http://sports.sina.com.cn/k/p/2004-05-01/0828868062.shtml (About playoffs, offseason schedule and many others) http://sports.sina.com.cn/s/2004-05-01/1332232330s.shtml (About his impression of different NBA cities and locker rooms) It's bed time for me now, so no translation yet. Sorry.
Wow...awesome interviews. Now we really know what YAO thinks. Cant' believe some of the things he said about the other players on the team. gonna be some changes next season.
yes please be more specific Yao doesn't look like a person who would dog is own teammates so maybe someone can explain better?
Anyone know a good simplified to traditional converter? Unfortunately, my Chinese is pretty poor, and the simplified script gives me a lot of problems
so far all i know about what yao thinks is that he thinks in Chinese. I'd babelfish it but id rather not live through the day with brain damage.
You can use a website translator but it isn't all that clear. it would be better for someone that actually spoke chinese to help out lol...
Yeah i just did that, and trying to figure out the way those phrases come out really hurts my head lol....
Hahaha, the guy (brasss) was just being tricky and was pulling your legs. Yao mentioned nothing about his teammates. In the first interview, he talked about his experience playing against Shaq 9 times among other bits and pieces. Yao said Shaq never used his "full force" against him in the regular season games. Yao said that he felt Shaq must really be on the decline (stamina wise) - if Shaq could play hard like he did in the playoffs every game, then noone will survive playing against him. The second interview is about the change rooms in different cities... Yao said he had the saddest experience at the Pacers' home court (as the Chinese team lost 9 of their 10 games there at the 2002 Worlds and he had his infamous debut 0 points 2 rebounds there). The change rooms he likes the least are the ones in 3 places: Kings, Detriot and the Nets' home, etc, etc... pretty light-hearted stuff. SS999
In second interview, he commented on various cities: 1. He likes LA because it is beautiful and the closest to Home. 2. He likes Seattle because it is very beautiful when raining. 3. He likes NY because it gives you that big city feeling just like Shanghai. Also he hates the arena in NJ, Sac and Detroit. They are so outdated.
It's this type of feeling that make one wonder when the third or 4th season is over will yao be here or move on? All these three teams could be his potential wowers
For people's info. I read both just now. They are good. Yao shows an incredible knowledge of basketball. he predicts the spurs to win it all. he says nothing about trades, because he doesn't know. says of shaq. when i'm going all out on offense and he's not going all out on D, then i can score a lot and help the team in many ways. but the difference between the playoffs and the regular season is that shaq went all out on D, so i can only score SOME points. however, he does feel that shaq is on a decline. yao says that one day the rockets will be over to get over the hump, that day is just not today. anyway, yao is really humble in his words. says things normal NBA players wouldn't say. that's just the difference in culture. like when he says he's never gotten a 100 on any test before, that's such a chinese chinese thing to say. too bad that's interpreted as softness here in america.
Please don't mis-interpret or twist his words. I don't anywhere he mentioned about his intention where to play after the rookie contract. He was asked about the impression of all the cities he played, and then he said he never really had time for sightseeing, coz the game schedule is always tight. He said he could only try to talk about the arenas and locker rooms. Like most of the posters already explained that he dislikes 3 arenas, and likes the Staple Center and Madison Square Garden and Seattle's arena. The reason he dislikes those 3 places because those are all out-dated arenas, that make him feel depressed and look dirty and ugly. He likes MSG because there is similarity between it and his home court in Shanghai, and similarity between the biggest city in US and in China. The particular reason he likes to play in LA, is that the games there were always in the middle of road trip, so there were some free time for sightseeing. That's all. Please don't dig into some simple conversation too much, and mislead any Rockets fans. I don't think it's helpful to get more fans for Yao. Whether he stays or not after 4 seasons, I would bet that even himself is not clear, it really depends on his sucess and team sucess. It's a two-way decision, which is far from worthing while for discusion. In the first interview, which is particularity discussed about the playoff, he didn't mention any of his teammates. He said they were glad to play against the Lakers, because of the madia coverage, which might helped them to bite the teeth and fight hard. There were shortcoming here and there all the time, due to the power of the Rockets or the lacking of, they tried to cover one hole, but another one would be soon discovered. But he has confident that they would be over the hump eventually. He also mentioned Shaq was on his downhill, especially when he felt there were occasions that Shaq gave his 100%, but he couldn't play at that level consistantly. Otherwise, there would be no match for him. He also mentioned that he felt the Spurs is like a super power, which is similar to the position once the Army team had in China (at Wang Zhizhi's prime time). He doesn't see a chance for Lakers to beat Spurs (which I agree). He emphasizes consitancy is very important for a playoff team. There are a few words quite interesting. "The greatest benefit playoff brought us was the confidence facing next season, especially games before the 5th." When asked about how to position themselves, he said "It's not too bad to position yourself higher when you are young, because if you are wrong, you can still correct everything. But when you are old, it's totally different. You are already declining, if you are wrong, you won't have chance to redeem yourself." Overall, I would like to say those are just two relaxing little conversation. Nothing special, nothing extraordinally either. I don't see any hiding intention or motives. Of course, I don't see anything great from his character or culture or whatever it is. Just a 23-years-old, relaxing, and mature Yao, the Yao we like. Hopefully they will do well next season. Sorry guys, my English is not good enough to interpreat the whole thing, and I am also too lazy for that Cheers.
