London Times: Ming Dynasty to Sign This Week

<i>September 8, 2002 On-Line
Basketball: Ming dynasty
By Barry Flatman

In his size 19 boots, Yao Ming stands on the brink of global superstardom. The 21-year-old from Shanghai could become the most famous sportsman in_the world. At 7ft 5in and more than 21st, he has already made history in the United States, as the first foreigner to become the No 1 draft pick in the National Basketball Association (NBA) without playing his way through the American collegiate system.

Forget Beckham, Schumacher, Agassi, Thorpe, or even basketball’s last true icon, Michael Jordan. Yao could become even more celebrated, and for one big reason. There are 1.3 billion people in China who already revere him. Jordan himself prophesied that his successor would not be an American when he first saw the youngster as a 7ft 3in upstart who still had some growing to do. “This big kid can shoot,” Jordan declared. “Somebody should sign him up now.”

<b>This week, after several months of international diplomatic wrangling, Yao will officially sign on the contractual line as a Houston Rocket. </b>

Although China have suffered several drubbings in the current world championship in Indianapolis, interest in their biggest star is immense. It’s not just his size, although he will be a full 5in taller than any of his new_teammates — even US academics are getting excited.

Professor Bob Wang, director of the Chinese-American Business Institute at New Jersey’s Fairleigh Dickinson University, says: “Basketball is the fastest-growing sport in the world, and Yao Ming coming to play in America could bring together two great powers faster than any political negotiating.

“It will bring China into America and give huge numbers of Chinese-Americans somebody who can incorporate them into the mainstream of US society. Added to that, he will have 10,000 fans banging down the doors to see their hero whenever he plays in New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles.”

And the interest is growing all the time. The Rockets have had a phone call from a Hollywood production company which wants to pitch a film script that pairs Yao with Verne “Mini-Me” Troyer of Austin Powers fame. Needless to say, it will have a basketball theme, with Yao as a coach and the minuscule Troyer as a player.

Yao will not make his NBA debut for the Rockets until late October after fulfilling his commitments to his national team at the Asian Games in South Korea. “I am excited,” he says, “but it will be impossible for me to get_used to everything straight away. Playing basketball in America will be like learning a new language or culture. I am facing a lot of things I haven’t known before, but I feel I can grow up_faster than other players might.”

What he is really looking forward to, though, is learning to drive a car. In Shanghai he got round on a bicycle — not terribly comfortable for a man with such long legs. However, he will not be yearning for mother’s home cooking: “I like big steaks and I like going to Starbucks. The food in Chinese restaurants here is different from what I know, and it was strange seeing a fortune cookie for the first time. We don’t have them in Shanghai. They must be an American invention.”

Opponents are queuing up to put him to the test. The Los Angeles Lakers’ Shaquille O’Neal says he wants to put an_elbow into Yao’s nose and gauge the reaction. Ben Wallace of the Detroit Pistons warns: “We are going to beat him up pretty bad. This is our way of saying, ‘This is our playground and this is how we play. Welcome to our country’.

“We know around the NBA what hype is all about. People are just trying to sell tickets on the back of him, and it’s going to be a good challenge for the big guy. Everybody in the league is going to step up and make him work for everything he gets. Nothing comes free in American basketball.”

Yao knows he will be a marked man, but he says calmly: “When you have pitiful moments, that makes the good ones even more valuable.”

Yao was born to be a basketball player. His father is 6ft 10in, his mother 6ft 3in, and both represented China at the sport. People in the north of the country are usually taller than those from the south, and by the age of 10, Yao could look down on most of his teachers.

At the time, running was a problem, and he was thin, weak and uncoordinated. The foundation of the Chinese Basketball Association seven years ago proved his salvation. Suddenly the sport became much more structured and Yao no longer viewed himself as a physical freak. He came to prominence at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, although US talent-spotters were aware of his promise even before the meeting with Jordan. Not surprisingly, his potential was recognised by Nike, which measures the market by the fact that there are 26m feet in Shanghai alone and 2.6 billion in the whole of China.

Terry Rhoads, Nike’s director of marketing in China, met Yao in 1997. “We had just signed a contract to sponsor the Shanghai Sharks (Yao’s old team), and had a party to introduce ourselves,” he recalls. “In walked the team, and most of them were regular guys standing about 6ft 4in tall.

“Then in comes this kid who’s about 7ft 3in, kind of skinny and in some ways looking like Manute Bol of the Philadelphia 76ers (the retired 7ft 7in Sudanese who remains the tallest man ever to play in the NBA). My jaw dropped, and then of course the scepticism came in and I thought, ‘He’s probably a stiff’. Then he started drop-shotting three-pointers into the basket and I thought, ‘Whoa!’ “Once we got him to come over to a Nike camp, the word was out, and that’s where Michael Jordan took notice. I remember Michael sinking a three-pointer and then asking Yao, ‘Can you do that?’ So Yao hits one from even further range straight into the basket.”

He came through that test. The next year will bring a different sort of pressure. “You stand to earn great wealth,” Yao was told — more than £10m over the next four years. Back came the reply: “I think I’ll get used to it.”</i>