Yao/Francis article on front page of Washington Post Sports

Someone to Look Up To
Francis and Yao Are Forming a Bond, Boosting the Rockets

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57334-2003Jan28.html

<i>By Rachel Nichols
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 29, 2003</i>

HOUSTON -- There is simply no way around it. As much as Steve Francis likes to affectionately refer to Yao Ming as his "little brother," the fact remains that when Francis walks across the court to counsel his 7-foot-5 center, his intense brown eyes gaze deeply and directly into Yao's, well, armpits.

"Okay, maybe not little brother," says Francis, 6-3, smiling as he corrects himself and grapples with another way to describe his relationship with the NBA's first truly world-famous rookie.

In a mere four months with the Houston Rockets, Yao has become not just a force but a phenomenon, a complex symphony of hands, humor and humanity so much more lush than anyone anticipated from a player who could have merely trumpeted the one-note simplicity of his size. And yet through all of Yao's giant achievements, there has been Francis, conducting his own game with a selflessness and maturity that has eased not only Yao's adjustment but everyone else's.

Mentor-and-protégé?

"No, not really. He's my teammate, but he's more than that too," Francis says, still hunting for the right phrase.

"I've learned from Steve," Yao sums up from across the locker room, using an interpreter to translate his words but needing no one to convert the playful look in his eye. His tone suggests he might be talking less about basketball than the BET music videos Francis makes him watch, but it hardly seems to matter as the two laugh and joke before heading onto the court at Compaq Center, the future of the NBA reflecting in their smiles.

Two nights later, they will come out firing against the Los Angeles Lakers and make the guard-center duo of Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal look a couple of steps slow and a few inches short. Six days after that, they will be the only two teammates named as starters in the NBA All-Star Game.

But in this moment, they are just two guys having a blast playing basketball together, even if they are the most unlikely of friends. Yao is the prodigy, the son of two former basketball stars. By 14 years old, he had a nickname, the Little Giant. By 17, he had leapt from high school to the Chinese professional leagues; by 21, he was the most-heralded No. 1 NBA draft pick since O'Neal's ping-pong ball popped Orlando's way a decade earlier.

Francis is the kid from Takoma Park who started just one game in his high school career, the one who grew up undersized and unrecruited. He went through two junior colleges before becoming a star at Maryland, and while he parlayed his year with the Terrapins into the No. 2 pick in the 1999 draft, he was still considered something of a consolation item behind 6-foot-8 forward Elton Brand.

Now, nearly four years later, he is no one's door prize. Averaging 22.9 points, 6 assists and 6.2 rebounds a game, he is more quick and agile than ever, thanks to hours in the weight room and a decision to trade junk food for a refrigerator he says "looks like the inside of a Whole Foods Market." He also has a new six-year, $85 million contract extension, the richest in Rockets history, but even more striking is his freshly pressed sense of authority and responsibility.

As much as he jokes about being a big brother to Yao, he has in fact become the big brother to the entire Rockets locker room -- their leader, undisputed.

"When they signed me for six years for an amount of money I never, ever thought anyone would get paid, much less me, it changed things for me," Francis says. He is just weeks away from turning 26 but of late has been sounding quite a bit older.

"It's like a family when dad is gone and someone has to take the reins," says Coach Rudy Tomjanovich. "There are guys who think leadership is about scoring, but Steve realizes that good leadership is bringing people together."

It's a notion Francis first observed at the elbow of Hakeem Olajuwon, who he says taught him patience, and at the mouth of Charles Barkley, who he says taught him about work. Now he is trying to pass both ideas on to Yao. He lifts weights with the rookie on the road, and earlier this season, when Yao stumbled through his first few NBA games, earning a rousing chorus of I-told-you-so's, it was Francis who whispered words of comfort in his ear.

"I just told him to be patient, just like Hakeem told me," Francis says. "It's funny. You really learn that the cycle of players continues. The NBA was here before me, and it'll be here after me -- at first, you couldn't have told me that. No way."

Indeed, the change in Francis has been both subtle and unmistakable all at once. When he first entered the league, he spent money on clothes and cars and a sprawling house with a football field-sized backyard and a swimming pool in the shape of a crescent moon. Now, he lives in a much smaller, Spanish-style bungalow. The cars have been pared down; so has the discretionary spending. "What I'd really like to do is just stick all my money underneath my mattress," he says, but instead he has some mutual funds, a bunch of no-risk bonds and an account he has set aside for his younger sister's education.

He has gone to corporate CEOs for advice on leadership and to players he admires, such as Michael Jordan, for advice on control. He has gone to doctors to help with a health condition that caused him a string of migraines last season, although his biggest adviser might just be the personal chef he hired this offseason, the one who persuaded him to trade in his beloved drive-thrus for three square meals a day.

"At some point in your life, you know, you just have to get it together," says Francis, demurring when it is suggested he wasn't exactly a disaster before this season. In fact, his numbers this year and last are very similar, and he has long been recognized as the future of the Houston franchise. Yet his clear decision to become not just a leading scorer but a leader could not have come at a better time for the Rockets, who with Yao's arrival embarked on the biggest development project in team history.

Yao is not just a rookie but an up-and-down revitalization, and Francis has been gracious enough to cede to the big man both on the court, where Francis now relishes the pass inside, and off it, where he's smiled along at the team's Yao-centered marketing campaign. Yao, in turn, has clearly reveled in playing with Francis, adjusting to the point guard's style even as he adjusts to a totally different life than he ever imagined.

More than a new language, Yao, 22, has had to learn a new culture. He has been confounded by the seemingly omnipresent Houston traffic, and while he has taken a liking to pizza and cooked salmon, he is not entirely comfortable with American food, preferring instead the soups made by his mother, who lives with him. He has been surprised by the near light speed with which he has gained celebrity status in the United States, and while that recognizability has allowed him to quickly cash in on endorsement deals with companies such as Apple and Visa, it has also prevented him from being able to go out in public as much as he would like.

"There's so much more to handle than I had to handle," Francis says, noting that before Yao's first meeting with O'Neal this month a phalanx of television cameras managed to do what opponents could not -- actually back Yao into a corner.

"I can't really describe it; the attention has way surpassed what I could have imagined," Yao says, although having already played professionally for five years he has shown an uncanny ability to handle the pressure.

He can pull off a savvy quip in at least two languages and has already pulled a few practical jokes on unsuspecting members of the Rockets' training staff. He has been humble when called for and gracious even when others haven't been. When his former team in China retired his number this month, he took out a full-page newspaper ad asking "How does a single blade of grass thank the sun?" And when O'Neal made some unfortunate comments in a fake Chinese accent, he refused to condemn the Lakers center, choosing instead to invite O'Neal over for dinner.

The meal never happened -- O'Neal was busy with his children, who live in Houston -- but the next night, Yao took a few bites out of O'Neal's vaunted game, denying the big center dunks in the first quarter and then finishing off the overtime with a two-hander of his own on a beautiful pass from Francis.

"It just works," Francis said of the play, and while all of the Rockets seemed to slump after beating the Lakers, sleepwalking through four straight losses as questions arose about Yao's fatigue level, the pair was back at it again on Monday against Memphis. Francis scored a team-high 22 points, pushing Houston (24-19) to a 100-95 victory, and even Yao looked rejuvenated, recording 13 points and 10 rebounds in a robust 29 minutes on the court.

"There have been some goose bump moments with the two of them," Tomjanovich says, noting that Francis will come to him from time to time to talk about how to make the players around him better. Yao, in turn, has grabbed a clipboard and diagrammed plays for teammates. "It's exactly what you want to see. As a team, we feel we've paid our dues, and now it's so rewarding to feel like we're coming back."

At this point, the only thing Tomjanovich seems to regret about Yao's and Francis's success is that their selection to the NBA All-Star Game will rob them of precious rest. Still, he allows the game will be a good learning experience for Yao and a nice reward for Francis, who has promised to shepherd his 7-foot-5 charge through the demanding weekend, big-brother style.

Already, he has tried to warn Yao about the hoopla that surrounds the game.

"I don't think he understands," Francis told reporters the day the two were selected, although in truth, that doesn't really seem to matter.

Francis does. And for now at least, that is enough for the both of them.