I think it is a very very good talk of Ym. However my english is so poor http://sports.sina.com.cn/k/2004-03-04/2128796998.shtml
is anyone doing it? if not i will. but i don't want to if someone else is doing it at the same time... that would not be efficient.
okay i'm about half done... yeah it's a great article. it really shows yao's basketball smarts. and it's so real too... okay... should have it in another 20 minutes, doing it as fast as i can.
it's an interview from before the lakers game, by the chinese radio host that does the radio shows. also last named yao. host: recently the opponents are guarding you tighter and tighter, what solutions do you have? YM: i guess many different one. but you can't request the others how to defend you, you can only come from your standpoint, let your own abilities get stronger, to leap over this barrier. that's the only way. it's competition, if you can't solve (adapt) you'll be eliminated. host: what are you thoughts on not getting calls from the refs? YM: truthfully sometimes i feel a little bothered, a few times the refs didn't blow the whistle. i can only tell myself, maybe it's because i'm still a second year player, i don't get special treatment. i can only warn myself, you cannot change the refs, and again with the cliche, if you can't adapt, you will be eliminated. host: talk about losing to the sonics. YM: mainly a defensive problem. because they have four players, including their PF, that can shoot threes. so our defensive range needs to be much bigger, and chasing back and forth sapped our energy without getting results. because of this every time we play the sonics is a headache. host: is it because the 4 can shoot treys, including like the Mavs, teams who have 4's strong outside shooting that gives the rockets headaches? YM: actually there's basically no real good way to solve this, we can only let our players own [i'm struggling for a word here... maybe discpline, just basketball smarts] and ability improve. aim for making good decisions ahead of time, and not make useless plays. sometimes their penetration is for creating better chances for the perimeter players, we need to decide ahead of time whether it's a fake or real drive, correctly judge the direction of their ball movement, just like that. if we want to talk about the defense strategy as a whole, we need to play more unified, we watched lost of tape, like the sonics games. there's a lot of times we make up a game plan ahead of time, but everyone, including myself, during the game, whether because of fatigue, or strains, or too much hesitation, we didn't execute with enough determination. host: about your offense, even though your accuracy is still high, it's not consistent. what do you think the problem is? YM: this problem is simple. no matter how the opponents guard me, i have already learned to as quick as possible during the first few minutes of the game to adapt to the defense, and then find my offensive rhythm. if i can just find that rhythm, then it's show time. [haha... i embellished a bit here] host: no do you still worry about the number of fouls the commit on you? sometime's it's like the dragon slaying 18 palms (famous fighting style from movies), 3 players will use 18 fouls on you. YM: let me speak clearly on this one. when others foul o'neal it's useless. yet it's useful on me, that shows i'm not yet good enough. host: talking about o'neal, you play him again today. you've played him many times, have you figured out some tricks? YM: i've thought about this left and right. to play him, in effect it's to play his speed and agility, and when i say speed it's also a bit of tenacity [maybe endurance is better here]. because other than him, the lakers front line can't handle us. so when he's on the court, our frontcourt players need to run as hard as we can, run our asses off, and waste his energy. so in the last quarter, last few minutes of the game we'll be able to see the fruits of our efforts. on defense, it's all we can do to try our bes to limit his accuracy, you can't shut him down, that's impossible. on offense, our front line's attack cannot be passive, can't be passive just because he's shaq. we need to take more initiative, get him tired, and prepare for the duel in the last quarter. host: last time you battled with him, you finally fouled him out. did you use any special tactics that game? YM: i thought that was an exception, especially because several of his fouls were created by us. for example he had two offensive fouls, i thought that was rare, but that game he definitely fouled to much. normally i don't see him fouling so much though, so it was more an exception. host: Harris is the national coach now, do you know a lot about him? YM: not really, not too much contact, counting until now only 3. first time is we took a pic together in 1997, in paris france, attending a basketball camp. at that time he was still lakers head coach. the second time was in 2001, national team went to dallas to train, he was then dallas assistant coach. he came to direct our defense, taught for about 1 hour or so. the third time was last time, we went to the mavs to play and he came to talk to me for five minutes. just 3 times. so i don't know him that well. and our talks have only been about basketball, so i don't know him that well as a person. host: so do you feel that the first nba coach to coach the chinese national team what pros and cons do you see? YM: it can only be beneficial, but the question is can we take advantage of these benefits, can we see the upside. or rather, how much patience do we have. for example, the previous coach fei wang, i always felt bad for him, actually he taught us a lot of stuff, but at the time i didn't understand. only now do i understand what he was talking about. at the time the whole team didn't understand, no one has heard of the stuff he was talking about, [we] didn't know how to when defending, take a step forward or things like that, we didn't understand. at the time our team was young, the other teammates they didn't know either. i didn't have the enviroment and i didn't understand either. but when i came here, i found that his strategies were a lot like the ones here. you can't say exactly the same, but the philosophy was the same, except the teammates around me here get it. so i understood. wang actually did a great job, but because of his poor record he got fired. so because of that we need to see how much patience we have. harris going to china is not going to be one may changing the face of chinese basketball, that's a dream (fairytale -- he actually used a adage here). in the short term we can't see too much, so because that we can't be overly optimisted. but for the long run, i don't really hold hope that he can remain in china, that's not possible. when i talk about long term results, meaning if he can positively affect five or six players on our national team, to make them understand advanced basketball principles, that would be great. i think chinese basketball lacks principles / philosophies. it values actually competition over principles, i feel that principles are very important. if these players can learn principles, and after retiring and becoming a coach, each person tutor 3,4,5,6 more players, it will be like building a pyramid, but we are starting from the top, not building from the bottom.
phew... okay... so i was typing really fast and there's lot of typos, grammar mistakes etc. but where i can i've translated literally, and other places when yao uses chinese sayings i tried to come up with analogous saying. especially the last part maybe shodd because it's so damn long, but hopefully you get the gist.
Thanks a lot for the translation, it was a good read, and it shows that Yao does put a lot of thoughts into the things he said. -G'day-
That is a major piece of work. It really show he is not only play good basketball, but he know in and out as well.
yeah to me yao showed humility, determination, and wisdom here. humility to recognize that he's still not good enough, determination to get better, and wisdom in the understanding about basketball. especially his words about the chinese national team.
Thanks for the translation. It was interesting how Yao acknowledged that when Shaq gets fouled, it doesn't matter, but when he gets fouled, it really affects his shot. The league really ought to consider this. Officiating Yao is not like officiating Shaq even though Yao is bigger. Slaps on the arms while he's shooting is a foul!
well yao is averaging 5.5 free throws a game, that's good but not nearly enough. he needs about 8. also he will improve when his endurance increases. he's #7 in efficiency per 48, but barely top 25 in efficiency in general. which means a lot of top tier players get many more minutes than yao. i feel like in a few seasons yao will be a duncan like force.
i think the sina.com articles usually are. and you know i think those yang yi ones are too, if they weren't yao would certainly have spoken about that.
The radio station seems like a Houston local radio station broadcasting in Chinese. It said that they have a 'Rockets time' every Saturday afternoon: http://sports.sina.com.cn/k/2003-02-18/0508392960.shtml And they often have Yao interview on their program.
