I know Yao Ming will play in the Asian Basketball Championships this summer, but from what I understand, the Asian Championships aren't until late July. I don't know if China expects Yao to immediately return for training with the national team or what, but they should allow Yao six weeks rest before he needs to join the national team. If Houston makes the NBA playoffs this year, chances are they won't get past the first round if they have to face a team like the Mavs or Kings, which means Yao's season would be over by early May. So if Yao was to rest up for six weeks, he'd join China's national team in mid-June, giving them about 6 weeks to train together. Also, once the Championships are over, Yao should immediately return to Houston to rest up for next season. If anyone else on this board has seen Yao in the NBA playing recently, you can tell that Yao is tired. He played in the Worlds and the Asian Games last summer. One tournament per summer is plenty for Yao. I say this because the Asian Games like those this past October have no implications for the Olympics and WBC's. That's what this summer's tournament is for. Plus, you don't see players like Nowitzki, Stojakovic, Gasol, etc. playing in more than one tournament in the offseason. Why should Yao's case be any different? I realize part of the deal to allow Yao to play in the NBA was for him to play for the national team, whenever China wanted, but they can use some discretion as to what tournaments they need Yao for. Of course they need him for the Olympics, WBC and Asian Basketball Championships, but that's all they really need him for.
The Chinese government's mentality is that by allowing Yao to play in the NBA it will give him experience and national exposure against competition the Chinese national team plays against. In other words, the NBA is second fiddle to them.
There is a very high probability that the Chinese National team will ask YM to go back immediately after his NBA season is over. They will spend more than 2 month in training in preparing for the Asian Championship. They will not feel safe without YM on the team. Basically the feeling is that YM is their property. The best way for YM to improve during the off-season is for the Rox to send a trainer with YM to go back to China.
Rox better send a trainer with YM because from what I've read, he has had a rare knee injury (for someone so young) because of improper training with the NT.
The NT team thinks that their training is superior to the training by NBA teams. It might be true since Yao's fundamental is quite good. The weakness of NT team's training is the weight training.
You keep sayin this....got backup..? Like I said in the other thread..the NT is only playin a tourney in the first week of August.. Why would they demand him back immediately after the season is over? The Rox are not going far in ther playoffs, even if they do make it..So he will have a period of time between the end of the season and the end of July...which would give him a couple of weeks to get ready for the tourney in August.. Plenty of time to hit the weight room and rest..
But I have heard that many China atheltic teams like to train in mountain or low humility climate because they think it would be good for building stamina. And they also think that intensive = good which makes the players' muscle etc easily getting tired. All in all the coaching/training there is not very scientific.
I hope they won't call him back immediately after the season is over, but with the way they handled Wang ZZ, it does not look good. Remember they asked WZZ to go back immediately after the season was over last year to prepare for the WC in late August?
I think only the track and field teams do that. And it is a scientific fact that the low oxygen count in high altitudes increase aerobic performance. The reason why some african countries produce top quality runners is partly due to their high altitude training.
This is something that Rockets fans and especially Yao Ming will have to get use to. China views Yao Ming as their property. If they want him to come back for training for the National Team then Yao Ming has no choice but to go. It's doubtfull that they would pull him back during the NBA season but it's very likely that they will demand that he go back to China as soon as the NBA season is over for the Rockets. After the defection of Wang ZhiZhi (even though he says he didn't defect he just doesn't want to go back) they are not going to want to risk losing Yao Ming by allowing him to stay in the US during his free time. Wang got a taste of freedom and liked it so much he wanted to stay. China is at risk of having the same thing happen with Yao.
The Chinese national soccer team has their training facility in Kunming, which has an elevation above 5,000 feet, I believe.
The Chinese gov't and NT will not let the team that has rights to Wang ZZ boardcast or operate commercially in China. They are doing this to punish Wang ZZ for not returning. That is their punishment leverage, and it is a good one, because the NBA wants desperately to expand in the Chinese market. ~ kountzer ~
I wonder how they can think their training is superior when Yao can't play 10 minutes without being noticeably fatigued. Also, YM's great fundementals might be because he had 2 professional basketball parents around him his whole life, I'm sure they helped his game quite a lot when he started playing seriously.
Yao just needs to stay here over the summer. Seriously, he is a human being, not a piece of property....he should be able to do whatever the hell he wants
Honestly, the main government of China isn't doing anything major to WZZ like lock up his family or something stupid like that. It's really the basketball sect that's messing with him, but its more along the lines of denying his games to be shown and not allowing him to play on the national team until he apologized which pretty much dwindled his fan support in China and made him much less attractive as an endorse person. Unfair? Yes. But come on, it's not a civil rights violation. It's more along the lines of hardball business tactics, which is perfectly permissible.
The basketball sect is under the direct control of the main government in China, as is everything else. Maybe they are not rolling tanks down the middle of WZZ's parents house, a la Tianiamen Square, but you can best believe they are pulling major strings to see that he is punished for not doing what they want, namely not coming back last summer. And since when is it not a violation of civil rights when the gov't and other powers that be put 'the freeze' on you for exercising some harmless personal freedom? WZZ did not rob a bank or take a whiz on Chairman Mao's statute, all he did was made a wise basketball decision to stay over here during the summer, to work on his game. The government censuring him for that is not good ole, hardball business, that's facism. ~ kountzer ~
Wang had a contract and he broke it. That's business. And what freeze did they put on him? Is he forbidden to go to China now? Also, stop equating the government with government sports organizations. They are not the same; the Chinese bureaucracy is much more complicated than that. If a person gets kicked off Team USA, would you call the US a fascist government also?
Basically what fruithater said and I would just like to add that most gov't including US denies information to the general public, think JFK reports. Nothing wrong with that if it serve the interest of the country. Though the fact that the gov't control the Chinese media is total BS and defiitely something I would like to see changed, if you think US is still a hardcore watch dog type, well read "Manufactoring Consent" by Noam Chomsky, amazing book really. But we're diving into politics, and politics is stupid (something I've realized lately) so let's go back to basketball. I would like Yao to rest this summer but hey, he agree to the terms to come here and I believe he's a man of his word, hopefully the games won't last too long.
