Now you're just making stuff up! Lin fans have never hated Yao. It's true that they identify with Lin much easier because he is Asian-American (like me), but there is no question that Yao made us all very proud to be of Asian-heritage. Best offensive center in the league at the time, extremely tough mentally and charming personality. What's there to hate? It's also true that Yao did not face the struggles that Lin has. Prior to coming to the NBA, Yao had 100% support from China's sports organization. Opportunities were available to him because of his parents (former China National Team stars), his size and his skill. At a minimum, he was never denied an opportunity in Asia because of the color of his skin. Lin, on the other hand, faced lots of race-based hurdles growing up simply because he is Asian. I won't rehash it all here, but I can tell you that most of us who played sports growing up as Asian-Americans can relate to things that he describes about racism on the playground/little league/high school/etc. Once Yao got to the league, I agree with you that he had more pressure than Lin. All the things you said are true...language and culture, let alone the high expectations of being drafted #1 as well as the low expectations that were set with all the previous 7'5" flops in the past. But being drafted #1 as well as being super-tall at least put him in a situation where it was in the Rockets' best interest to give him a chance...to commit to him, build a team around him, bring in coaches and other resources to help him succeed, etc. Lin, on the other hand, was an undrafted end-of-the-bench player who no one ever thought would make much of a chance...so his struggle in the NBA, while not having as much global pressure to succeed, reflected the struggle of being an unknown who had no safety net or support system to help him stay in the league. The well-known story about his being a day away from being cut from the Knicks reflects this. So...long story short...Lin fans also loved Yao, but his being American as well as his underdog story make Lin much more relatable to Asian-American fans than Yao. To twist this by saying "Lin fans hated Yao" is simply wrong. And what clinched it for me regarding Kevin Garnett, btw, was how Garnett treated Yao at Yao's first All-Star game. You could see that Garnett wanted to see Yao succeed just by how he treated Yao at that game. That was pretty rare back in those days...
Thanks!! You nail it and really explained why we are fans of Lin. Majority of us are not lofs because we been sports fans even before Lin started playing in the NBA. Tinman and his Tinsane Asylum buddies will never understand or can relate to this. Instead they distort and bash lin and all his fans. Many of us been die heart rocket fans way before lin joined the rockets but just could not take the lies Tinman and other keep posting here.
Too bad the play was for Lin to run, which he can't. So, all the players just go. "Yeah." "No" And they give the clipboard back to McHale. Whose legacy actually brought us the best era of inbounds plays in Rockets recent history. But you won't agree, since they didn't include Lin much.
I don't believe you hate Yao, but I believe the LOF do. You weren't here when the walkers invaded this beautiful place. basically all the lin fans joined at once when lin signed with the rockets and claimed that Rockets fans were all racist and Jeremy Lin was jackie robinson and other stupid crap, tons of fans were banned and rookified Same thing happened when he joined the Lakers, the Lakers board people IMMEDIATELY banned a bunch of Lin fans. Then the Hornets board guy came here and asked for advice if he should not allow Lin fans to join his site. You are wrong there, Lin Only Fans are extremely insecure and uneducated. I doubt any of them know where the hell Charlotte is located.
It shows extreme lack of Rockets fan history to say we didn't like Yao until he played like an allstar. That's a self-serving LOF statement, yet again. Love the way you guys use Yao for your own benefit. Very childish. Here's the true story of the relationship between Rockets fans and Yao. Houston fans loved Yao immediately when we first saw him play. The only thing we hated was the way the Chinese govt and their CBA league was manipulating him to extract as much money out of the NBA to allow him to play. We didn't even know for months after the draft whether he was going to be allowed to play or not. We hated the Chinese handlers of Yao. We never hated Yao. Any remaining non-believers were won over the first game against Shaq. And another very cool tidbit about Clutch. The moment we won the coin flip, Clutch texted me "We got Yao!!!!" showing how much all of us wanted that pick to get Yao. He followed that with "We're going to get a lot of Chinese fans now." Now, most LOFs and YOFs would read that and say, "Clutch is racist. See he mentioned race in that text." That's not why Clutch text me that. I was hosting his server and linux/db admin. He texted me that because we had a lot of work to do to get the server capacity ready for the inflow of new fans. The Yao fans had the potential to bring down the server like Hakeem and TMac did on two occasions. But are goal was to prepare for a Welcome. LOFs and YOFs never understood that.
Tinsane Asylum is in the house. I seriously doubt things are as he says with the Lofs in the Lakers and Hornets forum. All fans complaints and starts the blame game when things are not going well. This is now happening in the GARM.
Oh for the quote above, I meant to show that "Houston loves Yao Ming" part meaning that we loved him and we were ok to criticize him based on play. Lin got criticism for his crap play for the Rockets until he stops playing like crap. Well Yao is from China, therefore he is Chinese. Lin is from Palo Alto where RICH PEOPLE in America live. Have you been out there brother? It's really nice, rent is like $3000 for a studio apartment. there's nothing but rich tech company workers all over the place. Lin had it so much better than Yao, Yao was living off communist rations, Lin was eating In and Out Burgers and smelled pollution free Northern California air and drinking napa valley wine .
Lin came from upper-middle class background, as did many other NBAers. Coming from poverty into the NBA is more of an exception, rather than the rule. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/o...nba-zip-code-matters.html?smid=fb-share&_r=2& http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/the-nba-s-path-out-of-poverty-is-more-an-exception-than-a-rule http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/6777581/importance-athlete-background-making-nba
You are right, nobody feels sorry for rich kids with the exception of Jeremy Lin where the media has shaped his story and made him a folk hero.
Nobody said it was because of poverty Since, there's other challenges to making it to the NBA than being poor No scholarships to a D1 school Undrafted from an Ivy To say he didn't face challenges is lying. How many other players in the NBA can you count, didn't receive a single D1 Scholarship?
Lol this thread is both sad & hilarious the more Lin plays well the more vitriolic the attacks. Every Lin bucket in the 4th/OT must've been like a dagger to the heart. I don't see the big deal in Asian Americans supporting Lin. All minorities back their own. The only real complaint to be made was about their annoying fans and like 95% of them have left. The remaining 5% fit in well with the rest of the forum with their incessant Harden attacks about his game, defense, leadership & dating life.
European prospects get recruited to Junior and Youth squads of professional teams, which I would say is the equivalent to the career path an American HS kid makes by going to College on an athletic scholarship. Career path anyway... Yes, a European player making it to the NBA, while not getting recruited by a single Youth academy would be an extremely rare. Can you think of any examples?
This posts shows your ignorance and CNN brainwashed view of China. Have you been to Shanghai, Yao hometown? It is one of most modern and expensive place to live in the WORLD!! People in Shanghai laughs at the best Cities in American because the living standards are below what they have back home. Even I was shocked when I realized this for myself having lived in American for over 40+ years. Yao's hometown, Shanghai equal or better than Palo Alto...Yao's eating soup dumplings and Braise Sweet Pork Belly...not the low end fast food of Cali. "Yao was living off communist ration" You racist...you get insulted Yao and the place he was raised. Boy, you definitely have zero knowledge of the Chinese people, Asian-Americans and anything relating to the Asian Experience in American or other countries. Tinsane Asylum shows his true colors on this post.
No, there's apparently 2 non-d1 players in the NBA, I wonder who they are lol. Even Harvard is d1, despite not giving out scholarships. Data as of 2015.
Ya, he's an idiot, but not a complete idiot. Let's think about this. Yao is what? 35 years old. Which means he spent his childhood in the Shanghai of the 80s and early 90s, which is an entirely different picture of it is today. Economic reforms in China happened in the early 80s. Here is a picture of Shanghai back then. This is a pic from 1987 to 2013, quite a bit of a difference.
Jeremy Lin is *our* Jackie Robinson. There is no question about it. We have never said that Jeremy Lin was as important to the sports world and his race as Jackie Robinson was in his day, but Jeremy Lin is by far the most representative of an American of Asian descent who faced big race-based hurdles to reach the top of the American professional sports world (not a championship by any means, but certainly from an exposure perspective). The specific challenges were different for sure...his life was never in danger, and his challenges were mostly "first world challenges"...but they are representative of challenges that are very common to Asian-Americans in many aspects of life. So no one is saying "Jeremy Lin is as good as Jackie Robinson was"...but we view him as an inspiration in much the same way African-Americans looked at Jackie Robinson. Regarding invaders of "this beautiful place", sure...there are some Lin Extremists, no question about it. There may even be a lot of Lin Extremists. But there are an equal amount of Anti-Lin Extremists who are willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
