From a Chinese Fan who posts very occasionally but visits this board frequently... It is just so much fun watching Yao grow over the last few years. He gets a lot of love from China, no doubt about it. He also gets a lot of love from US. But he also faced (and handled EXTREMELY nicely) with a lot of prejudice and unfairness from US. Some are with good reasons, for example, his earlier all-star votes (I know, i know, it is a popularity vote). Most others are not. As someone who is also from CHINA (and Shanghai, not that matters ), later moved to US in early 20's, I can assure you that adjusting yourself to US culture is not an easy thing. I am pretty sure my English was better than Yao at the time of entering US, but even then it took me at least a year or two to overcome the first-step language problem. And Yao obviously has had a much tougher schedule and he still managed to improve his English and adjust himself at a pace well beyond most people's estimate. Talking about the tough schedule, in addition to his NBA games, Yao also has his national team duties (some of them are really unnecessary). He has had very little rest over his first few seasons and he still managed to improve his skills, although at time, many of us had been quite frustrated with his lack of 'aggressiveness'. Yao may never be an aggressive player like Shaq. But he is one tough nut. He plays every game hard, until his toe just gave up. Since his recovery from the toe injury, I think every Rox fan (and probably every Chinese fan) has had the fortunte to see his real potential of being the true superstar (for some, he is probably already a superstar ). What impresses me most is his grace, on the court and off the court. He represents the true elite young man (and woman) from China, great work ethnic and rarely complains (the good old tradition), positive, a sense of (Yao style) humor, willing and capable to adapt to new cultures. We love you, Yao
yeah i am very happy about where he is going with his play. i wish someone would dig up some of those yao polls about what you think he is capable of averaging one day.
Yao is awesome- we are lucky he is on our team. His mental power will lead us to the playoff glory one day.
He is now showing a consistency that is allowing him to be truly dominant. We have seen flashes of this since his rookie year, but this is the first time he has put all his skills together in one long stretch. I believe that his improvements are 80% mental. Yes he is more rested and better conditioned, but you can't teach confidence, it has to be developed. Ming is playing with confidence, and I am very proud of this progress.
I heard the rockets have already asked for his DNA so they can replace him if anything goes awry. It's just a shame that Olajuwon didn't want to be cloned or else we'd have the Twin Towers again.
I love you, Yao. I love you so very deeply. I love you in ways that would probably get me banned from this website. Seriously, who was that that tried to dunk on Yao in the 4th quarter Friday night? Was it Andre Miller? I don't remember but I DO know that they are still trying to remove the ball from the guys throat. NOBODY dunks on Yao anymore. Nobody. Those days are over, never to return.
All shotblockers get dunked on... like Alonzo Mourning... frequently gets brutalized... I guess that's just the way it goes.
When you dish out kudos for Yao, you better not reveal you are a Chinese, or YOF in other words. Anyway, my guess is that is reason this thread is 3 star only.
If you're chinese you shouldn't even get to express your love for Yao Ming. It's a given 100% of the time that if you're chinese... you will love YM for everything he does.
Not that it's a real big deal seeing as how he still missed the dunk, but Yao didn't touch that dunk attempt by Andre Miller haha....he caught nothing but rim. They showed the replay a couple of times at the game and that was one of the worst rim checks i've ever seen in the NBA.
Only 4 players in the NBA are averaging at least 20 points and 10 rebounds this season and Yao is one of them (along with Marion, Brand, and Garnett). Tim Duncan is not. Shaq is not. Dirk is not. Yao...you da man!
LOL, I love Yao too but I have to put up a disclaimer that I only love him as much as a straight man can love another man.
I do hate him when he does the clapping. It is very Chinese, but I just hate it! Disclosing that I am Chinese is like disclaiming I own a share of CHN as a stock analyst - it is just to get the formality out of the way. Although of course, I could not care less about what these analyst a$$holes say.
