[chron] Yao, Chandler Faced off as Teens (funny story)

haha interesting

 

cool! wonder if they talked about it... seems like chandler remembers it better. didn't know yao made trips to the states when he was in highschool

 

Old story, but what they forgot to include was what Tyson said about Yao in those early years about trash talking.


Tyson said Yao once told him "I'm going to make you swallow your mouthpiece."

 

Damn I wish every single player can scream at the crowd because they just schooled Yao...

 

That was a great story. Thanks for posting that.

 

HEHEHE.....look what I've found !!!!

These were snap photos of Yao Ming in that Nike High Five America 1998 training camp !!!! Look how thin he was at that time !!!

In the second photo, Teyo Johnson, NFL star of Denver Broncos, who was Yao Ming's room mate at that training camp, and who became great buddy of Yao Ming ever since, was the one standing aside him.

Tyson Chandler was the one jumping ball against him in the last photo.

 

Nice find, but why was Yao shooting the free throw with his left hand?

 

Actually Tyson Chandler was one of the 3 players that inspired Yao Ming.........Hakeem Olajuwon and Sabonis are the other 2.

Tyson Chandler was the one that made Yao Ming realized that he could play basketball and he could perhaps one day compete in NBA when he was sent to that training camp in San Diego by Nike in 1998 as a 18-year-old.

There he met and dueled it out with Tyson Chandler, the 3rd NBA draft of the Bulls in 2001. In a 1-on-1 duel between Yao Ming and Chandler, despite the physcial and aggressive push-out and tackle of Chandler, Yao Ming just shoke him off easily and made 3 out of 4 fadeway jumpers over Chandler.

The coach shouted on Yao Ming to stop using fadeaway jumpers. Yao rebuked: "MJ used it often. Why can't I do the same ???" And every other were laughing !!! Yao then again got another jumper in over the head of Chandler.

That story with Tyson Chandler was widely reported in the past, in Yao Ming's autobiography ""Yao: A Life in Two Worlds", as well as in Yang Yi's book about Yao Ming.

 

The reason why Yao Ming was shooting free throws left-handed is that this photo I found over the Internet is inverted as evidenced by the numbers on the players' jerseys being left to right.

 

And here is a great article (though in Chinese) that I posted 3 years ago on YMM about Teyo Johnson's friendship with Yao Ming and Liu Wei, and a picture of Yao Ming and Teyo when they were young lads.



http://sports.sina.com.cn/s/2004-06-17/0726275587s.shtml

In summary:-

• They made acquaintences in the Nike Select camp at San Diego in 1998; 3 of them were room mates
• Teyo helped to scare off a bully for Liu Wei in the camp and the 3 of them became friends ever since
• After the camp, Teyo joined Stanford, and changed his sports to American football, even though he also represented Stanford in basketball.
• He never saw Liu Wei since then; but after Yao Ming joined NBA, he had been in contact with Yao Ming; he would go to see Yao Ming plays whenever Rockets play in San Francisco;
• He once drove to Los Angeles just to see Yao Ming played against Shaquille O'Neal

 

This is from Yao's nbadraft.net profile.

 

Wow you noticed he was shooting with his left and all I thought was how it was weird that he puts his left foot forward.I didnt even notice his arm

 

pic is reveresed, look at the jersey #s

 

that summer was fantastic , great post

 

interesting stories. Thanks for post.