April 24, 2003, 12:34AM Yao loses on rookie ballot Stoudemire to get award today By JONATHAN FEIGEN Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle SPORTS POLL Does Yao deserve Rookie of the Year? No, his play was too inconsistent: 31% Yes, he energized the league: 64% Yes, but only for his TV ads: 5% Total Votes: 2516 Not a scientific survey; for informational purposes only. When it came to clever commercials, magazine covers and international acclaim, Rockets center Yao Ming whipped all other rookies in a landslide. But the NBA Rookie of the Year voting has gone to Phoenix Suns rookie Amare Stoudemire. The award will be presented to Stoudemire today in Phoenix. But even before the announcement, the results became clear when the presentation ceremony was scheduled and Yao was not invited. "Congratulations to Amare," Yao said. "This is just the start of many years (of competition between them) to come." Yao left Houston on Wednesday to meet with his agents in San Francisco and was scheduled to return home to Shanghai, China, this weekend. Yao, a Chinese national team member and the first player taken in the NBA draft, and Stoudemire, a Florida high school player taken ninth overall, had similar statistics in their rookie seasons. Yao started in the All-Star Game, but Stoudemire's Suns edged the Rockets for the last Western Conference playoff spot. For all the interest in Yao throughout the season, Stoudemire won similar praise throughout the league. Stoudemire averaged 13.5 points, 8.8 rebounds, 1.1 blocked shots and one assist per game. He made 47.2 percent of his shots and 66.1 percent of his free throws. Yao averaged 13.5 points, 8.2 rebounds, 1.8 blocked shots and 2.8 assists per game. He made 49.8 percent of his shots and 81.1 percent of his free throws. Both were Western Conference Rookie of the Month selections twice. The Suns, however, pulled away from the Rockets in the race for the last playoff spot, building a three-game lead before losing the final two games after already clinching a place in the playoffs. The Suns and San Antonio Spurs are tied 1-1 in their first-round series. The Rockets beat the Suns in three of their four meetings this season. Yao averaged 13.3 points and 6.8 rebounds and made 55.6 percent of his shots against the Suns. Stoudemire averaged 13 points and 6.5 rebounds and made 36.6 percent of his shots against the Rockets. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.hts/sports/bk/bkn/rox/1881339
Yes, but when they played each other, Yao had a clear edge, and Yao had to get the same stats while being double and triple teamed half the time.
Stats didn't show how many shots that were alter by Yao and how many shots that opponents players throw wildly at the basket when they look up and suddenly saw Yao. Stats didn't showed that a lot of Rockets games are lost in the four quarter when Yao usually sit out for at least half of the quarter. Stats didn't shows the presence of Yao making other players around him better (with his passing and draw double team to create open shot for teammates, etc.) Stats can be deceiving sometimes. I guess the voters are kind of ignoring the intangibles and I think that Yao being from China hurt him somewhat. With what happen in Indiannopilis this past summer, another international player winning ROY would be a slap to American basketball. Hopefully, this will motivate Yao to even work harder and come back with a vengeance next year.
While Ming was probably more deserving than Amare for the ROY, he will always need to work extra hard for any recognition in the NBA. He is a foreigner and like it or not, if an American and a Chinese had "similar" stats then the edge goes to the home boy. This is the way it is. We fans shouldn't be too worried that Ming didn't get the ROY. He was hampered by the long years he's been playing with no rest. He even said he needed rest. I believe Ming would have played more minutes if he had the energy to do it "effectively" and those minutes might have translated into more points, rebounds, assists and blocks. Ming should have won it on the intangibles. But his stats where not head and shoulders about Amares and the Suns did make the playoffs. That's not too fare but thats life. Question, I don't remember but did Paul Gasol win ROY?
Two, three weeks ago, I complaint that Larry sat Yao down too much which could hurt his chance for the ROY and here it is!!
Suns were only one game up on us, thus I think many of the sports writers have emphasized Amare/Suns' play-off appearance a little too much. Just my 2 cents -G'day-
Who cares... I would rather be in the playoffs. Remember, Dream was not ROY and he had an ok career. DD
I think some of it can be attributed to people not wanting to root/vote for the odds-on favorite. Yao was hyped by the NBA as someone who will revolutionize the game, so some of the voters were probably rooting against him. The league also set expectations of Yao pretty high, whereas no one really expected anything out of Amare, so he seemed to come out of nowhere & help get his team into the playoffs. Oh well, it's just an individual award ... not like it's a championship ring or anything.
You have to remember one thing, Suns pushed Amare's campaign for Rookie of the year by sending dvd presentations to the voters etc while the Rockets did squat. I saw no great webpages on Yao and his abilities but when you go to Suns website they pushed Amare for ROY. Great Job Suns you bought Amare's ROY award. This was a quote from Amare: " I think if I make it to the playoffs I deserve Rookie of the year" Had Yao and Amare had made the playoffs it would have be CO-ROY. In a nutshell it proves the Nba and it's influence is biased to winners.
The Suns also pushed his website, http://www.thatsamare.net The DVD was accompanied by this flyer as well, http://www.nba.com/media/suns/thats_amare_flyer.pdf
I can't believe the Rocket's marketing machine missed the opportunity that the Phoenix franchise embraced. WTF.
Tim, What happened? How come we didn't send out things like this to the media? We had a head start and all but we failed to make the push when it mattered most.
I think they have done something to promote Ming's ROY. They sent the bubblehead of Ming (or something like that) to those voters. I read an article talking about this a while ago.
I'm really surprised that Yao didn't get it. He's clearly the best player to come out of his rookie class. Stoudemire is a stud I wish the Rocks had, but he's not the basketball player Yao is, not at this time. It turned on being in the playoffs and we just didn't make it. Not fair, but what is? The Rockets didn't take care of business on the court. If they beat a couple of bottom-feeders, this article reads quite differently. Yao will show what he can do next season, if he doesn't wear down again. If China truly wants him to reach his potential in the NBA, he needs to be allowed to spend extended periods in Houston and the States during the offseason. It would have been a nice honor, being Rookie of the Year, but adding to the banners hanging from the ceiling of the new arena will be a better measure of Yao as a player. Yao is well on his way to being an excellent center, a rarity these days. He can be special if he's given a chance.
The outcome of the vote is really not a surprise, in order for Ming to win he had to be head and shoulders about Stoudemire and he was not. Remember the same people voting were in large part the ones that said after the draft that Ming would never be an NBA player, not physical enough, would be made to look like a fool by the strong NBA players. Well they could not stop how he played and the stats he put up, or the praise from the other players, or making the all star team. But they had the last vote to show they were at least a little right and not totally wrong. The real laugh is some of them even put Butler over Ming. They can do what they want with that award, the media controled it, but we will see who wins the championship first.
