a chance to go home, nights when Yao will be abused and pounded and generally mistreated, left to look like Shawn Bradley -- or worse, Chuck Nevitt.

There will be nights when his lack of physicality will be exposed, when foul trouble will nail him to the bench, when he will look like a high-paid curiosity and not the top pick in the draft.

There will be nights, though, like the one in Oakland, Calif., last week, when Yao more than held his own in an exhibition game against the Americans. On that night, he left his NBA counterparts with good impressions.

Last week, the Next Great Thing. Last night, a bum. That's how it's going to be, fair and unfair, overreactions on both ends of the spectrum.

Eventually, he will be a player, a top-line center with soft hands, a great touch and surprising quickness, a new-and-improved version of Rik Smits.

Just not yet.

"People keep asking questions about him, and I'm saying, just cut the guy some slack," said German center Patrick Femerling. "He's still a very young guy. He's like any rookie; he's still got a lot to learn. And he's going to get better. You can already see he's got talent. He's very good with his hands."

Here's the thing that can't be lost amidst all the noise accompanying his arrival: He's a rookie. He will not be viewed as an ordinary rookie, not at 7-5, not as the first Chinese player ever in the NBA, but, ultimately, he's a rookie. Think about it: How long has it been since a top draft choice made any noise in the NBA? Elton Brand? Tim Duncan?

In many ways, the 21-year-old Yao is facing obstacles that Western-born rookies never face. He must make dramatic cultural adjustments. He must go from a very low level of basketball in China to the best league in the world. And he must do all of this with the world watching, with a lot of the world waiting for him to fail.

"He'll be a player in the NBA," said German backup center Robert Maras. "He still needs to get stronger, but he has skills you just don't see in guys his size."

After the game, an easy German victory over the Chinese, Dirk Nowitzki was asked if Yao reminded him of Shawn Bradley.

Nowitzki smirked and paused. "Yao is a good player," he said.

As for Yao's thoughts, those will have to wait. He was the random choice for postgame drug testing and was not made available to the media.

For one night, Yao's inadequacies were on dismal display. On the first possession of the game, Femerling, not to be confused with Shaquille O'Neal, backed him down deep under the basket and laid the ball in easily.

Later, a 6-4 player named Misan Nikagbatse drove the baseline, rose and dunked over a tiring Yao, who clearly needs to spend some serious time on his conditioning. Anybody know the Chinese word for "facial"?

There will be lots of moments like that in the NBA, where every player will take particular pride in using Yao for his own, personal poster. You can almost hear them now: "You're not in Shanghai anymore, Toto."

Even Yao's own national team coach, Wang Fei, offered a harsh assessment of his star's performance, saying, through an interpreter, that Yao will get "pushed around" in the NBA if he doesn't improve his strength and his defense.

An important point is lost, though, in the rush to judgment.

For one, China doesn't have a decent guard to get the ball to Yao in the post. All those people in China, you'd think they could produce a guard or two, but in the first half, Yao touched the ball in the post just three times.

Think Stevie Francis and Cuttino Mobley will have a little better success finding Yao down low? As Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich told a Houston reporter last night at the RCA Dome, Yao could spend his first season simply cleaning up after Francis and Mobley slash to the basket.

There will be nights like this, lots of nights like this, not just his rookie year but during his first few years in the league. But there will be those moments, too, when Yao will do things no big man has done before, shooting that soft jump shot, making himself an unstoppable force once he learns a go-to move in the post.

In the end, really, he's just another rookie.


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Bob Kravitz is a sports columnist for The Indianapolis Star. Contact him at 1-317-444-6643 or via e-mail at bob.kravitz@indystar.com

 

My bad...I didn't see that Clutch had already put it up.

I'm not a subscriber...I just check out the local papers in the city where Yao is playing.


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